Thanksgiving Bridge

I am often thankful for bridges, and often thankful for building toys. They are good therapy.

Holidays are stressful, so I have been doing a lot of the things that help me cope. Block Play is an important part of that, and I have been building quite a few small constructions - with Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys. Haven't much felt like photographing and blogging them though.

This afternoon I thought I would see if I could build a bridge with the Roy Toy Deluxe set. 100% American made, and located in Machias, Maine, Roy Toys seemed a better choice for Thanksgiving than one or another of the other classic American toys, now somehow made in China.

My inspiration for the bridge was a blurred & almost indecipherable image I grabbed off the Internet a while back, showing an instruction sheet from some old construction system. Maybe Miniature Timbers? Or maybe an older set of Frontier Logs.

By the time I got it working with the Roy Toy pieces, it had strayed a long way from the long-unconsulted inspiration - which is how inspiration is supposed to work.

The bridge turned out well, I believe, though there were some photographic issues, which aren't entirely rectified in the image above. At least it shows that you can go a long way from the provided examples with this set.

I hope your Thanksgiving is, or has been, a pleasant one.

We'll be leaving soon to join my brother, sister-in-law, and mom. It may be Thanksgiving dinner with a Spanish flavor, since he owns a group of Spanish food stores, and has written a Spanish cookbook. Or maybe it will be more French, to go with his latest venture. Or maybe it will be more toward family tradition. He's an excellent cook, so it will turn out well, whichever option.

I'm taking along a couple of pocketable building sets. Maybe I'll sneak off for a bit like I used to at grandma's house.

Good Block Play.

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I'm not going shopping on Black Friday, not at home, not on Amazon - but Amazon would like me to link to their Black Friday weeklong deals, and pay me a small commission for any business I send them. Might help me buy something new to blog.

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Roy Toy by the bag

I am really not good at developing my own designs, but I managed to do this. From a single set: Roy Toy's natural wood Earth Friendly 250 piece bag.

First I built the design buildings for the set (bottom image), then after an overnight break, dumped the big bag of parts out into a box lid. I played for a while with how they might go together. I got frustrated several times by not quite being able to work out how to do something.

At some point, I am going to make a few pieces of my own - from raw stock, and by adding notches to some of my extra pieces.

For me, one of the good things about Roy Toy is that the quality & consistency are not so excellent that my own unexcellent work can't fit in. ;)

First, though, I thought I should accept the challenge of seeing what I could create just with what came in the bag, as-is.

I actually enjoy the mild roughness and occasional flaw. It is made by real people without over-automation and strict quality control.

Sometimes you have to turn a piece over or swap an "identical" piece to get a better fit. But that's life in the big woods. Consider it flavor, not spoilage.

The most critical measurement for satisfactory construction is consistent notch spacing, and here Roy Toy does very well.

The chimney and doorsteps (flat beach rocks I picked up Friday) were forgotten as I finished up the house & took pictures. Consider that flavor, not spoilage, as well, please.

I actually started out thinking I would have two stories for at least part of the building. I can do that by mixing in my other uncolored Roy Toy. In the fullness of time.

This bag actually had a few more than 250pieces. The large image near the bottom of this post shows the buildings on the instruction slips (unfortunately tiny in my set, but recently replaced by a larger, improved sheet), with the parts I had left over in front.

The parts I had left over from today's house are at left . There are a bunch more medium length notched logs in the bag at left rear. I dump the common and easily distinguishable parts loose into the big bag, and sort out the similar & special parts into a couple of plastic bags that then go in as well. Sort of a compromise between übersorting and a complete mishmash.

Roy Toy also has a 250 piece bag with colored pieces, presumably having roughly the same parts mix, since it builds the same three (four) buildings. Well, the cabins shown for the two sets are different, but neither is the same as the one in the set I got, and it is "half way between" the two shown.

Creative endeavor. Good Block Play.

Addendum: I received today, by email from Roy Toy, an improved full-page instruction sheet (noted in revision above), which should make building the standard structures much easier. [11/16 14:41]

Roy Toy Cabins

One of my projects this weekend was going to be building from two Roy Toy sets - first the two intended buildings, then something from them combined.

So above you see the #4 cabin and the smaller #3 cabin side by side. Well, you see them after Webster got out of the way.

But when I went to fool around with the parts, I realized that there weren't enough of the 3 1/2" #2 logs.

Umm ... I've got over 200 of those amongst my ten or so other sets ... but ... too complicated for this evening. I did quite a bit of work around the house and am tired.

So here you see the #4 cabin with an extra tier to make the doorway & windows a bit higher. The side logs of the #3 set are interchangeable with the front & rear logs of the #4.

I guess I'll be working into this gradually.

