Red Oak and Poplar and filled with dried beans, 5.5 inches long and 3/4 of an inch in diameter at the handle. Finished with mineral oil.

Need a bit more space around the legs and wings for painting. He is make out of red oak and I wanted him left natural. But this was my forst experience with making one of these toys with a hard wood and the belt sander scorced the poor thing. Need to work on my technique I guess as that isn’t an issue with the pine guys below. I use milk paints on all of these, I really like the look of them.

I finally buckled and bought wheels in bulk. For me they took the most effort and were the least fun.

I added his spines on separately rather than cutting them them out as I did the body. Easier to cut for sure but I had to fill in with wood filler after gluing them together. I may try cutting the next one with the spines on it and see how that goes.

I put these up for sale anyway just to see what happens. For those interested you can see them here.

I really like that t-rex. Also put together a couple of dragons:

And my little dragon took right to them. I’m going to re-design the red dragon so the wings come off the body like the t-rex legs, I think that will give it more pop.

The dragons are painted with milk based paints and the dinos are finished with salad bowl finish.

And just in time as it seems our friends are all having babies at once.

So I’m trying some others and practicing on the lathe. The two dumbbell shaped ones below are similar to the above two. Still need to be sanded and finished. I read about painting / staining with food coloring so I think I will try that with the lighter one.

I also bought some walnut and birch dowels, cut them and hollowed them out with the router. I then filled them with dried rice and beans and glued them up. Next is shaping, sanding and patching any gaps on the seams.

I turned some dowels and then cut them in half with the band saw. Then I used a few different forstner bits to hollow out the ends. Dropped in dried beans and rice and glued them shut then sanded them smooth. This is after two coats of salad bowl finish and one sanding, I ran out of fine grit paper so these wait until I get some more.

After some more practice with the lathe I’ll invest in some different woods, maybe glue two different woods together for some nice contrast. Providing I can make two the same size that is…

The first is for my Dad’s birthday today, he is a big WWII buff so I thought I’d try to make something a little more complex than what I had done. It was fun and I’m pretty happy with it:

I learned a lot, as always. Like there is a reason the plans called for the cuts in a certain order. I went to fast and ruined one piece of stock. Hat tip to ToyGuy for pointing my attention to circle cutters for the wheels, works much better than a hole saw. I also am still using the blades my low price bench tools came with. Resawing some of this stock made me realize I need to invest is some better ones so I can do a bit finer work.

For the next item, my boss is retiring this week so I made her a “toy.”

She speaks at lots of conferences so I put her at a podium. She has eight different signs she can hold that have familiar and oft repeated phrases by her. She also always has a pair of sunglasses on her head.

Then a few coats of milk based paint (blue, black and red) and acrylic (orange and green). I like the milk paints, go on nice and cover well and have a smooth finish.

Now to design some of my own using this style. I also need to find a better way to cut wheels, I may use dowels rather than cutting the out with a hole saw.

Took about three hours to make the two and I’m pretty happy with how they turned out as tests. I’ll do them again and I think they will be better from what I learned on these two. Bigger feet to support the axles, longer legs and probably not a Dimetradon. I was told it looks like a turtle.

—Please note the boy added for scale—

• The way the grain goes is more important than maximizing the wood. The camel’s leg broke but glued together well, would not have broke had I cut it right.

• Axel holes in the center of the leg don’t leave enough room for hooks and eyes.

• Use smaller hooks and eyes

Now on to the next something.

The wheels are on and I just need to add tails, horns, ears and maybe a little paint. Then add eyes and hooks and make them into the circus train.

This has been a fun way to learn about the tools and techniques. The band saw and drill press are both new-ish and hardly used so it is fun to try them out, learn how to use them. I need to adjust something when cutting wheels out with the hole saw as they almost all stared smoking at every speed setting on the drill press.

I need a better way to sand these too. A hand sheet sander, a disc sander head on the drill press and even a barrel bit sander on the drill press all worked for parts but not all. Maybe I just need to be more patient and do it by hand! I did read about a way to mount the wheels on to a jig for the drill press so sanding them down was a snap.