Toy Town Junction at Luray Caverns in Virginia

Somewhere inside a box full of other boxes full of photos is a picture of my younger brother and I on a trip from way back in the day to Luray Caverns. I remember being a grumpy pill on the trip because I had to wear shorts. (In retrospect, I probably didn't have too much to complain about in my childhood.) Even though I had to wear shorts, I still had fond memories of the trip and always wanted to go back for another visit.

Anyway, with summer winding down I decided that little one and I could do a father/daughter day trip and revisit the amazing caverns. In looking up the cost and directions, I saw that your ticket also gets you admission to two museums on the premises, namely The Luray Valley Museum and a collection of antique vehicles in The Car and Carriage Caravan. Okay, sounded good...but what's this? An onsite toy collection to visit for free - Toy Town Junction! Not a minute to lose - To the Toy Making Dad Mobile! 

Okay - We drove out and took the tour of the caverns. In a word - Spectacular. I'd share more pictures but this isn't a travel site, it is a toy making site (well, at least theoretically.) I do want to share a thought though, but I'll wait to the end to hop on my soap box.

So after a mile and a half of caverns and a quick stop at the gift shop, it was time for Toy Town Junction! The building that houses Town Town is right next to the Luray Caverns entrance and it has its own cafe and gift shop attached to the display area. Don't expect some giant warehouse though. It is more a very large room - several hundred square feet and hundreds (mmm maybe thousands) of toys displayed in themed areas around the walls with the center taken up by large working train sets.

It is a very eclectic collection and it all belongs to Richard Worden, a retired Methodist minister from Kentucky. There is a lot to see and you'd be hard pressed to not spot at least one toy from your childhood if not dozens. The collection covers a wide spread of American history. Unfortunately, most of the toys are not labeled and there isn't a guide or description for them. There is the large train collection, a lot of Playmobil and Playskool Little People as well as dolls, but seeing as I am basically still a 12 year old boy... my attention was drawn to to the airplanes and tanks.

So this guy is hanging from the ceiling and a couple of things stood out - It's metal and my guess is that it is pre-war or very early WW2 since the US Army Air Corps/Air Force roundels on the plane are the ones where there is a red dot in the center of the star. (We stopped using the red dot early in WW2 because it was too easy to confuse with the markings on Japanese aircraft.) I found pictures of similar toys on the web when I got home and these were made by Marx Toys. They were windup toys that would roll across the floor and many had spots for sparks to come out where the machine guns were on the aircraft.

One bummer for me though is that while this plane is super cool... it really isn't intended to evoke a particular aircraft. It just has a sleek bomber look, but nothing the US was flying at the time really looked like this. There were some twin tailed typed out there but not like this. It still has an amazing 30's vibe to it though.

This plane sort of has the opposite issue for me. You can tell it was post war because of the markings (and metal was so precious during the war, they weren't using it to make toys.) These were made by a company called Hubley in the 60's and it looks like they made gazillions of them is all sorts of different forms and colors. Here's the deal though - they sold this as a "P-47." It does have the general shape of the immortal Thunderbolt/Jug but it has folding wings. Folding wings are for Navy aircraft so that they will fit on the elevators and take up less room below deck on an aircraft carrier. I know... relax! Lighten up Francis, It's a toy! I still think it is neat and would love to have one. I just think that's it a little odd to go through the trouble of matching the general shape of one aircraft and then have it do something else. Couldn't they have made it a Corsair? Just saying...

So, to wrap up the airplane part for me is this gem. WOW. It is a toy, not a detailed model and it is clearly made to look like a massive flying boat from the 1920's called the Dornier Do X.  At the time the plane was second in size but first in weight in the world. Only three were ever built but it was really out there in the public conscious. The toy is really big as well, at least 18" or 24" long and made from wood. I wonder if it was a one off toy made by some 1930's toy making dad?

Source -
Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-12963
CC-BY-SA 3.0

I really like that you can tell at a glance that this is the plane it is supposed to be. However there wasn't someone counting rivets to make it super accurate and probably more expensive and fragile for no added playability. It really struck me that you can capture the general sense of the subject without having to make a "model." It is something I struggle with at times while making historically themed toys.

