People ask me about glue more than any other woodworking question. Which kind, which brand, how much, how long? In a toy maker's workshop, glue is more important than your saw — a bad cut you can sand fair, but a bad glue-up can ruin a build past saving. After twenty years of hobby woodworking […]

You can make a perfectly good wooden toy with nothing but a butt joint and wood glue. You don't need dovetails, mortise-and-tenon, or any of the joinery techniques that woodworking magazines love to feature. But knowing five basic joints — when to use each, and how to make each one cleanly — is the difference […]

I've been making wooden toys for nearly five years now, and most of the bad builds I've produced were the result of the same small set of mistakes I made over and over. The good news is they're all avoidable once someone tells you. This is the list I wish I'd had when I built […]

If you've ever stood in a toy aisle squinting at the back of a box looking for the words "ASTM F963" or "EN71," this guide is for you. These standards are the closest thing the toy world has to a universal "is this safe?" checklist. They're also widely misunderstood — both by parents who think […]

When my daughter was two, she walked into my workshop while I was cutting a piece of beech on the mitre saw. I'd left the door open for the dog. I caught her at the threshold, but the moment cost me ten years off my life. That afternoon I rebuilt how the workshop interacts with […]

The wood you choose for a kid's toy matters more than the toy itself in some ways. The wrong species can splinter dangerously, contain irritant oils, or be too soft to survive a year of toddler use. The right species lasts a generation and feels right in small hands. After years of restoring vintage children's […]

If there's one technique I'd tell every beginner to master before anything else, it's sanding. Not joinery, not finishing, not even cutting square. Sanding. The difference between a wooden toy that looks handmade in a good way and one that looks handmade in a bad way is almost always at the sanding step. After twenty […]

People email us asking what tools they need to start making wooden toys. The honest answer is "less than you think." My first ten toys were made with a $35 hand saw, a $40 cordless drill, and a $25 sander. Every workshop I've ever owned has eventually filled up with shiny single-purpose tools that get […]

Of all the questions parents ask when they see one of Chris's builds in the workshop, the most common is: "Is it safe for the baby to put in her mouth?" The answer depends entirely on what you finish it with. The wood itself is almost never the problem. The finish is. I've been restoring […]