Customer Reviews

Making Heirloom Toys

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this book to make a little dump truck, a jet plane, and a tugboat, soon to be given to my grandson. I did not find the fact that not all plans were full-sized a problem This is common and the %enlargement (if needed) is given The instructions were clear. (However, if you are making the little truck, check the width of 2" hinges available before gluing down the hinge block!) The designs are classic, and range from simple (the ones I made) to complex (the truck on the cover is said to take 40 hours.) There are a couple of educational toys included.

Many of the toys' parts are made out of fine woods, but you can substitute available wood in most cases. Makowicki is concerned with toy safety, e.g., the crane uses a magnet to lift barrels, not a hook, and he specifies child-safe finishes - references in appendix. He also gives many ideas for jigs for cutting angles on the table saw. (If you aren't going to produce for sale, in many cases you can use a band saw with a narrow blade or a scroll saw and sand smooth, instead of making the jig.)

I made the toys while taking a shop course, so I learned the safe way to operate power tools at the same time.

I also purchased Tarjany's "30 Toy Vehicles Made from Wood". It has cruder designs, but look there for semis, flatbeds, bulldozers, etc. (I made the long-hood semi with a gravel trailer.) His airplanes suffer by comparison with Makowicki's.

I am going to purchase Makowicki's "Marvelous Transforming Toys" next.

The book provides scale drawings of several projects. But in order to use them you first have to photocopy the plans at the appropriate (and provided) zoom level. This was difficult, especially since the paper size needed to be larger than standard copier sizes. In order to save pages, it seemed as if many steps were eliminated from the cutting and assembly instructions.

I made the dump truck and airplane for my 2yr old nephew. They're his favorite toys and he plays with them all the time.

This book has very creative and quality toys to build. It has excellent plans, instructions, drawings and full color pictures. I recommend it highly. I have built the truck fleet and they are the talk of our family and friends.

This is a great book. The beginner might find it a little hard to follow at first. I used the plans as a starting guide and was amazed at the ease of following the instructions. I made many of the toys to send to Walter Reed Hospital for the children of the wounded vets from Iraq. I was told that they went over well.

By far the best toy is the model "T" stakebed truck. I did follow the plans exactly. Made seven of them for my family. This was a great chore and the result was amazing. It is a difficult toy to build the first time but gets easier with each one. The scaling was hard at first but once you get a mental picture it is much simpler.

Highly recommend for any "toymaker."

The author gives great step-by-step instructions for several toy projects. I've made 3 of them for my son. It's a well written book with good drawings (full sized templates where possible) for some cool toys. It's got airplanes, cars, trucks, trains, and a grasshopper with moving legs. Very polished designs, you can tell the author has made several of the projects a number of times, his advice is great. There is also a lot of variety of designs, which is nice, there are other toy building books that just cover one type (like only trains or only trucks). So... this is the best of all worlds.

It also showed me a few techniques that I've applied to other woodworking projects, which is fantastic.

Can't say enough good about it.

My first exposure to Jim Makowicki's toy designs was found on the inside back cover of the Nov./Dec. 1979 issue no. 19 of Fine Woodworking. Although no plans were included with the photographs, I made a couple of the toys from those photos for our children at that time by studying the pictures. I always wanted to make the ferry boat for our children, but never found time back then. I found & purchased this book recently just to make the ferry for our grandson. The patterns, material lists and written instructions were more than adequate. The entire ferry boat project took a little over 100 hours. I made each of the cars out of figured woods (birdseye, cherry burl, curly walnut & tightly curled tiger maple) and spent an average of 15 hours on each one. The wheels on the cars took about 1/2 hour each. The author suggested several construction methods that I was not comfortable using and I got the same results using different machines and approaches. A good example is the fenders for the cars. I simply traced them onto a piece of wood and cut them out on my jigsaw. It helps to have a good selection of wood working machines on hand and some wood working experience. It is very important to use the author's patterns and reproduce them as instructed to maintain the proper porportions. I copied all patterns (as instructed) that included hole layouts, then overlaid the patterns on the individual parts, including the deck rail holes, and centerpunched the hole locations through the pattern for perfect placement. Some of the measurements on certain parts seem vague, but the numbers are there and require some simple math to obtain dimensions. Some angles are not given and the use of a protractor helps. Rounded edges may require the use of a radius gage. You can make your own radius gages with a pencil compass on paper & cut out with scissors. I glued everything together with epoxy. The author suggested several food safe finishes, but none are very durable. I used gloss clear lacquer, sprayed on from a can. Because of all the details and figured wood, a sprayed on finish worked best. After the solvents in a finish fire off, the resulting toxicity of the deposits on the wood are pretty equal. And our 6 year old grandson is beyond the "mouthing" stage. I would highly suggest any of Makowicki's toys & books for any woodworking toy maker.

This is a very nice books. Was looking for more of such stuffs
Sweet stuff! Wished for mores
Meery Christmass

I have several books on making wooden toys and this is the best. The selection is great, the instruction is clear, and the results can be toys that some will want to keep for generations.. Highly recommended!

I was impressed with the content of this book. Plenty of details and color pictures. Book was in great condition.

Awsome book.I now have a lot of projects on hand. An other very good purchase. Thank you.