Two Materials

For my “Two Materials” project I made a toy car. Unfortunately the band saw was unavailable so I had to improvise on the shape and it turned out looking like a potato.

Materials

I started with a yoga cork block for the body, a panel of 1/2” thick poplar for the wheels, and dowels for the axels.

The raw materials

The Wheels

I marked the wheel circles using a compass made of a nail and a wire set to a radius of 3/4”.

Marking the wheels

I started by drilling holes the size of the axel dowel at the wheel centers and then roughly cut around the discs using the band saw.

Cutting out the wheels

The final step was sanding down the edges until the pieces were round.

Sanding the wheels

Once they were all sanded I cut the dowels to size — the dowel fit snugly enough in the holes so that I did not need any glue.

4 completed wheels with two axels

The Body

I started by marking and drilling two holes for the axels using a drill bit wider than the axels so that they would spin.

Drilling the axel holes

Previewing the axels

Once that was done I started shaping the body. This is where I had planned on using the band saw but it was stuck such that the guard would not raise enough to allow for the height of the cork block — so I cut the block by hand. I tried different saws and got the best results using the Japanese hand saw (not pictured).

Cutting the cork block

The block cut to size

After this I cut the top edges and then began sanding, eyballing the shape and trying to make it as symmetrical as possible.

Sanding the body

I also cut into the sides and bottom to give it more of a shape.

The final body shape

The Result

I could now attach the wheels. It rolls!

Attaching the wheels

It just needed one more thing: googly eyes.

The final touch: googly eyes