I think the concept is good, but the second set should be a fort. Experienced Block Players know that it is the little blocks that are most useful for flexibility, and the forts are full of short logs. Include a cabin or two for long logs, and something really interesting should be possible.

Another day.

What the heck - I still had good Block Play.

Addendum - In the course of cleaning up & putting things away, I fiddled with some pieces to see why they hadn't fit together very well.

It turned out that my #3 set was made with 13/32" thick parts, with correspondingly skinny notches, while the #4 has 7/16" thick parts & notches. Going through all my stuff, it would seem that there was a change from the thinner to thicker at some point, as well as a change toward lighter coloring (cf Lincoln Logs). This is close enough that fitting between the two ranges from almost to just barely - it actually would only slow down building a little, but I have enough Roy Toy to not need to mix, now that I know.

If you are buying Roy Toy now, it should all match reasonably well - though piece lengths seem to vary somewhat for pieces with the same slot spacing. Slot spacing is the critical measurement, and that seems to be sufficiently consistent for good building.

Added 13:30, 11/9/09

Roy Toy Wood-Links

Back during the depression, Roy Toy was one of many toy makers that sprung up, mostly to keep a business alive and employees employed.

Many of these toys have seen a rebirth in later times, out of nostalgia for classic toys and classic qualities. Some have come and gone again. Roy Toy is one of those that has stayed around and can still be purchased.

I've posted here about Roy Toys before, but it's been awhile, and I haven't posted the uncolored version.

In the meantime, Roy Toy has expanded their uncolored offerings significantly, and moved them from being a you-paint deal, to being "Earth Friendly," without the little plastic containers of paint.

I liked the unpainted ones more for their natural wood charm than for the opportunity to paint, so I never intended to paint mine. Besides being a pleasing natural color, the uncolored pieces lack the little dashed indents that were maybe intended to let the color penetrate more evenly, or maybe to sort of simulate a raw-wood appearance. The colored pieces look like they've been run through an industrial grade hyphenator.

One of my old complaints about Roy Toy was that each set seemed to have its own dimensions between notches, so you couldn't mix and match the pieces very well. In the two structures shown here, the #1 and #3 pieces are interchangeable, but the fort has a #2 that is half the length of a #3, while the cabin has a longer #2 that is sized so its notches align with the end and halfway notch of the #3.

But I apparently exaggerated the problem, and I now making measurements of the more accessible of my sets to see how much compatibility there is. So far, it looks like there is a quite useful amount of compatibility.

Roy Toy now offers some combo sets. I'd like to see what else can be built with those - and I bet the Roy Toy folks would be interested in seeing user designs as well.

My paint-set pieces were raw cut, neither sanded or smoothed, though it looks like maybe the new Earth-Friendly line is. Either way, it seems to me that these present much more opportunity for extending the set with your own pieces, since you wouldn't have to match the colors. Most anyone with a table saw could rip 7/16" thick log strips out of 3/4" boards, so an uncle could do it, and the notches could be done with hand tools - suitable for many children. Making your own round logs for other sets would require a much more sophisticated woodworker. Even with Roy Toy uncolored, I don't think anyone would want to make any quantity, the sets are too inexpensive for it to be worth the time & effort. But a few supplemental pieces might be fun.

Webster doesn't seem as impressed with Roy Toy as I am.

But I had good Block Play.

Edited 18:18 Nov 5, 2009, to correct some misperceptions. Additional corrections pending.

Roy Toy

Roy Toy is another of those reborn companies, having had an earlier existence in the "classic toy era," been shut down as tastes changed, to then be brought back years later when it turned out that a market was developing for "classic toys."

Roy Toy "logs" are similar to Lincoln Logs in concept, but have a rectangular 3/4" by 7/16" cross section. It is actually quite an appealing format, and I enjoy my sets.

Unfortunately, I've found some quality variation from set to set, and many of the Roy Toy sets don't seem as comfortable in exploratory play as some other makers' sets. Too many Roy Toy pieces seem specific for the one specific structure depicted on the package, rather than being modularly scaled pieces which can be reused in a variety of functions. It might help if Roy Toy included alternate design suggestions, as many others do.

John Lloyd Wright, inventor of Lincoln Logs, learned well at his father's knee, and the father, Frank Lloyd Wright, learned well from his Froebel building blocks. (See? This all ties together with building blocks :). Playing with a toy such as this, which doesn't apply those lessons as well, is educational in its own way.

The up side of Roy Toy's down side is that I have been able to get several sets "used" (with little or no use) at low to very low prices, to preserve my limited budget. And yes, this "fire station" really is pink, though I can't tell you if that is typical. Apparently it has been discontinued, although it still appears on the web site.

Roy Toy customer service has responded very quickly and courteously to a report of a missing piece, even for a discontinued set.