This is a Marx windup tin tank. As it runs along the floor, sparks come flying out from the main gun and the soldier pops out of the back and then goes back into the hull. Super cool and super classy. One thing I noticed about this toy and some of the other similar Marx toys is that the pattern on the side representing the tracks is made to look the same if it is used on either the right or left hand side of the toy. It saves having to make different left and right hand pieces. Pretty clever.

Marx also made a ton of these "Turn Over Tanks" (mmmmm turnovers....) They are wind up and they roll across the floor and then a bar extends from beneath the tank and flips it on its back. The shape of the tank and its momentum cause it to do a full flip.It then goes a few inches and flips again. There was one version that had a little Superman instead of the bar flip out from under the tank so it looked like Superman was actually flipping the tank.

Not sure what the tanks are doing at that circus. Maybe they are guarding the blue port-a-potties in the background?

I also spotted these tanks in with the train sets. Well, one tank, one armored car, a truck and what I think is a truck with a searchlight mounted on it. The train is the real toy and the vehicles are just accessories but it is interesting that the tank is sort of M4 Sherman in shape but a bit generic. The armored car looks to be closer to the sorts of armored cars that the British used during WW2, some of which were actually built by the US.

I also enjoyed the fantastic amazing cool toys... that would probably be illegal to sell now.

Here is "The Boys Favorite Tool Chest." Now besides that fact the folks over at "Overly Sensitive Parenting Quarterly" would flip their lids at the lack of "inclusiveness" in the name, the box is full of real tools! Sharp metal stuff... that is all a little rusty now. Throw in a box of strike anywhere matches and you might have the ultimate toy for young boys (in their minds at least.)

Erector sets were the Legos of their day. Make anything you want and make it out of metal. I remember my brothers making a rubber band powered catapult that came down with such force that I'm sure it could have been used as a deli meat slicer. Anyway, what I like about this kit is that you can launch a rocket. From the cover art I thought the rocket was metal and even I was like... maybe not such a great idea. Upon further review of other internet resources, the launcher was metal. The rocket was plastic.

I had heard about this toy but never seen one. This is Marx's famous "Shop King." It is an all in one shop toy for future toy making moms and dads. You use Styrofoam as the raw material and the toy has a lathe, jig saw, table saw, sabre saw, grinder, sander, polisher, borer, and router built in. GIMME, GIMME, GIMME!!! (The blades are plastic.)

So all in all a fun little side stop on our visit to the caverns. Little one was tired but pretty patient with me and I'd say we were though the collection in maybe 20 or 30 minutes. I don't honestly know that it would warrant a cross country trip to go and just see the collection, but it is definitely fun. If you are ever in the area, its worth stopping by for sure. Remember, if you don't have time for the caverns, Toy Town Junction is free .There is  a lot of love and lot of fun on display. I enjoyed soaking some of it up.

---

And now my two cents - Thank God the caverns were discovered 140 years ago.

If they were discovered now, I can only assume they would be sealed off so that the public couldn't go into them. They would have to be preserved in their untouched state. While I appreciate that sentiment, I can't get past the fact that around 500,000 people a year visit the caverns and get to enjoy it in ways that no website or magazine spread could ever hope to. The picture at left doesn't begin to give justice to "Dream Lake." Shallow still water creates a perfect mirror image of what is above and it is the closest I've ever felt to looking at an alien landscape. Amazing. How many people have been inspired by the site over the years? How many future geologists and scientists got started there? If you ask me, the trade-off of lighting the place and creating the walkways was worth it.

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Making a Toy WW1 Tank (German A7V Part 4)

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

With the sides, front and rear attached and then belt sanded smooth; it's on to finishing up the tank. The last pieces to be cut are the cupola, some support pieces for the tracks and the air vent plates that cover the dowel holes on the top of the hull.

The cupola was straight forward. I just took a piece of scrap bed slat wood the right height and cut it into a rectangle with the bandsaw set to a 10 degree angle. The piece was fairly small. I used the rip fence and made sure to keep my fingers clear as I used another board to push it through the cut. I then took small pieces of 1/8" plywood (from clementine boxes... of course) and carefully cut little squares for the vision ports.

