It had been a while since Ive been in the shop (garage…) so I decided to get out there and build something. I had seen something like this last time i went to Target and thought that it would be kinda cool. The whole thing is about 50in wide by 30in tall. The majority of the piece is 4in deep but I recessed a few of the squares to make it a little more interesting. It is made out of 3/4in mdf and spray painted with semi-gloss black. It could easily be made from whatever materials you would like though. I used a couple of key hole hangers that i recessed into the back of the unit and it hangs nicely on the wall… Now all I need are little things to put on it… Im sure my wife can figure that part out! LOL. Let me know what you think…

Here is a future project that I am planning on building in my 20×20 two car garage… It includes a workbench, cabinets, a torsion box assembly/outfeed table, a routing table and several other projects Im sure…

Here I have included a few pictures from sketchup where you can see the shop layout that I have put together. I would love any feed back that you have.

Thanks

How to use:
Drop a small ball in the 2” hole in the top and it will roll down to the front of the drawer. Open the drawer, pull out the ball, and do it again… and again… and again… until you get bored.

All joking aside, here is a quote from Nienhuis.com (the premier Montessori toy manufacturer):

“This material develops hand-eye coordination and indirectly allows the child to experience object permanence. It practices precise hand movements while sending information to the brain as well as develops hand, wrist and finger control – also known as “refined hand movements”. With repeated use of this material, the child learns how it feels to succeed when he has achieved a goal on his own.”

As for the construction:
Each part, except for the little pull, was made out of the same 1/2 inch baltic birch plywood as Tessa's Toy 1. The box is about 11 inches long and the back piece is about 5 1/2 inches square. I cut everything to size and to round the edges I just traced the corner of a can of tung oil that was hanging out on the shelf in the garage. It turned out to be just the right radius. Then I took each piece to the miter saw and chopped away most of each corner coming close to my line. Then I used some #80 grit sandpaper wrapped around a wooden scrap to finish rounding each corner. They aren’t identical to each other, but pretty close. I eased each edge that would be exposed with the same block so that there would be no sharp corners.

All of the joints are butt joints but I doweled the drawer together and also used some dowels to secure the back support to the main carcass. This thing will last quite a while! The finish is the same as Tessa’s Toy (1), spray can water based polyurethane with sanding up to #320 in between coats. The blue drawer front is painted and the pull is just a little wooden guy from Home Depot that I sprayed with poly.

Summary:
Baltic birch plywood, butt joints with dowels, #80, #150 and #320 grit sandpaper, clamps, glue, poly spray, blue paint, and a little drawer pull from the “big box store…”

Assembled with some love and BAM! There you have it!

Thanks for looking,
Spencer

I have to start this description out with a little bragging session about my new niece… Tessa Kay O’Dell was born on April 2, 2009 at 10:52 am to my wife’s sister and her husband. Tessa is the first grand baby in either of her parents’ families so I guess that makes her the “golden child” :) She also happens to be the baby that makes me an uncle for the first time!!! She is pretty special. (I’ll have to include a picture of her…)

Tessa’s mother, Suzanne, teaches Montessori preschool with her mom out of her house. As I have become a part of the family I have been exposed to some of the philosophies of that type of teaching (which is pretty cool…). Anyway, there are toys that are made to teach children certain lessons and help with their mental development… This project happens to be known as an Object Permanence Toy (if you Google that you can find out more about it…) When Suzanne found out that she was going to be having a baby she asked me if I could make some of the toys that are available from a certain Montessori toy distributor’s catalog. As soon as I looked at the pictures I thought that it would be a fun and worthwhile project… so I accepted…

Project description:

This toy was built using 1/2 inch baltic birch plywood, 1/4 inch pine dowels and yellow glue. I painted the red “mouse hole door” and finished the rest of the piece with a rattle-can water-based polyurethane. Next time I think Im going to use a wipe on poly because I wasn’t 100% satisfied with how the finish turned out (sometimes I can be kind of a perfectionist…)

First, I had to play with the dimensions a little bit to get it to look just like the picture in the catalog, but it didn’t take too much hassle.

Then once I figured that part out I cut all of the pieces out on my table saw. For the hole in the top and round opening in the front I used a 2 1/8 inch hole saw. As you will notice, the corners of the tray and the top of the toy are rounded… That probably would have been easier to do on a bandsaw but since I don’t have one yet, I just marked the radius out with a pencil and cut close to the line with a few chops of the miter saw. I cleaned it up with a wooden block wrapped in #80 grit sand paper. That made pretty quick work of it.

