WOOD TOY NEWS toymakingplans.com August 11, 2013 Sunday Imants Udris keeps his workshop buzzing with tests, projects and professionalism. Intro by John Lewman, Owner ToymakingPlans.com We love getting tips and tricks from Imants. His photos are professional and his info and directions are easy to understand. With his recent batch of how-to articles, Imants sent ToymakingPlans.com photos of his workshop as it looks on a busy day. He s pretty apologetic about it but his shop looks mighty organized compared to how my shop has looked at times. Imants Udris To the left are the shop photos from Imants that he did not intend for publication. They were sent to us to show that the shop wasn t in good enough shape right now to show in Wood Toy News. I hope he isn t offended but we are showing them anyway. These shots show how a wildly enthusiastic and energetic toymaker works. If you look closely and study his layout for awhile you will find all kinds of toymaking secrets. Those long box-like structures to the right of his scroll saw in the top photo are the ship hull assemblies built using the Easy Basics Top Gun Aircraft Carrier plan set. Imants has sent us a complete build history of this project. His documentation is fantastic. We ll be publishing that in the near future. Un-retouched photo of the finished Easy Basics Top Gun Aircraft Carrier built by Imants Udris. The white arrow in photo top right points to the Top Gun ship hulls in progress on his busy work bench. You can see his back-up table for his table saw in the lower-left photo. But what is really thrilling is to see a fellow toymaker who is focused on building and finishing, not just on getting a great workshop perfect for showing. This is real! Continue to read Imants articles... 1
Gluing Printed Labels to Wood Toys Photos and text by Imants Udris This experiment is all about applying printed labels from my computer printer onto the toys. Sometimes the toy plans will have art work or photos that are to be glued to the finished toy. The labels can give the toy a really special look and it is a lot easier than painting on details. Labels are a good idea for toys and increase the play value but the labels need a protective coating so they will hold up when the toys are played with. The monkey below has a glued on face graphic printed on a home computer printer and then glued to the toy with 3M Super 77 Permanent Spray Adhesive. Can labels or photos printed on my home computer using Ink Jet or Laser printers to print the labels be used on woodworking projects? If I use a photograph or label printed on photo paper on an ink jet printer what will happen? Here are the tests I performed: Test A: Printed labels attached with carpenters glue or a spray adhesive. Test B: Printed labels attached to the same base material but at three different phases of treatment. We will test sealed wood, painted wood and bare wood. Test C: Printed labels protected with easy to find finishes. We will first test sealer with no other finish, varnish with no sealer and Varathane with no sealer. We will then test varnish on sealer, Varathane on sealer then varnish on Varathane. First I used a test label and wood scrap to see if there were any negative reactions. A failed application on a finished toy could require a major amount of effort to correct so it s best to experiment with scrap wood. I performed similar tests with labels printed on an ink jet printer and a laser printer. From those tests I discovered that my labels printed on the ink jet printer were not compatible with some Home Improvement Store polyurethanes. Bleeding of the color occurred along with smearing and attacks to the adhesive as the polyurethane penetrated the paper label surface and came in contact with the adhesive. Computer printer label graphics glued to the Zoo Carpet Buddies monkey Computer printer label graphics from the Zoo Carpet Buddies plan set 2 August 11, 2013 Sunday www.toymakingplans.com 2013 continued next page...
