Wooden Toy Tractor Trailer Truck Handmade and Finished with Clear Shellac - 1515889915

 

Order Your Toy Truck Today

My Play Pal Collection

My Toy Truck Collection

If you want a unique, high-quality toy for your child, consider the Wooden Toy Tractor Trailer Truck from the Play Pal Collection. This handmade toy is crafted using traditional woodworking techniques and is made from smooth sanded wood. It is meticulously assembled and finished with clear shellac, ensuring it meets my high performance and quality standards. 

The Wooden Toy Semi Truck is made with care and attention to detail. The natural variations in wood grain, color, and knots make each piece one-of-a-kind, adding to the item's character and charm. While your toy may differ slightly from the one pictured in the listing photos.

At approximately 7 inches in length, this toy is the perfect size for little hands to play with. It is also sturdy and durable, making it an excellent choice for children who love to play with toys that can withstand wear and tear. 

You can feel good about purchasing a toy from the Play Pal Collection, as each item is handmade using natural wood and wood products and is crafted in Tallahassee, Florida, USA. You support a small business and invest in a product made with care and attention to detail.

It's important to note that if you have any concerns about the variations in wood grain, color, or knots, or if you would like to request a specific look or size, you can contact me before placing your order. I will do my best to accommodate your request and ensure you are delighted with your purchase.

The Wooden Toy Tractor Trailer Truck from the Play Pal Collection is a unique, high-quality toy perfect for children who love to play with durable, handmade toys. It is made with care and attention to detail and will provide your child with hours of fun and imaginative play.

 

 #odinstoyfactory #handmade #woodtoys #madeinusa #madeinamerica

 

 

Play Pal Tractor Trailer Semi Truck Some Variations

 

Part of my gransons truck collection.

 

You can custom order any of these in any color:

 GoImagine
 Etsy

Here are a few variations of the Play Pal Trailer Truck. These are all in my grandson's collection. Inspired by his complaint about the first one, everything he tried to put on it fell off. It was a flatbed trailer simialr to the one front and center. You can easily see.

I like the dual wheels much better than the singles, which never looked right.

The second change I made was to relocate the hole for the hitch pin so it was between the axles. Changing the location lets me use a longer dowel, and the length of the dowel is less critical.

I rounded the front of the trailer so the truck could make 90-degree turns. Originally I clipped the corners at 45 degrees to facilitate this, but I didn't like the look of it.

Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck Experimental Fleet

The Play Pal Wooden Toy Trailer Truck Fleet

There are five toy trailer trucks in the test fleet. The 5th one is on a road trip somewhere with the QA guy and could not be located for the photo. 

The missing truck.

None of my toy trailer trucks to to date have followed the original pattern. It started with the wheels. I didn't think the trucks looked quite right  The wheels for these are very inexpensive when purchased in quantity. So why not. Yep that looks like a truck. When the first truck cab was snitched by my grandson who refused to give it back even to get trailer attached I knew dual wheels were a winner. 

Next came the round nose on the trailer.  On the first one I had to clip the corners on the trailer to get it to turn without hitting the cab.  On the second trailer I used a circle gauge to layout the curve and cut it on my scroll saw. I liked this well enough that I'll likely continue to use it.

Adding some rails.  I had heard from others toy makers that little boys like to put their cars on these. The Play Pal toys all fit on the trailer as do Hot Wheels and Match Box cars. When I gave Odin his first trailer the very first thing he did was put a car on it. It rolled off and my three year old QA guy promptly told me it was broken. 

The first rails I added were eye balled. This didn't work very well. It was to narrow for most of the cars we had and most of them would rolled over the edge. The second rails were thought out a bit better.  Higher and wider they keep the cars on the trailer when tilted to 45 degrees. 

The box trailer was just a whim that worked out very well. It looks a lot like the trucks the tree service guys use to haul away tree debris. This wasn't intentional. I didn't think of it until I was writing this.  An idea for a new design with an arm for picking up debris and some outriggers to prevent tip overs while loading.  This trailer was a bear to get in the clamps. Either I need to change the design or make a jig. It's way to hard to clamp the box trailer pieces together.