The wheels are a pretty tight fit. They are 1 1/4" wheels that I purchased pre-made. In future versions, I might experiment with using single very wide rollers instead of wheels to make it a little steadier. I put a "clacker" gear on the rear wheels of this one. It isn't as wide as the one on the British tank because the space is so tight, but still, it works well. I also put little blocks at the front, rear and middle. Besides helping support the tracks, the middle block is where I attached a small triangle of stiff vinyl that is at the same height as the center of the clacker gear. It is what makes the noise as the tank is pushed across the floor.

The air vents were just more clementine box wood cut to shape with their edges beveled smooth. They were glued over the holes in the top of the hull to finish things up.

In looking at pictures of A7Vs, there is a lot to choose from in terms of how to paint it. I decided to go with a straight forward grey with single Iron Crosses on the front and sides. That look seemed to capture the toy look the best.

The paint is craft store acrylic with a clear gloss spray acrylic finish. I hand painted the Iron Crosses on the sides and front using a little stencil I made. I'm on the fence as to if I would do it that way again. It takes awhile to do and the results aren't perfect (but hey, what is right?) Decals or stickers are an option, but they can get peeled off or yellowed in a way that I don't think the paint will. It might just be that I need to practice a bit more.

A7V from the front	Maxim guns at the rear

The completed toy tank

So, here is a quick semi-murky video of the finished toy. The clacker works and all the guns rotate. There is a bit of a squeak in there that I probably could have tracked down... but let's just pretend like that is by design.



So, all in all, this was really fun to design and build. I'm pretty happy with how it came out and it was well received. 

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

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Making a Toy WW1 Tank (German A7V Part 3)

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

Hookay, entering the home stretch now. The rear of the tank has the same angle cuts as the front, but you don't have to worry about the center cut and dowel plug for it. Instead, the rear had two machine guns, one on each side facing straight back.

This just shows the layout for the cut. I taped it securely to a board before I made these cuts and the angle cut on the bottom. Making toys - fun. Hurting fingers - not so fun.

For all six firing ports (two on each side and two at the rear), I marked a line at the proper height on the armor and then marked the center where the gun will be. I took a 1/4" forstner bit and drilled through on each side of the center line.


I then took a 1/4" rat tail file and joined and smoothed the holes to make them into one oval opening.
 

I painted the pivot dowels and the wood around them black before the armor was glued into place. It would be more difficult if I waited until after the tank was assembled.

I test fitted the armor and put sample gun barrels in place to make sure that they could rotate properly.

I glued and clamped the side armor first and then the front and back. The fit didn't need to be perfect because the belt sander is going to take care of any overlaps. I was also able to use the original main gun hole as a convenient place to seat a clamp.

Like I keep saying, I'm not trying to make a scale model, I'm making a toy. However, there are certain aspects of the tank that capture "the look" and I want to try and capture them when practical. The German machine guns that were on the tank were copies of the original Maxim machine gun. (Oh hey, Hiram Maxim the inventor of the modern portable machine gun also invented the mouse trap. Seriously. Look it up. Pretty sure he had nothing to do with the magazine "Maxim" though... ) The tiny part sticking out of the bottom is the barrel for the machine gun. The large cylinder surrounding it is actually a metal jacket filled with water to help cool the machine gun barrel. Without it, the barrel would heat up rapidly and cause the weapon to jam or become so hot that it would literally start to melt and droop. So to capture that "look" I used 3/16" dowels for the water jacket and a small piece of 1/8" dowel glued off center to be the barrel.

I used the pattern for the tracks and taped them to some wine crate wood.  The space above the pattern is what will be "hidden" under the armor and glued to the bottom of the chassis. Future versions will be a little larger so that I won't have to cut the wheel wells out of the chassis piece. I measured and drilled 5/16" holes that the 1/4" dowel axles will fit into.


On to Part 4 - Final Assembly.

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

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Making a Toy WW1 Tank (German A7V Part 2)

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

As I said in Part 1, this is a proof of concept/first try and although I had more than a general idea going in, I've found that a couple of things had to be done differently than I first expected. No biggie. Seeing what works and how to do it better is just part of the process. (And dare I say... part of the fun.)

I found that I needed to change two things once I moved from paper and pencil to wood and glue on this toy. The first one is the most obvious - the main gun.

