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I've been informed that the link to the instructions for building your own wooden train set is no longer active.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.

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.

How to DIY Anything

Have you ever just wanted to be able to build anything? Maybe that's just me... but, in case I get stuck for project ideas, I have found the Mack Daddy of all DIY sites! Check out Instructables.com.

I have never seen so many cool, useful, useless do it yourself projects in my life! Anything from building a solar heater from beer cans to how to make pulled pork. You can find out how SOMEONE has done it here.

DIY Wooden Train Set

Note: The DIY wooden train track link given below is a dead link. Click here to visit my post with updated info.

Original Post: My two year old is really into the wooden train sets you can get from Brio, Imaginarium or Thomas and Friends (Thomas the Tank Engine). He plays with these trains for hours. The only problem is, you pay like $30 for this tiny little set of 12 pieces! Don't even get me started on the cost for a Thomas branded train character. Wow! Anyway, we are relying on birthdays, grandparents and holidays to fill out his set so we can build a sufficiently mongo train track. The problem for me is, I look at this wooden track and think, much to my wife's annoyance, "I can make that." Its wood, I've got a router, how hard can it be? So, to my point. I got online yesterday and found a site for a guy that has done it. He's posted instructions for building your own wooden train set online here. Your very own DIY wooden train track, cars and buildings. The step by step process is all listed here. I'm not even sure what the guy's (or ladies') name is, but in the interest of full disclosure, his e-mail starts "bkdonnelly". So I assume the last name is donnelly. Thanks Donnelly!

For my two year old's birthday, I built him a nice little train table out of that white shelf board and castor wheels you get at the home improvement store. I built it the size of an Imaginarium play mat we got and it turned out pretty good.  Thomas And Friends Sites On Sodor Play Mat By Fisher-Price (Google Affiliate Ad)  I put a drawer in it that is out of an old drafting table I no longer use to store spare track pieces. Above is a picture of what it looks like should you want a general idea of how to build your own.  Don't think you can do it yourself? Check out these cool pre-made train tables.  Kidkraft Metropolis Train Table And Set (Google Affiliate Ad), Kidkraft Ride Around Town Train Table And Set (Google Affiliate Ad).  Regardless of what you do. Make it yourself, or buy it... your kid will probably just play with the box the trains came in anyway.  Good luck!

My Plastic Heart

Check out My Plastic Heart.com to buy all kinds of fantastic wanna be pop culture items. Make a wall of shelves and buy a bunch of figures. Relive your childhood, only in a less wholesome way. Go there... you know you wanna.

Dekor? Grudgingly Interested

As a rule, I have an automatic elevated annoyance level for anyone, or company, or product that replaces a letter in a normal word with a different but similar sounding letter in an attempt at being KOOL... (see what I did with "cool" there?), so, when I decided to visit the site of designer, painter, illustrator "Dekor", I was skeptical that I would be interested at all. It just seems that things that are hip, are sometimes too hip, and as a result not hip at all. Know what I mean? Ignorant hip in spite of itself, is way better than "hip because I know how to be hip".

I admit it might be a French cultural thing I'm missing here in his spelling of Dekor, but I doubt it. Poor guy. Regardless, my point is, I ended up liking his work. Shame on me for having preconceived ideas about this designer based on the nickname they decide to go by. (Queue background music for the lesson), "So Michelle, you should never judge a book by its cover."

Anyway, back to Dekor and his work. Good stuff. My gripe with his choice of nickname aside. Gary Baseman-esque with a little dirty Chris Ware mixed in. He's reminiscent of someone else too, but I can't place it at the moment. Regardless, I enjoyed looking at the stuff on this site. Check out Nicolas Tual... otherwise known as "Dekor", [do finger quotes as you say it!] French designer to French stars [who?] and soon... the world! Mu-ah-ha-ha-ha.

Nice Bunny Paper Dolls Updated!

A quick note: Nice Bunny has updated their site and added an obvious link to their very awesome Paper Dolls Artist's Series. Its art for the rest of us. Collect them all! Buy other stuff from these amazing artists!

Image credit to Matt Hawkins and Nice Bunny.

Dutch Playgrounds Cage Kids!

Those crazy Dutch designers are at it again... good design is so common in the land of wooden shoes that they need to lock their kids into it to appreciate it! The photo is of playground equipment designed by Carve, a Dutch firm that is rethinking the playground.

One might have a niche if they moved in on the Dutch designers and started designing bad stuff, or just churned out completely "un"designed designs. Carve turns out crazy looking playground furniture, while our "non-designer" could design a pole... stuck in the ground... for kids to run around. BRILLIANT! Bad design becomes good because it is not!

Just kidding. Obviously those Dutch have a culture of looking at solving design problems differently than a lot of the rest of the world.

Anyway, check out Carve, they sincerely have revolutionized the playground. Can't wait for the U.S. playground equipment manufacturers to catch on and start copying these ideas in old growth redwood!

A nod to the Cool Hunter for doing the hard work and bringing this to our attention. Thanks Cool Hunter! You are so cool... cool!

Photo credit to Carve or the Cool Hunter.

Cool Wooden Toys From the Future

"Yosegi-Mokuzougan, or joined wooden block construction, is a craft skill where combinations of original and unique colors and textures of different kinds of wood are utilized to express artistic patterns."

Takeji (Take-G) Nakagawa has taken this traditional technique and expanded on it, made it 3-D, and made it his own. Drawing from tradition and incorporating what can only be asian pop culture into his toys and sculptures. Check out the take-g toys site. This guy is amazing! Warm and futuristic, two words that normally oppose one another exist simultaneously in his work.

Difficult to purchase if you are not in Japan, hopefully, that will soon be remedied. Most of the site is in Japanese, but the work pretty much speaks for itself.