Introduction: Wooden Jet Plane

About: I like building things with wood - both new and reclaimed wood. Profesionally I work as an exhibition builder/designer. In my spare time I build stuff with reclaimed wood.

a small wooden jet plane to use as a kids toy. It's made out of rubberwood and a piece of left over oak.

materials:

- piece of rubberwood (any wood will do) about 35cm by 28cm

- some leftover scraps of wood

- superglue and woodglue

- woodstaining (kids toy proof)

equipment:

- a mitter saw

- a jigsaw

- some clamps

- a belt sander.

- sandpaper

Step 1: Tracing Out the Plane

I'll start off with a mistake, I had a piece of rubberwood of about 33mm thick and I was thinking that I would sculpt the whole plane out of that one piece...NOPE.

I traced the outline of the plane on the thick piece of rubberwood and started cutting it out with the jigsaw. that was a mistake, it would have taken me way to much time to sculpt the whole thing out of 1 piece so I changed it up and cut out all the different pieces out of a thinner piece of wood.

I needed the body (350mm long, 40mm wide and 33mm high) 2 side pieces, 2 big wings and 2 smaller backwings

Step 2: Cutting Out the Space for the Wings

I used the mitter saw with the depth gauge to cut out space for the big and small wings on the sides.

I found this to be the easiest way to make the cut-out on smaller pieces like this, using a chisle to clean up the spaces.

Step 3: Adding the Cockpit and Rear Wings

the cockpit was made out of a leftover piece of oak. and shaped with the belt sander going through P80-P120-P180 to make the shape.

rear wings are simple left over pieces of rubberwood.

Step 4: Superglue to the Rescue

after testfitting everything I used some superglue to hold the plane together combined with some tape and clamps.

sanding the plane with P220 sandpaper to give it a clean finish

Step 5: Guns 'n Ammo

You could skip this stage but it was fun to do and added something cool I think

cut off some pieces of an old broomstick and shape them into "bombs" using the beltsander. Broomsticks are usually made of a softer wood so the shaping into "bombs" goes quickly but can also go wrong just as quickly.

get some superglue and add them to the large wings.

Step 6: Staining

this is also a step that is optional, if you like the look of the plane without the staining you're done.

I added the staining because of both the look it gives the plane and because the staining I used (rubicon monocoat) is VOC-free staining which makes it safe to use for wooden kid toys.

staining the wood also makes it more durable.

Step 7: Finished

one wooden plane for kids to enjoy.

this is a build which I think can be enjoyed as a father-son, father-daughter build. I build this in about 3 hours (thanks to the superglue)

the plane is part of a number of handmade gifts (chess board/ wooden katana/plane/cutting boards/coat rack/...) we build this year to auction of for charity during the christmas periode.

Enjoy!

Design For Kids Challenge

Runner Up in the
Design For Kids Challenge

Homemade Gifts Contest 2017

Participated in the
Homemade Gifts Contest 2017