Do you feel like a masterhand today? Do you want to be the creator of beautiful retro toys that look just as good, if not better than the ones you can buy? I have good news: you can. You can craft at leats a thousand of different retro, mechanical, wooden or natural toys on your own - as long as you have the time and desire.
The retro toys are perfect for being handmade - they have
started their existense
as handmade toys anyway. Only after the first masters got out their wooden dwarfs from their workshops, the factories realized they can produce such toys with machines. But even today the handmade toys are highly valued and loved by the children. And giving a toy that you made yourself means far more than giving one that you bought from the nearest toy-store.
Types of Toys and Techniques Of Making
You can make each type of toys we discuss on this site, and I will make sure to provide sufficient instructions for that.
You can make cam and crank toys by using mostly wooden parts and without the need of complicated tools. You can build a simple cam toy even from tarboard and cut the parts with scissors or a knife. For more complicated mechanical crank toys you may eventually buy ready cam-gears althought making ones yourself is not impossible.
Making tin toys on your own is slightly more comlicated - the tin is a bit harder for processing and hides some risks of cutting your finger. But don't worry, with enough knowledge and patience you can make wonderful tin toys. And
you don't even need to buy special tin
- I am sure you have coke cans at home.
The wind-up toys are probably the hardest to make yourself mechanical toys, because their mechanisms require high level of preciseness. It's recommended that you start making them after having enough experience with simpler ones. But if you dream for making a wind-up rooster, who am I to stop you? Just learn and go ahead, you can do it.
There's no age limit for making toys
Photo by Randy Son Of Robert
Some people love to install spring toys in their gardens. But you don't need to buy ready ones - the spring toys are
great do-it-yourself project
for those who like bigger things and woodworking. Well, the spring itself should not be wooden of course.
You can of course take an easier route by making paper toys - like origami, paper dolls and more. The paper toys are almost free and completely safe so even kids can craft them on their own.
Women like to make bean bag toys. They are great for smaller kids, safe and longliving. I suppose a stuffed tortoise can live almost as long as a real one. Try to compare yourself if you can live that long.
Where to Start?
You can really make all of that and probably a hundred of other kinds of toys that I've missed to mention. Is it hard to start when having such a big choice? Here's what I recommend: as a beginning learn enough about mechanical toys, unless you already know enough. Read the articles here and see which category sounds most attractive to tou. Then buy 2-3 such toys online or from your local store and
break them on parts
to see what's inside. Can you rebuild the toy from the ready parts? If not, you should continue trying. If yes, you may consider making such a toy entirely from scratch.
If you feel confindent enough after that, you can search the Web for toy plans and drawings that will help you build various mechanical toys on your own. I will make sure to provide you with some nice ones on this site as well.