Wooden Streetcar Toy for a City Child

My 16 month old god daughter is a “city baby”, she was born and lives in downtown Toronto. Their house is on a main street and as such they rely on public transit to get around day to day. Along the street in front of their house goes the main East / West “Streetcar” (or “Trolley” as some people call them). The streetcar stop is across from their front door and as the streetcar stops to pick up passengers it rings its bell “Ding Ding”.

As soon as she was able to speak she would say “Ding Ding” everytime the streetcar would go by... So when I was thinking of a gift to make for her, the obvious choice was a wooden streetcar push toy!

Luckily the streetcars have a simple but bright paint scheme so the toy would be easily identifiable with the minimum of details (as a good toy should be).

Tools:
Jig Saw
Cordless Drill
Rotary Sander

Materials:
1 - 6ft X 3inch X 3/4 inch maple board
4 – Wooden Drawer Pulls
1/2inch Dowel
Wood Glue
Varnish
Paint

Step 1 The Design

I searched the Internet for images and drawings of the Toronto Streetcar. Luckily someone make a paper cut-out model that was to scale and I printed out the side view with an exact height of 3 inches to match the board. I also downloaded several other views to get the subtle curves of the front and back along with the proportions for the paint scheme. I traced 3 copies of the outline on the board and cut each one out with a Jig Saw. I then Glued & Screwed the three pieces together to form the body of the streetcar (the screws were put in just to hold the wood together as the glue dried as I wanted to start sanding right away).

Comments

[blodefood]

Absolutely cute!

If you made more of them you could number them 501, 504, 505, 506, etc., one for each route in the city.

[jessyratfink]

How sweet! I love wooden toys. :)