Introduction: Wooden Jet Plane

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About: I like building things with wood - both new and reclaimed wood. Profesionally I work as an exhibition builder/designer. In my spare time I build stuff with reclaimed wood.

a small wooden jet plane to use as a kids toy. It's made out of rubberwood and a piece of left over oak.

materials:

- piece of rubberwood (any wood will do) about 35cm by 28cm

- some leftover scraps of wood

- superglue and woodglue

- woodstaining (kids toy proof)

equipment:

- a mitter saw

- a jigsaw

- some clamps

- a belt sander.

- sandpaper

Step 1: Tracing Out the Plane

I'll start off with a mistake, I had a piece of rubberwood of about 33mm thick and I was thinking that I would sculpt the whole plane out of that one piece...NOPE.

I traced the outline of the plane on the thick piece of rubberwood and started cutting it out with the jigsaw. that was a mistake, it would have taken me way to much time to sculpt the whole thing out of 1 piece so I changed it up and cut out all the different pieces out of a thinner piece of wood.

I needed the body (350mm long, 40mm wide and 33mm high) 2 side pieces, 2 big wings and 2 smaller backwings

Step 2: Cutting Out the Space for the Wings

I used the mitter saw with the depth gauge to cut out space for the big and small wings on the sides.

I found this to be the easiest way to make the cut-out on smaller pieces like this, using a chisle to clean up the spaces.

Step 3: Adding the Cockpit and Rear Wings

the cockpit was made out of a leftover piece of oak. and shaped with the belt sander going through P80-P120-P180 to make the shape.

rear wings are simple left over pieces of rubberwood.

Step 4: Superglue to the Rescue

after testfitting everything I used some superglue to hold the plane together combined with some tape and clamps.

sanding the plane with P220 sandpaper to give it a clean finish

Step 5: Guns 'n Ammo

You could skip this stage but it was fun to do and added something cool I think

cut off some pieces of an old broomstick and shape them into "bombs" using the beltsander. Broomsticks are usually made of a softer wood so the shaping into "bombs" goes quickly but can also go wrong just as quickly.

get some superglue and add them to the large wings.

Step 6: Staining

this is also a step that is optional, if you like the look of the plane without the staining you're done.

I added the staining because of both the look it gives the plane and because the staining I used (rubicon monocoat) is VOC-free staining which makes it safe to use for wooden kid toys.

staining the wood also makes it more durable.

Step 7: Finished

one wooden plane for kids to enjoy.

this is a build which I think can be enjoyed as a father-son, father-daughter build. I build this in about 3 hours (thanks to the superglue)

the plane is part of a number of handmade gifts (chess board/ wooden katana/plane/cutting boards/coat rack/...) we build this year to auction of for charity during the christmas periode.

Enjoy!