Because of the test results I did not seal the labels I printed with any Home Improvement Store polyurethane products. I know that it s safe to use Hobby and Craft Store sealers, varnishes and commercial Varathanes. And that using either my ink jet printer or my laser printer will give favourable results. Materials used for the test: Equipment: Paper: Epson Ink Jet Printer Glossy Photo Papers Base Material: Pine lumber with sealer Products: Lepage Carpenter Glue (Yellow) Elmer s Spray Adhesive Delta Ceramcoat All-Purpose Sealer Delta Ceramcoat Varnish (Interior Gloss) Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint (White) Flecto Varathane (Diamond Wood Finish Outdoor Gloss) On the can of Varathane there is a label just above the word Outdoor stating that Varathane works well with craft paints and markers. My tests show that it also works very well on my home-printed labels generated from the ink jet printer and laser printer. These are the project test groups: Group 1. Attach six photos to wood that has been sealed using the Delta Ceramcoat All-Purpose Sealer as a base coat under the photo directly on the wood. This will be referred to as Sealer throughout the test. Use your home computer and an ink jet printer like this Epson to successfully create and attach beautiful and durable labels to toys. Four of the six Group 1 photos are adhered to the sealer using carpenters glue and the two others are attached using spray adhesive. Group 2. Attach six photos to a portion of the wood that has been painted with two coats of Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint. Four of the Group 2 photos will be attached to the paint using glue and the remaining two photos will be attached using the spray. Group 3. Attach six photos to untreated wood. Four of the six photos are attached to the wood using glue and two with spray. The photo below shows the three test groups on one board. Each of the three groups are made up of six test photos. Continue to next page... 3
Group 1: The wood is sealed using a sealer as the base coat under the photographs. The sealer is applied directly to the wood. Results are shown below. Test pieces 1A, 1B, 1D and 1E were adhered to the sealed wood using glue. Test pieces 1C and 1F were adhered to the sealed wood using spray. I do not see any problems using either the glue or spray adhesive to attach photographs permanently to wood treated with sealer. There is no peeling up after a finish coat was applied. There is tight adhesion. NOTE: In test photos 1A, 1B and 1D the bubbles are features in the photo image, not actual bubbling from the adhesives used. No negative reactions to the adhesives are visible at this point of inspection. No bubbling of the photo itself or bleeding of colors has occurred because of the wood finishing coat applied. The glare you see from the room lighting is quite important in determining the quality of the finish. It will highlight flaws in the finish as you can see in these photographs. Let s take a closer look at Group 1: Photo glued to sealed wood Test piece 1A is glued to sealed wood. It has one coat of varnish. The varnish did not self-level very well. There are small air bubbles that did not pop that caused bubble rings. A very light sanding with 320 or higher grit sandpaper and a second coat of varnish would fix this problem. Test piece 1D is glued to sealed wood with a coating of sealer and an additional coating of varnish. There are lots of air bubbles that did not pop. You can see that the self-leveling of the varnish was not complete. Test piece 1B is glued to sealed wood. Varathane has been applied over the photo and it looks pretty good with very few bubbles. A light sand using 320 grit sandpaper and a second coat would make it shine. 4 August 11, 2013 Sunday www.toymakingplans.com 2013 Photo spray adhered to sealed wood Test piece 1E is glued directly to the sealed wood. The photo surface is finished with varnish and a final coat Varathane. It dries quickly so there are visible brush strokes. Maybe a thicker coating would dry slower with fewer brush strokes. There is little to no bubbling. Test piece 1C is adhered with spray adhesive to sealed wood. A coat of varnish was then applied. I see lots of bubbles. The varnish dried too quickly leaving the bubbles. I suspect I did not put on a thick enough coat of varnish. The self-leveling was good. Test piece 1F is adhered with spray adhesive to sealed wood. A coat of Varathane was then applied. There are not too many bubbles and the self-leveling looks good. It looks like it needs a second coat. continued next page...
