Sunday, August 24, 2014

Log Truck Low Rate Production Run

RAPID CITY, SD.   A prototype of a new vehicle/toy for the Rapid City Woodworkers Association Toy Program was rolled off the line this past week.  Pictures of the first revision of the new vehicle are shown below:




The current plan is to build twenty vehicles for the Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) phase of the program.  Several of these vehicles are slated for delivery as classroom toys at the main branch of  Youth and Family Services in Rapid City this fall.

After a couple of revisions to the original prototype, a pair of vehicles designated as LRIP No 1 and LRIP No 2 were finalized and prepared for testing.  The pair has been sent to one of our test facilities on the west coast where it will undergo several months of rigid testing exercises performed by real life kids.  One of the vehicles is equipped with a tow rope with the younger generation consumers in mind.



The LRIP log trucks are a take off from a vehicle currently in production by the Orange County Woodworkers Association in Tustin, CA as shown below.  Permission was given to Bob Buchanan to use the vehicle for developing a South Dakota version using local Ponderosa Pine for the truck body and birch for the trailer with poplar for the trailer trucks.


The log truck can handle a large variety of loads as shown below - including telephone poles, birch logs, rail road ties, ironwood logs, spruce/pine logs, laminated beams.  This versatile vehicle can actually handle just about anything you can stack between the six stakes on the flatbed trailer.


Basic Vehicle





Spruce Logs Hauler 



Birch Logs Hauler

 Ironwood Logs Hauler


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Detailed plans are located on our Toy Program Documentation page.

Milling of the parts for the production of the log truck requires a table saw, a scroll saw or band saw, a drill press, miter saw or miter saw jig on table saw, belt sander, router.  Wheels, axles, dowels, and an attaching screw are purchased.  A 1" Forstner bit, a countersink drill bit, and a 3/16" round-over router bit are very helpful as well.  An axle painting fixture, a dowel/stake locating jig, a wheel assembly press and two shims speed up the final assembly process.




Look for future updates showing test results and modifications if needed.



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Click on the link below to learn more about the Rapid City Woodworkers Assocation activities on the main page of the website:


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Friday, August 22, 2014

Toy Workshop 8-23-2014 at CFB Shop


Just confirmed - we will have a Toy Workshop tomorrow morning 8-23-2014 at the Club for Boys Shop - we will start a little earlier than normal - 8:30 am to 11:30 am.  Hope to see you there!    Bob B

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Attendance:  Attendees today (16) included Rick Weisbeck, Larry Borg, Richard and Margaret Rasmussen, Bel Felix, Harley Schmadeke, Ed Pike, Grant Coffin, Al Oines, Frank DiCesare, Julian Wigen, Gary Graves,  Rollie Lynde, Kathie and Bob Buchanan and Ken Wright.

The tasks at hand today included sanding critters, drilling eyes for critters, adding wheels to cars (125), sanding parts for log trucks, cutting logs for log trucks, cutting turtle banks, drilling crayon holes in crayon vans, adding strings/ball to paddle games, and loading wheels, axles and finished toys into Rick's truck for off-site storage.



Rollie and Larry marked the 8 holes in each crayon van.

Rick and Gary discussed the latest techniques.
Julian drilled a few hundred holes in crayon vans.  

Al, Bel, and Harley added wheels to 125 vehicles including various racers, buses, sedans, and Batman cars.  They were then boxed and loaded into Ricks truck for off-site storage.

Margaret, Richard, and Kathie attached the strings/ball assemblies to the paddles to complete 50 toys.  They were then packaged up for the off-site storage.

Frank sanded a large number of critters for the critters bags.

Grant built a sled for the band-saw and cut about 200 logs into 5 1/2" lengths for the log truck toy.


Gary, Rollie, Julian, and Larry

On-line Research

Larry and Ed clean up the scrollsaw work area at the Club for Boys Shop.  Ed cut a couple dozen turtle banks from the 2x6 stock during the workshop.
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Click on the link below to learn more about the Rapid City Woodworkers Assocation activities on the main page of the website:

Scroll Saw Special Interest Group (SS SIG) - Aug 21st, 2014

SS SIG - Aug 21st at Rick's Shop - Black Hawk - 7 pm

Needs updating for Aug 21st mtg:  A group of hearty scrollers joined Rick for a Scroll Saw SIG meeting on Thursday evening, despite a deluge of rain and small hail in the minutes before the meeting.  Attending the event were Ed Pike, Harley Schmadeke, Larry Borg, Bel Felix, Bob Buchanan, and Rick Weisbeck.

After a shop tour for new member Ed Pike, a discussion related to scroll sawing followed.  Topics discussed included tips on getting the most out of your scrollsaw, blade selection, maintenance tips for keeping your saw in top order, tip on using a footswitch to turn the saw on and off to avoid costly replacement of the saw's switch, patterns for 3 dimensional giraffes, relief cutting techniques with a pattern to make a visual aid to learn how to do relief cutting  on a scrollsaw, and show and tell.

Click here to download a copy of the Relief Cutting Gauge: 
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To get to the HOME PAGE of the Rapid City Woodworking Association website, click on the link below:



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