Wooden Frog-- Hi Dear, Remember to Smile When Working!

Hi dear, I hope that you can always smile even when you are working! So I design this wooden frog for you. And happy holiday! The wooden frog toy is mainly made of walnut wood. It consists of 3 parts, legs, body and mouth. Because the toy is designed for children, I decide to make the frog toy in a small size. The thickness of the whole frog is 2.125” and the overall length is 6.5”. The body is composed of three pieces of wood and each piece is about 0.7” in width. Those pieces of wooden frog toy are made in a series processes. The following drawing is the wooden frog toy I designed and it shows all the parts I need for the wooden frog toy.

In the process of making the wood toy, many types of machine are used for making the toy. The illustrator shows mechanical structures of mouth and legs. First, according to the printed illustrator drawings, the pattern of each piece is drawn on the wood for cutting. Then the band saw machine is used for cutting the piece of each part of the frog. The pieces can be made larger than the actual size because they have to be sanded later. The diagram shows the overview of doing wooden frog.

The next step is making several holes on wood with the drill press machine. Different sizes of the holes can be made easily through different drill bits. With these holes, the body parts can be connected together with a long stick. The size of the hole of the frog’s hind legs is 47/64” and the holes on body part are used with the same size.

What’s more the forstner bits are also used in this process. In order to make the wheels inside the body part, I drilled four holes with forstner bits, two in the front of the body and two on the back. With the holes, the wheels can be hidden in the frog’s body, and it looks much better than what it used to be. With the rear wheels on each side, the frog can move forward.

The next thing is making the parts of the front of the frog. The mouth is connected with the front wheels as design drawings. The mouth is divided into three parts, one in the middle and the other two on each side. The middle part is frog's tongue. The thickness of each wooden part is 0.7” and the length is 2”. The two side wooden parts of mouth are connected with the frog’s body by a circle in order that the connection between the frog’s mouth and body can be as natural as possible. On the side of the mouth, there is a half ball on each side, and the diameter is 1”. The half ball covers the circle a little bit in order that it can cover the gap between the circle of the mouth and the body part. The two half balls are connected by a stick inside of the frog’s body, so the stick can be used as a lever, which can connect the mouth the front wheel easily. With this mechanical principles used, the mouth will be open and close when the wheels begin to rotate. The wheels and frog’s body are connected with sticks by holes as well.

In addition to the process of the mechanical parts, the finishing process is also important. The sanding machine can be used to make the surface smoother than before. It can also be used for removing the unused edges of each part. With the sanding machine, the wooden parts of the frog are smoother than what I expected. After using the glue to connect each part, I used the Danish Oil on surface in order to make the wood of the surface brighter. Then, it is done! 

When the frog move on the ground, its legs are moving, and at the same time it is smiling!