Toy Pounding Bench Tutorial - Part 2

Continued from last blog (link here), this is the tutorial to finish the pounding bench - making the table/base, painting, assembly and varnish.  Supplies were given in the previous blog.

One correction - in the previous blog I left out the gloss varnish I used on the entire piece.  I used Delta brand Interior/Exterior gloss varnish.

Painting pegs:

Before you start painting, here are some hints for working with acrylic paint and small parts:

Hint #1 for smoother painting – Use a fresh squirt of paint instead of dipping your brush into a skinned-over blob of partially dried paint – it will just look thick and lumpy!  Nothing is more frustrating than having to keep sanding tiny pieces that are too small to hold and trying to get them smooth.

Hint #2 for smooth painting of small parts – once the first coat is dry and sanded, use a thinner 2nd coat (thin fresh paint with just a tiny amount of water – not too much).  This makes the final coat go on smoother.   

For easier painting, I made a holder by wiring small copper alligator clips to a piece of scrap wood.  After painting a first coat, let dry then turn pegs around (in the holder) to paint the other end.

After they dried, I gently sanded (400 grit) as some looked a little lumpy (because I didn't follow my own hints above and used lumpy paint).  

Paint the mallet, too.

Peg Base Table top:
Hint: make sure you have painted the pegs before you drill holes for them – you may need to adjust the drill bit you use depending on thickness and # coats!

From 1/16th inch thick,  ½ inch wide basswood, cut a piece the length you want.  I used 7/8 inch long for 8 holes but you may want to make it smaller if you only use 6 holes (6 pegs).

Find another piece of 1/16th inch thick scrap wood to test your hole size.  Most toothpicks should fit somewhere between 5/64ths inch or 3/32nd inch drilled hole.  Drill both sizes into the scrap wood and test with one of your painted pegs.  As long as they don’t just fall through the holes, you could use the larger (I planned to glue mine anyway).  If neither fits, you can try to enlarge the smaller size hole with a round file (might take a while for 8 holes).

Diagram for drilling - 8 holes (left) or six (right)

To space the holes evenly, make a pattern on a strip of paper the same width as the base piece (1/2 inch).  Draw horizontal lines on the paper to keep the holes even.  Mark holes on the paper with just a tiny dot in pencil (much smaller than the diagram).  Mine were about 4 mm apart.

Once you get them to look even,  lay the pattern on top of the wood and make an indent with a corsage pin or something similar (like was done for the side panels, previous blog).  I then enlarged the pin mark slightly using my X-Acto knife and #11 blade, using the tiny point like a drill.  If there isn’t a big enough “dent” for the drill bit to sit in, it will “walk” (scoot away from the mark while it spins and carve a line where you don’t want it).

After marking holes in the wood, I drilled first with the 5/64th bit because it is easier to keep it in place in such close quarters.  After all holes were drilled with the smaller bit, I then enlarged them with the 3/32nd bit.  You don’t want to wiggle it – just keep the holes as straight and clean as possible.

Full disclosure – I actually used my practice piece as the bench top because it looked better! This is an inexact process!!  I’m sure Ferd Sobol had much better techniques for making several equidistant holes but he was a master at this!

Clean up holes – there may be little frayed whiskers in each hole (see in photo above). Unless you need bigger holes, DON’T USE A ROUND FILE TO CLEAN THEM!  They will be too large if you do that.  Instead, poke a toothpick into the holes to make the “whiskers” poke out then sand them away from the flat side of the piece with 400 grit sandpaper.  Set aside to be painted or stained.  I left mine just raw wood.  I plan to varnish it like this.

Painting Side/End Panels - paint first coat with acrylic paint and let dry thoroughly.  The grains of the wood will raise up slightly making it rough after the first coat.  Sand again with 400 grit, then paint with a second coat but SLIGHTLY watered down.  Let dry.  It should be fairly smooth now.  If staining instead, do that now.

Decorating with dots using a stylus
I wanted a little more color in my pounding toy so I decided to add colored dots on the end panels.  I used a ball stylus to dip in the paint.  If you make sure your paint is fresh (not skinned over or lumpy) and wipe the stylus on a damp paper towel after EACH dot, you can make them pretty consistent.  See photo of my dot tests on a piece of scrap wood. The graduated dot sizes are what it looks like if you keep making dots without cleaning off the paint between dots (they get smaller and smaller).

Test dots and stylus used for painting

Assembly - Gluing side panels to table top:
On these pounding toys, the peg hole piece is supposed to be perfectly centered between top and bottom so that the child can pound the pegs in on one side then flip it over to pound them back to the other side.
To get the table top perfectly centered, make a jig or use layers of scrap wood to get the right height.  I just “eyeballed” it by stacking a piece of scrap wood on top of one of those blue X-Acto clamps).

"Jig" was a blue clamp and wood scrap

Before gluing, test-fit the pegs in the holes once more then pull them out and set them aside.   Use wood glue to glue the center to both end panels, supporting it with your jig and let dry.  For the mallet – glue handle into the hole.

When glue is dry you can re-fit the pegs in and glue them in.  Then varnish the entire piece for a shiny look (all those toys look sort of shiny).

Hope you had fun with this small project and got a few new techniques.