I then tested and inspected Group 2 and Group 3. Remember Group 2 had two base coats of white Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint and in Group 3 the photos were adhered to bare, untreated wood. Wood Toy News As a result of inspecting Groups 2 and 3 and finding similar results to Group 1 there is no need to provide a breakdown text for test Groups 2 and 3. However, I have included photo results of Group 2 and 3 and my conclusion summary. My conclusion from testing carpenters glue and spray adhesive for attaching labels to wood toys: Photo labels adhered using glue or spray adhesive produced no negative results. Adhesion to (1) Sealed, (2) Painted and (3) Untreated wood was successful. The adhesion of the photos to the three surface finishes showed no problems. Above: Group 2 photos glued to two coats of white Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Paint. My conclusion from testing protective label coatings applied directly onto the labels: Coating the photographs with sealer, varnish or Varathane presented no problems. The photographic paper and the ink used to print it did not show any negative reactions. A second coat could be applied which would probably cover brush strokes and some bubble rings. A light sanding using a very fine grit sandpaper 320 grit and up on the first coat followed by a second or third coat will diminish brush strokes and bubbles. A glossy smooth professional look can be obtained in this manner. In summary, any of the finishing methods shown create a tough and durable surface for labels on wood toys. Above: Group 3 photos glued to bare untreated wood. Continue to read next article... 5
Tinting Wood with a Propane Blow Torch. Or, How to Please the Wife and Save the Marriage! Photos and text by Imants Udris I used this Propane Blow Torch to tint the wood. I had some spare time yesterday so I thought I would try to bake some wood to achieve a tinted finish. I used the toaster oven in my wife s kitchen (her kitchen?) but it was a disaster. It smoked, stunk up the kitchen and sent my wife into, should I say, a very stressful state of mind. Now there is no way the wife will let me get near, close to or even touch the kitchen oven or the toaster oven with pieces of wood in my hands if I even mention toasting wood. Believe me that is not going to happen again in the kitchen. My mission was then to think of some way around making a cooking disaster in the toaster oven which would force me to have to replace it for her. Wood cooking disasters look really bad but in actuality are pretty easy to clean up. But try to tell that to the wife! I ve been there. After the cleanup she has her toaster oven back for cooking her tasty treats. Wheel on the right (above) finished with Cynthia s Do-It-Yourself Non-Toxic Bee s Wax Paste. Watch the video in the How-To section on ToymakingPlans.com. Well, I tried heat-tinting wood another way and the results were pretty good for my first test. Before I explain what I did, let s take a look at results in the above photo. Both wheels were processed using the same method. The wheel on the left was processed and left unfinished. The wheel on the right was processed and then coated with Cynthia s Bee s Wax Finishing Paste (video how-to at toymakingplans.com). Similarly, the block of wood in front supporting I could just pop into a second hand store and buy a used one for about one quarter of the cost of a new one but what would be the fun in that? the wheels is a before process shot. The block of wood in the background exhibits the after process shot. Again, the left side of the wood was processed and left unfinished and So I cooked up an easy alternative baking method to avoid another oven disaster. the right side of the wood was processed and finished with a coating of bee s wax paste. 6 August 11, 2013 Sunday www.toymakingplans.com 2013 USE A PROPANE BLOW TORCH WITH CAUTION! Let s look at it from another angle in the photo above. It looks pretty good. I cannot explain why there is the untreated area circling the hub of the wheel. Each block of wood exhibited their own characteristics using this process. On the wood block the growth rings were pretty contrasted. I m not quite sure if I like the results or not. Caution: Cooking wood with a propane torch is like cooking marshmallows over a camp fire. It has to be done slowly. Just like a marshmallow, with too much heat it bursts into flames. And like with marshmallows, you blow the flame out, give it a couple seconds to cool down and continue with your cooking until you get the effect you want. Continue to read next article...
Toddler s Townhouse Little People Show Their Colors! Photos and text by Imants Udris Wood Toy News A few weeks ago I built the Toddler s Townhouse and added little kids of my own design to the little people family. These are a hit with the grand kids but then the little kids rattled around in the back seat of the car! So I made a couple of little car seats from dowels. Now the problem was that after painting the little kids they get stuck in the car seat! I tried using Cynthia s Paste Wax Finish to coat the inside of the car seats as a lubricant. It worked perfectly. The little kids slip in and out easily and I didn t have to re-drill the holes. I wanted to share the photos with you. I am really pleased with the project. Imants can be contacted at udris@cogeco.ca Car and little people from Toddler s Toy Townhouse Play Set Oh, by the way, I created and printed the instrument panel with my computer and printer. I printed it out and attached it to the car using the methods described in the article in this Wood Toy News. 7