Chris Bell

Build guides · Workshop column

Chris Bell built furniture for twelve years before starting our workshop column. He's the team's "Make" lead — every build guide on this site starts with one of his prototypes on his bench in the garage. Chris specialises in toddler-safe joinery, simple plans for makers with no shop, and finishes that survive being chewed on. He's based in regional Victoria, builds in Tasmanian oak and rubberwood, and his daughter is the toughest QA tester on the team.

Published: 22 articles

Author Archives: Chris Bell

If your child has a Brio or Bigjigs train set, building your own custom wooden train cars to add to the collection is one of the most rewarding builds in our project list. You'll learn dowel-joinery, axle-fit precision, and magnet inset work. And the finished cars genuinely run on standard wooden train track — the […]

Peg dolls are the perfect "weekend in the workshop with the kids" project. They're cheap to make, fast, and the kids can do most of the work — sanding, painting, naming. A set of six painted peg dolls becomes a cast of characters that lives in the toy basket for years. We've seen our test […]

A personalised name puzzle is the build to make for a new niece, nephew, or your own kid's first birthday. It's easy, it's sentimental, and it gets used long after most baby gifts get donated. Chris built one of these for every cousin's first kid for three years running — they all still have them. […]

If we had to pick one toy every workshop owner should build, this is it. A set of solid wooden stacking blocks. No joinery, no hardware, no finishing tricks — just cut, sand, finish. You'll end up with the kind of heirloom block set that gets passed from sibling to sibling and still looks better […]

This is the build we hand to anyone who tells us they've never made a toy before. A solid wooden push car, four wheels, no fancy joinery. You can finish it in an afternoon, and if you nail the proportions right it'll roll cleanly across a hardwood floor and last past the third sibling. Chris […]

This is the project we recommend for someone who's never picked up a saw. Twenty minutes from start to finish, two cuts on a single board, and you end up with a wooden door hanger that says "Quiet — baby sleeping" on one side and "Wide awake!" on the other. It's the perfect introduction to […]