Play Pal Trailer Truck Box trailer in the clamps

Pink & Pink Play Pal Toy Trailer Truck Version 4 - The Car Hauler

Pink Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck  Car Hauler

Pink Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck  Car Hauler With Orange Bat Car

There are two different brands and shades of paint used here. Not intentionally. Someone decided ti would be OK to thin the paint directly in the can and the dark pink was unusable when I got it out. I learned since then that you should never thin paint you want to keep with tap water. Chemicals in the water can react with the paint and cause it to do strange things. Like set up hard inside the can. Forget keeping paint thined with other chemicals. That will not happen again. Not to me anyway.
The lighter pink on the trailer is Glidden and the cab is painted with Behr. Both are Oops paint from Home Depot. The Glidden paint on the trailer is flat so I coated it with clear shellac to brighten it up a bit and add a bit of durability.

The wheels on the cab are my first "successful" attempt at flush cutting the axles. Successful in that it was still usable when I got done.

The cab is made from BC plywood junk from home depot One of two that made it far enough to get painted. Once again the trailer is southern yellow pine with a spruce under carriage.
This is the car hauler trailer. The play Pal cars stay on the trailer up tp about 45 degrees and all the hot wheels cars I tested did the same. Even the Play Pal Van with its slightly longer wheel base fits. Pure luck. I made no attempt to measure for the trailer length. After I made my first one I realized that the length would not matter in most cases unless it was crazy long. I just squared the ends and made a trailer. The trailer beds are made from wood left from building a rocking horse. All of the trailers are different lengths.

One of the nice thing about making small toys is that there is little that goes to waste.

Etsy Store: http://OdinsToyFactory.com

#WoodenToys #WoodToys #WoodenToyTruck #WoodToyTruck #OdinsToyFactory #Handmade #PlayPal

Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck Version 3

Orange Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck  With Dual Wheels & Rail

This one is pretty much the same as version 2 as far as the paint goes.

I added a low rail around the edge of the bed to keep things from sliding or rolling off. It works ok for small toys and blocks but most of the Hot Wheels cars we have will go over the edge easily. Small wood blocks stay on it quite well.

The cab is made from BC plywood. Another experiment. You can make these from BC plywood but if you have another choice don't use it. I tossed several of these in the trash because of voids in the plywood and laminations separating.

The trailer bed is constructed from southern yellow pine with a spruce undercarriage. I cut the rails using a Grr-Ripper and my Shopsmith bandsaw.

The rear axles on the cab are flush cut. I cut them longer than needed and after they are dry I used a flush cutting saw to trim them and added a touch of shellac. When making the axles to do this you need to have them sticking out at least 2 or three times the width of the saw kerf or your going to have a tough time getting a smooth cut. It's not the easiest thing to do I ruined a few wheels getting the hang of it.

This one is a bit rougher than I would like but I got tired of messing with the plywood. This was before my grandson decided my experimental trucks were his. He took off with one of them before I had thought about making trailers. I had to sneak it back into the shop to drill the hitch hole.

Etsy Store: OdinsToyFactory.com

#WoodenToys #WoodToys #WoodenToyTruck #WoodToyTruck #OdinsToyFactory #Handmade #PlayPal #Orange

Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck Version 2

The photo doesn't realy do justice to the colors on this toy truck. There are two shades of orange and they are both quite bright. Not Florescent orange bright but very bright. In daylight or 6500K+ LEDs it practically screams orange.

Orange Wooden Toy Play Pal Trailer Truck  With Dual Wheels

My Shop
 

The truck cab is made of pine and sprayed with two coats of Krylon, with a light sanding between coats with 220 grit sandpaper—just sanded enough to knock off the fuzz.

The trailer bed is made of southern yellow pine, and the undercarriage is made from spruce. The paint is two coats of Anita's Acrylic Craft Paint. They are applied with a brush and sanded in between to smooth things out just a little. This paint covers very well for orange paint. I was surprised. It has the typical dull, flat finish most craft paints have. I added a top coat of Clear Bull's Eye Shellac to give it more durability and shine it up. The shellac popped the color.