On the inside of the box there is an angled piece of wood slanted toward the opening in the front so that the ball will always roll out the front after being dropped into the hole in the top. That was a little challenging because my table saw doesn’t tilt (or at least I haven’t taken the time to figure that out…). To cut that I just figured out a rough angle that I thought would probably work and cut it with a hand saw. Then took it to the #80 grit and cleaned it up. To fill in the inside of the box a little and make sure that the ball would not get stuck inside the box I added pieces to the sides of the slanted piece with 45 degree angles toward the main ramp. It works well and looks pretty cool too since the baltic birch plywood doesn’t have any voids in the layers and the edges finish up really well…

After the glue-up I turned the toy over and drilled holes through the bottom and into each vertical piece. Then inserted a 1/4 inch dowel in each 1 inch deep hole with a little glue… I felt that this would help make the thing a little more kid-proof than just relying on the glue and butt joints themselves.

I assembled the toy minus the little red front and finished it with the poly. Then just glued the red part in and there you have it.

I presented the toy to Suzanne and her husband, Scott, the day after little Tessa was born. They love it and were impressed at its likeness to the pictures that they saw in the catalog… It was a great feeling to see them admire something that I had made. The only drawback is that the toy will have to wait to be played with until Tessa can actually sit up by herself… :)

This project is also hanging on the wall in my friend’s home office. I built it around the same time as the little table project and the single album display frame (that i posted about 5 min ago…). Forty five degree miter joints at the corners. Then simple butt joints for the inside frame. I cut the continuous kerf that is around the edge of the frame while each piece was separate and then joined them together. After it was assembled, i ran it over the table saw to get the through kerfs and create the chris-cross pattern at the corners. I cut one side of the frame thinner that the other three and cut rabbets around the inside to accommodate the album on each section. The back is just some cheap, thin, hard board that i bought at HD. I drilled a couple holes in the back to hang the piece on the wall. It can be hung horizontally (as shown) or vertically.

This project is hanging on the wall in my friend’s home office. I built it around the same time as the little table project (that i posted about 5 min ago…). Forty five degree miter joints at the corners. I cut the continuous kerf that is around the edge of the frame while each piece was separate and then joined them together. After it was assembled, i ran it over the table saw to get the through kerfs and create the chris-cross pattern at the corners. I cut one side of the frame thinner that the other three and cut rabbets around the inside to accommodate the album. The back is just some cheap, thin, hard board that i bought at HD.

So here’s another project from a little while ago… My room mate at the time had this antique looking vinyl record player that he used to play his collection of old albums on. We didn’t have a stand or table that seemed to fit the little guy so I decided to make this one. Its just about 26 inches high at the top (tall enough to be an end table at the arm of the couch). I built it with some crappy pine that i bought from HD. I used simple butt joints throughout and the line details are just done on the table saw. You can tell that they aren’t extremely clean but if you squint a little they look amazing! LOL! The apron detail was done by just cutting 1/8 in. deep kerfs with the TS. I dressed it up with a 3/4 in. trim at the bottom. I painted the whole thing with satin black paint (i was into that at the time…) and then put a little furniture slider peg in the bottom of each leg. I feel pretty good about how this came out although there are many things that I would do differently if I were to do it again today… The best part about this project is that my roommate/best friend Chad loves this thing and has it in the front room of his new house…

I figured that if I am going to gawk at other people’s work then i might as well share some of my own…This picture frame was the first project that I did for my wife. (She was my girlfriend then… if that tells you anything…) I made it as a surprise and I almost kept it secret till it was done… but once I was close, I couldn’t resist any more and had to show her the progress.

I designed the piece by organizing small pieces of card stock of varying sizes on the counter till I achieved the look that satisfied my eye. I made it with some basic tools that I had access to in my parents garage (my workshop); table saw, miter saw, brad gun, and a bunch of wood filler! Forty five degree miter joints at the outside corners and simple butt joints on the inside joints (brads and glue). I made the dado around the edge of the piece on the table saw before i joined the outside edges to the frame. I was relatively pleased with the outcome… I finished it with a couple coats of rustoleum primer and then a few coats of matte black spray paint. I fit small pieces of plexi-glass into each one of the frames and secured them with a small dab of hot glue. It was a fun project. I learned a lot and there are many things that I would have done different now but all in all I am happy with it and my wife loves it!

Let me know what you guys think or what you would have done differently… (ie. the design, the finish, joinery, etc)