Rapid City Woodworkers Association (RCWA): Toy Workshop

Attendees (11) at the Nov 8th, 2014 Toy Workshop at the Club for Boys Shop included:

Julian Wigen, Rollie Lynde, Grant Coffin, Al Oines, Ed Pike, Bel Felix, Harley Schmadeke, Rick Weisbeck, Richard Rasmussen, and Bob and Kathie Buchanan.

Tasks today included wheeled vehicle assembling, jig building, rocking chair tracing, turtle bank building, helicopter rotor final assembly, Ring Toss games, cradles, packaging, marking and inventory.

Harley Schmadeke, Ed Pike and Bel Felix made up the wheel assembly line today. Wheels (784) were added to cars, racers, PT Cruisers, caterpillars, and buses. Julian drilled holes for axles in caterpillars and overall support for the assembly line correcting oversights, moving inventory, and keeping wheels on hand. Kathie led the shipping department team by packaging, marking, and inventorying the completed items in preparation for storage at our off site facility.

Al Oines drilled rotor holes in 35 helicopters and then installed the 3 bladed rotors. These were inventoried, marked and packaged for storage.

All turtle banks (53) are now completed. Rick Weisbeck and Richard Rasmussen nailed circular plexiglass pieces to the front and backs of the turtle bodies. These were then inventoried, marked and packaged for storage.

Rick Weisbeck is working on rocking chair parts in his shop. He brought patterns in to the workshop, and Richard traced them on 1/2" pre-finished birch. These will be cut on the scrollsaw, and sanded in preparation for assembly in Rick's Shop.

Basketball games were sanded and assembled by Larry and Barbara Borg at their shop on Saturday morning. Rollie Lynde prepared jigs to hold the partial assemblies to dry after sealing with shellac by drilling a series of 5/8" holes in 2x4s for that purpose.

Bob picked up 60 games from Larry Borg's Shop on Saturday afternoon. Kathie sealed the basketball games on Saturday afternoon. Larry Borg brought the remaining 40 games to Bob's shop later on Saturday evening. Kathie sealed the remaining 40 on Sunday morning to try to beat the fast approaching winter storm and colder weather.

Work remaining includes sanding after sealing, and final spraying of a lacquer finish. Then the hoop/backboard sub-assemblies must be installed in the launcher/base sub-assemblies to complete the basic basketball game assembly. At the workshop next week, we will add the string/ball subassemblies, and spoons (from Wendy's). The string and ball assemblies must be carefully attached, positioning the wooden ball perfectly in the center of the bowl of the spoon.

Wes Murphy has been turning the sticks for the ring toss game in his shop. The majority of them are finished. At the toy workshop, Julian Wigen drilled holes for strings. Then we all worked to install the string/ball sub-assemblies, and put them in zip lock bags. These were then inventoried, marked and packaged for storage.

Richard Rasmussen spend last week building cradles using parts built by Rick Weisbeck over the past few months. The cradles need a finish to be applied, then hand made quilts, and baby dolls will be added. Bob sprayed a finish on the cradles on Saturday afternoon, just ahead of the cold weather, and Kathie will be readying them for packaging this week.

Bel returned a box of worms which she worked on this week by drawing eyes using wood-burning tools. Kathie sealed them Saturday afternoon. They will need to be sanded after sealing, and a finish sprayed on. Then they will be ready for wheels to be added.

Steve Larson is currently working on tugboats in his shop. Gary Graves is also working in his shop building several types of fine - wheeled vehicles.

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Over 330 toys were packaged on Nov. 8th and moved to offsite storage. So, as of Nov 8th, there are 1851 toys in our completed inventory storage room. Thank you all for giving of your time, resources, and talents!!!