BILLY BOYS’ WORKSHOP

Taranaki Daily News, 11 March 1933, Page 16 (Supplement)

BILLY BOYS’ WORKSHOP

TOY TRUCKS FOR YOUR TRAIN.

This week I want to tell you how to make some railway trucks which, with the little engine I described last week, will form a toy goods train. To make the guard’s van shown in diagram A, cut a piece of three-sixteenths-inch wood, four and a half inches long by one and three-quarter inches wide, for the floor, and plane this on both sides and edges. Now, from a piece of stripwood five-eighths by three eighths of an inch, cut two pieces one and seven-eighths-inches long, for the axles. Glue

and nail these to the floor, in the positions shown in diagram B. From a piece of fretwood, about threesixteenths of an inch thick, cut two pieces to the sizes given in diagram C, and, with a fretsaw, cut out a window opening, D, in each piece. These parts form the sides of the van. Now cut two pieces for the ends, to the sizes given at E, and glue and nail them to the floor as shown in the first diagram. Fix the two sides in place. Cut a piece of fretwood for the roof, which is the same size as the floor, glue it on, then cut a piece of quarter-inch wood, shaped as shown at F, and glue this on the roof, in the centre. The wheels can be cut from a piece of one-inch round rod, as described last week, and fixed loosely to the ends of the axle bars with flat-headed nails. To make the little wood-carrying truck, cut the floor and axles to the same sizes aas those for the guard’s van, and fix the parts together as shown in diagram B. For the “tree trunk,” cut a piece about four inches long from a branch of a tree, and tie it on the truck with two pieces of string, as shown in diagram G. If you want to include coal trucks in your train, make the floors and axles to the measurements given, and cut the sides and ends from pieces of fretwood one inch wide. Make the coupling hooks from bent nails and press them into the ends of the trucks. Finally give the little goods train a coat of paint in one or two bright colours. The Hut Carpenter. DEPRESSION JOKES. It will soon be over. Adapting ourselves to the Depression, they say, is merely doing without what our grandfathers never had. Well, one of the things Grandfather never had was a Depression like this. Mr. Hoover thinks we can make good times by buying a car. It is so much better to ride when we look for a job. The old sailor man, keeping his 100th birthday in the Great Slump, has seen the Slump coming since the Atlantic liners gave up sails. The Degression will soon be over, we are told; anyway, if we take the Optimist with a grain of salt it will help the salt business. There is a good time coming—Buy and Buy. Things in the country being just as bad as they can be, John, don’t you think I had better get that new hat before they get worse? At any rate, the more we Slump today the less there is to Slump tomorrow.