This is how it looked originally with the side armor clamped in place just to check the fit. The front and backs are from a 2x3 cut to size with the grain running side to side. I drilled a pilot hole and then used a scroll saw to cut the hole for the gun and made the sloping cuts with a band saw. It wasn't that this was bad; it just wasn't as good as it could be.

The 3/4 hole and dowel at the front of the hull worked well, but the more I looked at it, the less it looked right. The dowel needs to be farther forward to more closely match the original look. Now, like I've said, I'm not trying to make a scale model, but I think having the curve of the gun mount showing and being far forward really helps to capture the look of the original tank.

So the second front (wait, that's a WW2 reference...) used a slightly thicker piece cut from a 1" thick board cut to the correct height. I drilled a 1/2" hole about 1/16"-1/8" from what will be the edge that is glued to the hull. I used a forstner bit and cut from the bottom of the front block to within about 1/8" from the top of the block.  Clamp everything securely. Be careful with the bit (it is wicked sharp) and be sure not to drill all the way through the block.

Now with that hole drilled, I cut the angles from the center to the sides using the bandsaw. I taped the piece firmly to another larger block for all these cuts so that it would be held perpendicular to the blade and my fingers were well out of the way. With the piece on its side, I made multiple cuts with the bandsaw to expose the area where the main gun and the dowel that holds it will be exposed.

(Well, time for me to act like a dad and give some advice. Look, be smart. You can buy new wood. As of this morning, you can't buy new fingers. Take your time, keep your fingers away from the cutting path of the blade and if that little voice says, "I don't think this is such a good idea..." LISTEN TO IT!)

To get the needed trapezoid shape, I kept it simple by laying it flat on the bandsaw table and cutting straight lines with the piece held at an angle. Since that left the edge a little thicker at the top than at the bottom, I used the belt sander to remove the excess. Then, with the gun turret hole opened and sanded, I put a 1/2" dowel with a 1/4" hole drilled in it to hold the gun. The pivot dowel was sanded so that it would rotate smoothly and cut short enough so that I could put another 1/2 dowel under it to 'plug' the hole. The plug isn't sanded so it has a pretty tight fit but I did glue it.

After the plug dried, I taped the front piece to a thick block and cut the downward sloping angle on the front with the bandsaw. I cut a piece of 1/4" dowel for the barrel of the main gun and now the new front is finished.

The other change to the design was where the chassis attached to the hull. Basically, I realized that the tracks needed to be taller so that the wheels wouldn't brush against the bottom of the chassis. However, if I did that the tank would stand too tall for scale. I decided to cut wheel wells out of the chassis to give enough clearance. On the next tank, I'll just make the hull a little less tall and the tracks a little taller to make up the difference.

Wow, that's confusing. Look, here is what happened -

The armor sides sit at about a 10 degree angle. I just adjusted the angle on the table saw and cut the tops of the hull and the sides of the chassis. I then glued and clamped the pieces together. (Next time, I'll just glue an over sized chassis piece and cut the 10 degree angle through both pieces at the same time.)

The armor sides, like the chassis, are made from 3/8" wine crate wood. These also have a 10 degree bevel on them so that the tops and bottoms will be horizontal once they are glued to the body of the tank.

The front and back edges of the armor plates don't have an angle. The front and back pieces will glue flush up against them.

Don't worry if the armor overlaps the top, front and back of the hull. As long as it isn't too great, a quick visit to Mr Belt Sander will make everything nice.

On to Part 3 - Assembling the Armor Sides and Hull

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

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Making a Toy WW1 Tank (German A7V Part 1)

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

A few months ago I made a toy British WW1 tank that was a big hit with the kid it was a present for. However, Toy Making Dad is haunted by the bittersweet vision of a kid having to play with a toy tank with no enemy tank to fight against. Seriously, where is the fun in making "PUUURCH!" noises from the main guns without something for them to "BLAMMM!" against on the other side? So, an adversary is in order and the only German designed tank to see action in WW1, the Sturmpanzer-Kraftwagen A7V,  is the obvious choice.

