tips for kids projects?

[Eli the Bearded]

My daughter is interested in making dollhouse scale stuff. I've purchased some bags of small craft wood and she's made some tables and chairs, and a bed. I've also taught her how to use the Dremel tool for cutting and sanding. Book shelves have proved tricky for her, but I helped her make a set that aren't totally wonky.

She's 13, and much more skilled at sewing than woodwork. (The bed has nice sheets and pillows, the table has a good table cloth. There's also an abundance of Fimo stuff.) I'm able to make basic stuff at regular size, but I've not had a lot of practice at small stuff or fine detail.

I can find things like this:

And similar crude stuff. Or kits to buy, but I'm looking for something a bit more sophisticated but not a kit.

Ideas?

Elijah

------ doesn't have many clamps suitable for such small scale stuff

[John Grossbohlin]

The best scaled furniture I've ever seen was made exactly like full size furniture... if you have the skill to make full size perhaps you can apply the same techniques to the scaled.

An associate of mine does fine work...

John

[woodchucker]

Ok John, her work is ridiculous. That walnut burl blanket chest was sick. The dovetails are so small. The burl is beautiful. She does excellent work... Wow.. Impressive.

Seeing her fingers for scale, just unbelievable. I could never do that level of work. Beautiful.

[John Grossbohlin]

Iulia will probably have items on display at Woodworkers Showcase in Saratoga Springs, NY at the end of March... Stop by... lots going on between Showcase and Totally Turning.

John

[Puckdropper]

Eli the Bearded wrote in news:eli$ [e-mail]:

I build scale buildings for my layout starting with a CAD program (CadStd) and scribing the design on to a piece of sheet styrene. I have a "craft cutter" that does the scribing, so half the work is done for me.

You might take a similar approach, where you use a CAD or 3D Modeling Program to sketch out the design then print out templates. (I'm not sure if Sketchup allows you to print exact size templates, the last time I looked they suggested using the "Layout" program that's part of the pro version.)

When it comes to assembly, a piece of right-angle aluminum and some 1" spring clamps (2" clamps are deeper and will be useful as well) might help quite a bit. The angle aluminum will keep things square as the glue dries. (Aluminum at most stores around here is usually square in the corners, while steel pieces are rounded.)

Puckdropper

[Richard]

This isn't furniture but something she may like?

Take a photo of her - full front. Print it "to scale", glue it to a piece of real thin plywood (I used 1/8") and cut the wood to match. Glue a base on it so it stands up.

Now she can put herself in her doll house!

[willshak]

I built dollhouse furniture for my daughters many years ago. I bought a lot of miniature power tools, all from Dremel.

4" Table saw, lathe, scroll saw, drill press, etc. I gave them all away when the dollhouse got relegated to the attic. There was no eBay or Craigslist back then.

Harbor Freight has a 4" table saw. $36.99

Walmart, a drill press for Dremel tool. URL much too long, so:

eBay has some Dremel lathes for sale.

and Dremmel scroll saws. Another long URL.

Hope this helps.