It's been a couple of years since finishing the cradle, so
it's time for a new project. I wanted to do something fun for Claire, so I was
thinking about building a rocking horse (rocking dinosaur, actually), and then Debbie
requested a Toy Box. I eventually found some plans and sent for them. They
arrived in early January, 1999.
Here's the progress report:
- September 26, 1999: Finally bought some wood. I have been looking at the tongue
and groove pine for months now, but Debbie has enlisted Claire as a helper ("Daddy, I
want to help you build a toy box!"), so the time has come. The initial load or
wood costs $36 at Home Depot, plus $15 for black pipe and $28 for pipe clamp ends at
Woodworkers Warehouse. As they say, you can never have too many clamps. We set
the wood down in Claire's new room to get used to the humidity.
- September 27, 1999: I happened to have a catalog in my briefcase for router bits and
accessories. There are some tongue and groove joints that I'll need to make, so I
thought it would work out best to do them on the router table (I have used it since
building the cradle, but not much, although Rick used it for Ross' crib). The bits,
plus a height adjustment crank for the router, ran about $90 from Price Cutter.
- October 17, 1999: Rick and I went to a woodworker's show. I hadn't planned on
buying anything (really), but I saw the edge guide to my router for a pretty good price,
and I picked up some clamp pads for the new pipe clamps. I also got a new pair of
safety goggles, which are really nice (and only mildly expensive). Then, on our way
out, I took one last look at a saw guide I had seen earlier. I wound up with the
"show special" of five clamps and guides for only $169. On the plus side,
it should work well enough to let me avoid getting a table saw for this project (I want
one, but we don't have the storage space for a decent belt-drive contractor's saw).
Anyway, the total was somewhere around $210 for the day. I was able to borrow Rick's
sliding compound miter saw, so I was able to cut all of the wood for the sides and top,
and I glued the panels using the new clamps, so we're making progress.
- October 24, 1999: I picked up the rest of the wood at Home Depot ($33) for the corners
and bottom of the toy box, but now I really need to do some cutting. I wish I had
some indoor space to work where noise wouldn't be a problem. I also picked up my
router table (which looked strange strapped onto the luggage rack of the MGB, but I
thought it would be easier than taking off the legs to fit it into my hatchback, plus I
like driving the MG!) and brought it home, leaving even less room for other stuff.
- October 27, 1999: One more trip to Home Depot, this time for a plywood blade for the
circular saw ($5). Still no time to use it...
- December 1, 1999: I glued on an additional piece to one of the front/back panels; I
hadn't noticed that the wood was bad on the back side. I'll start cutting the panels
to size on Friday.
- December 3, 1999: Using my B&D Workmate, a circular saw, the new clamp and guide
clamps, and almost every other clamp I have, it took two hours to make four cuts.
The front and back are now the right size, but I still need to do the sides, top, and
bottom. I wish I had a table saw. On the fun side, Claire came out to help me,
so I had to stop doing anything with the saw while she was around (we also had to have a
picnic).
- December 5, 1999: Debbie surprised me with a table saw as a gift! She picked a
Ryobi BT3000SX, which looks cool (in the pictures; it wouldn't it in her car). I was
close to buying one anyway, but that doesn't mean much.
- December 6, 1999: I picked up the saw. I think we'll be moving some boxes into
storage to make room for it, but hopefully it'll speed up the building process.
- December 16, 1999: The saw doesn't quite fit through the door to the room in which it is
stored, so I had to take it apart to get it outside where I could use it. It worked
really well, but I didn't get too much done. I was able to cut the corner posts to
length; I still need to use the router to cut the groves, but I need to mount it to the
saw's router table attachment.
- March 8, 2000: I've been thinking about picking it up again, but now that the guest room
has been moved into the former storage room, it's more of an effort. I think Claire
and I will start working on the project again when I'm out on paternity leave.
That'll give me a couple of weeks to put it off.
- November 17, 2000: I still think about the toy box (and my wife brings it up every once
in a while). Basically, nothing got done during paternity leave, and Ben is six
months old already. I started a new project, a step stool for Claire and Ben for
Maine - the one we brought up (a gift for Ben) had a larger platform than the legs, and
Claire toppled it over and fell a couple of times. So far I've got all the pieces
cut, and I think I'll put them together with dowels. I considered getting a dovetail
jig and fastening them with that, but I'd like to get this one finished soon.
Anyway, the pieces for the toy box had warped somewhat since they were glued
together, and I haven't decided if I'll try to use them or switch to birch plywood (one of
the alternatives in the plans). I might try to use them and switch if it doesn't
work, but the odds that I'll actually finish the same project twice are even longer than
doing it once.
More to come ...
- March 14, 2006: Skipping ahead a few years, the kids are a lot older,
and the wood for the toy box was trashed when we moved two years ago.
I'm putting this project down as a failure, although the hardware might find
its way into something one of these days.
The rocking dinosaur will be a project for the next child, even though Claire would be
able to use it earlier.
(Update: six and a half years after writing
that, the next child is almost six, there are no more coming, and while it would
have been fun, it's just not too likely. Ben can pick his own project for
us to work on.)