First, a couple of quick historical notes (because my rule is that I get to use my BA in History once a month no matter what.) The British and French both made thousands of tanks in WW1 but for a lot of reasons the Germans did not. Building these tanks represented a ton (hehehe a tank joke) of effort and resources for what was seen as minimal gain. The tanks of the time were also mechanically unreliable and far from the fast moving seemingly indestructible beasts that are in everyone's minds now. The Germans only built around 20 A7Vs during the war and actually used far more captured British tanks that had broken down or had been knocked out and repaired.

So, I could make another British tank and paint it like the Germans did. Okay, that would be sorta fun. However, it wouldn't advance the science of making toy tanks out of 2x3s, wine crates and clementine boxes, now would it?

Okay, while the British tanks of WW1 have that "land battleship" vibe about them, the A7V has the all too familiar "The barn just came to life, sprouted half a dozen machine guns and is crawling down the street" look. A thing of beauty it is not but it does have its fine points. Chief among them is that it positively bristles with guns. There are six of the German version of Maxim machine guns, two on each side and two in the rear. The main gun is a captured 57mm gun in the front of the tank. Those cannons had been captured from the Belgians and Russians earlier in the war and used as anti-tank guns as well as the main armament of the A7V.

So, some things to keep in mind before I start designing and building:

• It is a toy, not a scale model. I want to keep it simple and relatively easy to build. (Which also means easy to repair. It will probably see some rough play.)
• I want to keep it close to the scale of the British tank.
• The guns are the center point of this toy and we need to come up with a way where all are present and can move in some sort of way
• A clacking noise as it is pushed would be nice.

 (One other note. I had sketched out numerous ideas for this toy before I started but once I started making saw dust, different and better ways to get the same result became obvious. So, not all the pictures will exactly match "the order of assembly" that the toy will ultimately have when I build new ones, but it is what it is; a proof of concept.)

Just like I did for the British tank, I grabbed a plan for the A7V from The-Blueprints.com and sized it to scale in PowerPoint. Looking at the true dimensions of the tank, it should end up a little taller and not quite as long or wide as the British one. The British tanks is about 8 1/2" long so to match the scale my German tank needs to be about 7" long.

I'm using a 2x3 as the "hull" of my toy. It will be the center of the toy with everything attached to it in some manner. When the toy is finished, very little of the hull will actually show. The front and back of the tank will be about 1/2" thick so that leaves six inches for the hull. I traced the pattern on the block and marked the machine gun locations. The hull is taller than it needs to be here. Ultimately it will only be 1 5/8" from its highest point to the bottom. The cupola will be added later.

I marked out the locations for the main gun and each of the machine guns based on the pattern. I used a 1/2" forstner bit for the machine guns and a 3/4" one for the main gun. I made sure that I cut the holes to be deep enough so that they can securely hold a dowel the same diameter that will serve as the swivel for the guns. (Trust me; it will make sense in a minute.)

I'm finally getting smart about these things and have realized that it makes sense to work on a couple of toys of the same kind at the same time. Most of the time in toy making is spent in setting up cuts as opposed to actually making the cuts. Here are two hulls (creatively labeled "1" and "2") with their top holes drilled. Hull #1 already has the front and back slope cut. Honestly, I jumped the gun (so to speak) on that one and could have waited until the next step was done.

In another live and learn moment, I cut a 10 degree bevel along both sides of the top of the hull before drilling the side holes that will allow the guns to stick out. The bevel is so that the armor sides will hang at the proper angle and give the tank the correct shape. Not really a problem, but next time, I'll drill the holes first. These holes are the same diameter as the as their respective gun mount dowels and are centered on where the guns will poke through the armor plate sides.


The next steps are easy. Just pop a dowel of the appropriate width into the opening and mark where the gun should be centered and where the top of the dowel needs to be cut so that it will not protrude above the top of the hull. Before you cut the dowel to length, drill a hole into it that will hold the dowel that will be the guns. (I used 3/16" for the machine guns and 1/4" for the main gun.)

Don't worry about the angle, just cut the dowel flat at the lowest point.	Yes, the jig is made from the corners of a clementine box.

This is just a test fitting and the guns are not cut to length. Still, you get the idea that all seven guns will be able to move independently.

On to Part 2 - Main Gun Assembly

British Tank	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4
German A7V	Part 1	|	Part 2	|	Part 3	|	Part 4

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