Young Artist's Carousel
This is a second version of a young artist's carousel for a three year old grand daughter. See "The Lazy Susan Got Lazier" for the making of the base. As I explained in that project, the turn table can be quickly and easily made for under $20. For this project, the "accessories" were added to hold the box of crayola, and holders for pencils and brushes. Click on pictures for a larger image.
The making of the holders appear to require advanced skills but it is truly simple, if one has the proper tool. In this case, a router installed in a router table. This tool is one of the few I would recommend to be added to your basic tools under $500. It will provide a lot of capabilities with a versatility that can not be matched by any other tool. See "What's After The Basic Tools".
The two upright holders for pencils and brushes were made from one straight board. Using a core box router bit, I cut two channels of varying width.
After routing the channels (one narrow profile with one pass and two passes for the wider one) the board was cut into four equal pieces. A shorter piece, shown above has three channels to be turned into a colored pencil holder.
When the pieces are joined and glued together, the perfectly matched channels will form the distinctive holes as shown.
A straight router bit, after multiple passes, formed a wide channel on another single but wider board.
Cutting the board in two created two symmetrical pieces (just as in the two holders).
I used a spacer between the two pieces before glue up to increase the depth.
A nice little project for a young artist to organize his or her "tools". The turn table makes it fun for the kiddo to use.
