I had seen some pretty cool ideas for mobile shop bases here and thought I would give it a shot.

I had originally intended to build one like Joel Wires' basically brilliant mobile base but once I started laying out the pieces, I realized I didn’t have the clearance on the horizontal supports of the stand to allow me to build it that way. I started trying different things and this proof of concept eventually took shape.

Pictures may look a little distorted because of the angle but it is “mostly square.” :)

2×4s for most of the base and 2×3s for the “top” that the jack presses up on.
Casters are from the HF 1000lbs furniture mover (about $8 on sale.)
Four utility hinges.
3” screws.
The jack from a friend’s totaled Honda Fit.

As the jack is lowered, the levers on the caster plates push down. Once the board is fully engaged flat with the surface, the assembly is very sturdy and I haven’t had any issues with it not staying in place.

Honestly, my 10” table say is not THAT heavy but I have a late 60’s 12” Craftsman Band Saw that is very heavy. I’m hoping to use the same jack and attached plate for that one since I only have one of these jacks available. Clearly, permanently attaching it to the base would be the best option but this is a work in progress.

Still want to make a foot powered one but the effort to raise and lower the jack is minimal.

(Here is a quick video. I started to raise the jack incorrectly and had to reconnect the crank but I think you can get the general idea.)

Not perfect and it can clearly be improved but so far it works fine and was fun to figure out.
Here is my blog post on some of the build.

This toy tank is made to look like a German A7V, which was the only German produced tank to see action in WW1. The one shown above was the second one I built from my original plans. It went a lot smoother than the first one.
(Although the first one had room for a “clacker” gear on an axle that made a tank noise as the toy was pushed.)

The sides and tracks were made from 3/8” wine crate wood. The hull and front and back gun positions are made from pieces cut from a construction 2”x3”. The wheels under the hull are store bought.

The cannon swivels at the front of the tank as do all six machine guns.
They are dowels drilled into the side of other dowels that then pivot in holes that are covered either by flush sanded plugs or the 1/8” ventilation plates on the top of the hull.

Roughly 1/32 scale-ish so that toy soldiers could fight with or against it.

7” long
4” tall
2.5” wide at the tracks

Months after I built it, I came across a family photograph of my father’s uncle standing next to a captured A7V in France right after the end of WW1. It was a neat bit of history to see that, unknown to me, almost 100 years before I decided to build this toy tank a relative had actually been next to one. Even crazier when you consider that only 20 of them were ever built. (For any history types out there – The individual tank he is next to is “Nixe II” and it ended up at Aberdeen, MD until it was scrapped in 1942.)

Here are my blog entries about building it:
http://toymakingdad.blogspot.com/2010/11/making-toy-ww1-tank-german-a7v-part-1.html

Wanted to share some of the dinosaur toys that I have made based on the plans in David Wakefield’s amazing “Making Dinosaur Toys in Wood.” The plans are very easy to follow and could all be done with hand tools. Obviously, a bandsaw really makes short work of most of the cutting and personally, I found my drill press to be the key to success.

All of the toys are made from solid wood. In addition to having moving legs, all of them have other motions caused by cams on the axles. Heads move, mouths bite, tails wiggle etc.

All of the wood I used was “recycled” from other sources except for the wheels which were purchased. The wood is mostly from bed slats and wine crates (lucky for me my brother owns a beer and wine store), but also the ocasional scrap piece of 2×4 (for the triceratops body.)

I used acrylic paints and finish on them. So far they have really held up with just a minor repair here and there. Initially I painted them green but one day I asked my daughter what color she wanted the next one to be and basically, all the colors of the rainbow came into play.

Below is a short video of the motion of some of the first ones I built. Here is a link to my blog post of the general assembly and finishing methods I used.
http://toymakingdad.blogspot.com/p/gallery-of-dinosaurs.html

I recommend the stegosaurus as a good one to start with. It is actually a quick build and everyone I have given one to has loved it.

I’ve lurked here a long time and wanted to share an orginal project.

These are two British WWI tanks that I made from bed slats, a few dowels, a Clementine box and a 2×3.
I made “R3” for the son of lifelong friend. My friend is in the Armor Branch of teh US Army and needless to say, tanks are a popular topic around their house. I’ve since made a German tank for R3 to fight against and will post that project later.

Construction was pretty straight forward. The tracks and hull are solid pieces. The sponsons are a combination of dowels in a block of pine sandwiched between the wood from a Clementine box. The main guns swivel through 90 degrees.

Hard to tell from the pictures but they are:
9” long
3” tall
5” wide at the sponsons
3” wide at the tracks
So while not perfectly to scale, 1/32 or 1/35 toy soldiers look about right.