The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

The next model I built from David Wakefield's book was the Solar Stegosaurus.

Wood Selection

I chose to use Brazilian Cherry for this model dipped in Mineral Oil. I bought the Brazilian Cherry from Woodcraft.

I finished the toy by dipping it in 100% mineral oil.

 Patterns

I did not enter this model in Sketchup.  I just photocopied the  patterns from the book and glued them to the wood blanks using white Elmer's Glue. After I got the item cut out, I used a scrubber and water to remove the remaining paper and glue.

Back Piece

I drilled all the holes, then used a spiral blade on the scroll saw, to avoid any wood burn. There is no easy way to sand out wood burn on this piece, so I avoided the sanding by using the spiral blade.

As you can see in the photo above, the spiral blade gives zero wood burn to sand out

Belly Spacer
I put the dowels in the holes in both sides to align both sides perfectly, then clamped the body assembly in the vise using Nexabond glue. This assures all the holes line up on both sides of the body.  After it dried, I sanded the 3 pieces flush to each other (2 outer pieces plus belly spacer). I also drilled the front axle hole after it was dry.

Wheels

On most of his models, Wakefield buys versus makes the 2-3/4" diameter wheels. On this one, his plan call for making the wheels. I made them on the drill press using the hole saw. I drilled the center holes out to 1/4" for using 1/4" axles.

I took them to the router table and used an 1/8" round-over bit to radius the inner and outer faces of the wheels.  Because the wheels are too small to safely hold in your fingers, I used the clamp fixture to hold them.



Pattern Errors

The only error I found was leaving off the mark to saw out the stegosaurus's mouth.

I almost thought there was an error when I did final assembly.  The arms just clear the wheels. But my wheels are 1-7/8" OD versus the plan call-out of 1-3/4".  This was the closest hole saw I had to 1-3/4" OD, and I did not take the time to turn the 1/8" off the OD on the wood lathe.

Cutting Axle Pegs

You have to cut a lot of axle pegs. I usually put the dowel in the vise, and cut the dowel with a coping saw.  I decided to try Wakefield's method on the band saw.  It actually worked pretty well

Finished Model before Mineral Oil dipping

I assume this Brazilian Cherry will darken over time like American Cherry.

After Oil Dipping

Closing Thoughts




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