Toy Lorry made from reclaimed Beech
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obtain a copy of the plans, RIGHT-CLICKon the thumbnail of the
lorry
and
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Raw material was resawed from an old 2 1/2 inch square beech table leg. Load deck was 6mm birch ply.
The
cab parts of the truck are the most tricky. I decided to use simple
holes cut by forstner bit on an oversized board.
After separating they are cleaned up on the shooting board and lightly sanded.
The
shooting board is ideal for squaring up small thin pieces
The wheels are cut using a holesaw from another board.
The finished article used a beech board with four short pieces of beech glued across the grain to give a 2-ply laminate. This was to avoid splitting or ovalling due to shrinkage. The prototype wheels split on removal of the hubcaps when I needed to make longer axles
The wheels are mounted on an M6 screw and nut.
Then they are mounted in a drill press (poor man's vertical lathe)
for smoothing and shaping by a file, sandpaper and finally 3M
abrasive scouring pad.
NB this is a risky process, and a file handle MUST be used on the file if you are to avoid a nasty stab injury.
The shoulders are cleaned up on a special shooting board that I
designed to allow the use of a shoulder plane, as well as the
normal bench plane.
Use in pairs to support the plane's weight.
The other mating faces of the butt joint were trued-up with the
shoulder plane (Lie-Nielsen #73)
All four pieces of the lorry load deck were grooved with a 6mm
cutter in a Record #050c combination plane.
The special jig is designed by me to hold the small pieces without need for clamps which would normally foul the plane body.
The cab
sides are glued onto the lorry sides and allowed to cure. They are
planed on both faces so that the join is almost invisible.
The four sides of the llorry are glued together with the deck, which is glued into the grooves, forming a 5 sided box.
A simple roof is first chamfered on a router table, and then glued on top of the cab.
The axles run through two blocks that are glued to the underside of the load deck. Both the blocks and the wheels are drilled 1/4 inch diameter.
The 1/4 inch axles are fitted woith child-proof hub caps to hold the wheels on.
Finish is 4 coats of Danish oil, which is harmless to children, according to the manufacturer's label.