Saturday, September 27, 2008

Studio Mama's Pallet Stool Download

Check out another great Studio Mama project out of the ultimate potentially free resource, wooden pallets. Download the Pallet Stool by clicking here!

Ain't Studio Mama great! Thanks Studio Mama! Buy some of her stuff!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Update on DIY Wooden Train Sets


I've been informed that the link to the instructions for building your own wooden train set is no longer active. See my original post on building a train table and your own wooden train set here. They were great instructions posted by Mr. Donnely. Unfortunately, he's apparently decided to stop keeping that site up, and I never got the chance to put his great ideas to the test. But, I will do my best to fill you in on what I remember from his methods, and share some sites that might help you make your own wooden toy train set.

First a useful site kept by a wooden train enthusiast with instructions and ideas for making wooden train sets. Hoogerland National Railways. Hoogerland also offers some good sources for parts to make your trains.

Wikipedia listing on Wooden Trains.  Some great info as well.

Making the track: Dimensions for the track can be found at Hoogerland National Railways. The best method Mr. Donnely used was a router bit set designed for this specific purpose. I found a source at Rockler.com. A quick Google search will get you a few other sources as well.  Bosch-rotozip-skil 12 Piece Router Bit Set & Accessories 91012 (Google Affiliate Ad)

He also used a second method to make the "male" part of the tracks. It involved gluing in a wooden dowel and putting a ball end cap on the end. There were a couple of problems with that method in my opinion, the ball had to be sanded slightly to get it to fit, and, I thought if the ball came loose from the dowel, it could be a choking hazard.

The trains: Another quick Google search will get you all kinds of wooden wheel and axle sources. Here are a couple: Cherry Tree Toys Lara's Crafts or Casey's Wood Products.

Here is a message board that addresses some other stuff regarding the wheels and magnets you need. A couple of notes regaring the magnets... basically, it seems, you can find them at pretty much any hobby store, on the net, or even Radio Shack. The important thing to remember is that you make sure you get the magnets installed so they oppose each other, so the cars hook up to one another. You also need to use a domed nail of some kind to make sure the magnet doesn't stick together too firmly, and so you can turn corners.

One thing I was disappointed to come up empty on was the domed axles like they use on the commercially available train sets out there. If you come up with a source, I'd love to hear where you find them.

I'll close by mentioning Hoogerland National Railways again. This gentleman, Todd, has done a great job of filling us in on some of his sources and methods. I urge you to check out his site.

Good luck with your build. If you feel like it, I'd love to see examples of what you come up with for your own homemade, DIY wooden toy train sets.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Farmin' and Paper Dolls

Ok, so the title is used lightly. Pretty much referring to a couple of things I'm into lately. The thing is, I haven't posted for some time. Sorry 'bout that. I noticed as I look through other Bloggers' posts, they always apologize when they haven't posted for some time. I suppose they feel that whatever audience they have built up, needs to be entertained so they'll keep coming back for more. Well, I'm pretty sure I don't have a regular audience, so, why am I apologizing? Huh?...

We recently picked up our household and plopped it down on an acreage basically in the middle of nowhere. Its been really fun, we've got room to play, and about 40 acres of pasture, but, I have to admit, we miss Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot being within a 5 minute drive of home. If I forget a bolt during a project, I'm stopped. Its been an adjustment. Needless to say, we are growing and learning... The neighbors keep asking me what I'm going to do with the pasture, I'm a city boy, so, I ask them if they know of any type of animal that doesn't eat or poop, and that is what I'm going to raise in the pasture. They laugh politely and walk away thinking I'm a big idiot. Oh well.

On to the paper dolls. Its something else I've been thinking about lately for some reason. Farmin' vs paper dolls? Not sure what they have to do with one another. Anyway, I was checking out Instructables.com the other day and came across a great post by a paper doll enthusiast named TangMu. This Instructable is loaded full of directions for making your own paper dolls and links to other great paper doll sites. Take a look. Enjoy. Make your own Farmin' Paper Doll.