Toy Blocks, and home made tools

  Yesterday I made some wooden blocks for my youngest grandchild.  Tova Elise is just one year old and so doesn't need battery powered toys, yet.

  I made a set of building blocks for Clara last year and so have developed a couple of techniques for small scale production of wooden building blocks.  After squaring a corner on the joiner I ripped the wood to thickness on the table saw.  

  Once I had two dimensions I needed to cut the blocks to size. Rather than set up a stop on my sliding mitre saw I used my table saw sled.  My sled is a bit different than average, mostly because I designed it for cutting small pieces when making toys and things, so it is small sled. Also my table saw sled fits over my blade guard which lets me leave the blade guard on.  I almost never take the blade guard off of my table saw, any more. (i do need to take the guard off to use dado blades, but that is the only time) I resolved to leave the guard on after my last unhappy encounter with the spinning blade.  At this point I don't expect to recover the feeling in my left index finger though the tingling has stopped, almost a year later.

 My sled has the typical two runners but instead of a sheet of plywood I have a frame that fits over the guard attached to the standard back plate.

   You can also see that I made a stop that I clamp onto the back plate to make it easy to replicate cuts.  For the smaller pieces I back the sled off and poke the off cut out of the sled with a pencil or bit of wood. I do not let my fingers get close the the moving blade any more.  It only took three small accidents before I admitted the saw is faster than the eye.

  Once the blocks were cut the were 12 edges that needed to be broken.  If I was planned to make a large number of blocks I would round over four of the edges on the router before cutting the blocks off, this time I didn't bother with that stage.
  Sanding 12 edges could be a pain but with the right tools it is not bad at all. First I used my block plane to shape the four edges that are with the grain, then I used my flat belt sander to shape the cross grain pieces.

  The flat sander is a bit of 3/4 plywood with a sanding belt attached. I have 80 grit on one side and 120 on the other.  It only takes four stokes on the sand paper and the edge is nicely broken.  I use this for these projects because I find the power belt sander too aggressive and so too much material is removed, too easily.  Power belt sanders are for big jobs, in my experience, not for fine touch up.  I made this flat sander a long time ago and keep cleaning it up with my crape block.

Complete, six 1 1/4 poplar blocks, unfinished. I use poplar because it it pretty tough and in many cases has a bit of colour, as you can see.  The blocks are unfinished so that they can be chewed  and there is no concern about chemicals.  I will make some more later. The blocks will have to go a few at a time to Sweden in family suitcases I guess.