All of the wheels are brushed on amber shellac. One coat of as much shellac as they will take.

The axles with the dual wheels are painted on the ends with black acrylic craft paint. These are measured and cut to fit. The ends are then sanded round and painted. When the paint is dry, I glue on one pair of wheels per axle and allow the glue to cure before inserting the axles and adding the second pair. I could do them all at once, but this works much better for me. If I mess up and get a bit of glue in the wrong place, the wheels or the axle could get glued to the toy's body. It's straightforward to mess this up when all the wheels are glued together.

The front wheels have axle pegs painted with black acrylic craft paint and coated with clear shellac. I really like the look of the hubs on a truck and intended to put them all around. Unfortunately, during the dry fit, I discovered that they were not long enough for dual wheels.

 #odinstoyfactory #handmade #woodtoys #madeinusa #madeinamerica #goimagine

Testing Behr Oops Paint on a Play Pal Wooden Toy Trailer Truck

2017-05-08 18.38.06 - Wooden Toy - Play Pal - Trailer - Truck - Blue - Behr - Paint - Acrylic

This box trailer version was painted with blue Behr Oops paint from Home Depot with just a little Flowtrol added.  The Flowtrol slows drying and helps the paint to flow out smoother. Flowtrol doesn't help much when I painting on raw wood with a brush but it helps when spraying on smooth surfaces with an airbrush.

House paint doesn't raise the grain near as much as the craft paint does.  I also seems to be more durable than the craft paint. It doesn't rub off like some craft paints. It is cheap and available in a wide array of colors.  Of course oops paint is only available in the colors they have messed up. I check the paint department at Home Depot every time I'm in the store looking for bright colors.  This can of paint cost fifty cents.


Etsy Store: http://OdinsToyFactory.com

#WoodenToys #WoodToys #WoodenToyTruck #WoodToyTruck #OdinsToyFactory #Handmade

Handmade Play Pal Tractor Trailer Wooden Toy Truck

I finished a Play Pal truck test build last night. I gave it to my grandson Odin last night. He is my quality assurance tester. If he likes it we make more. I think he likes this one. He slept with it all night last night.

Completed Blue Play Pal Tractor Trailer on my Shopsmith Belt Sander Table

I made a few changes from the original plans. The bed is wider. The same width as the 2x4 it is cut from. I could not see any reason to make it narrower and the covers the dual wheels perfectly. I used eighteen wheels instead of ten the plan called for. An eighteen wheeler with only ten wheels just doesn't look right to me. My grandson grabbed the first cab he saw with the dual wheels and refused to give it back. He has a cab in his toy box without a trailer.

I made the body and trailer are cut from pine and spruce leftover from other projects. The trailer bed and cab are pine and the trailer undercarriage is spruce. The wheels are 3/4 inch birch hardwood purchased from Craft Parts. The axles are birch.

The body and trailer are painted with Behr Oops paint I get from my local Home Depot. Two coats with a light sanding between coats to knock the fuzzies off. 

Paint Curing On The Toy Trailer

The axle ends are rounded on with sandpaper and painted with metallic blue acrylic craft paint. They get coated with glue when the wheels are glued on and the excess is wiped off. the glue dries clear effectively clear coating the axle ends.

Dry Fitting The Trailer To be Sure Everything  Fits Before Painting Toy

The wheels are finished with one heavy coat of amber shellac. I mount them on a dowel and turn them with a drill while applying the shellac with a brush. I keep apply shellac until they stop soaking it up. Some of the wheels will soak up an amazing amount of finish. 

A scroll saw was used for the curved parts. I used my Shopsmith Band Saw to resaw 2x4 for the bed. A drill press was used to drill the axle holes. Most of the sanding was done by hand but I used my Shopsmith Belt Sander to smooth the flat surfaces on the cab. The bed was cut to length using a Shark Saw and the axles were cut with a Harbor Freight flush cutting saw. 

Odin's Toy Factory Store