Hammer Peg Toy - Part 1

Someone posted a picture on Sawmill Creek the other day of a hammer peg toy that he'd made for his grandchildren. He said that the both the young and old kids loved it and I figured it was high time I made one up for my two kids.

Joshua came out to the workshop to help me with this one. First we dug through the wood pile to find a piece of walnut to form the bench after running it through the jointer, tablesaw and planer it was ready to get drilled.

I consider the drill press a pretty safe tool and Joshua has used it in the past. I set up the fence and clamp the piece in place and let him do the rest. He put 10 1/2" holes in this bench piece.

Though Joshua likes drilling holes, the other thing he really likes is cleaning up. Well, using the shop-vac anyways. The Fein Turbo II does a great job cleaning up around the shop, it's reasonably quiet and the additional 1 micron filter and bag kit make it pretty safe to use. The auto-start works great for sanding with my random orbital sander.

I found a small piece of cherry to cut up for the bench ends, and ran them through the 3/8" spiral cutter I already had on the router table to cut the dado for the bench. Next I put the bench back through the planer to size it for the dado.

After a quick dry-fit and a little bit of sanding we added glue and clamped it up to dry.

Though Joshua will no doubt get some use out of the bench, it's really for his baby sister. Lauren came out to test the bench out. I cut a few dowels for her test. I think she likes it! The mallet head is made from some scrap 1" dowel I had left over from another project, a half inch hole drilled in it then a 1/2" dowel glued into the hole for a handle.

I'll finish up the project with a coat of Watco Danish Oil, cut the rest of the pegs and smooth out the sharp edges, then turn it over to Lauren and Joshua.