Wooden Noah's Ark, made for my first grandson Thomas for Christmas 2015 (when he was 15 months old).

The Ark was built using plans from toymakingplans.com, with some minor modifications, mostly in scaling of the plans to suit
the timber available in the UK. Woods used were knotless Nordic pine edge-glued 18mm panels and ordinary pine edge-glued
12mm panels. The original plans were designed around 3/4 inch and 1/2 inch thick timber (not available in metric UK!),
so a certain amount of scaling was required, in order for the ark to fit together correctly!

The animals were made from a different set of plans for another Noah's Ark (from the same company), appropriately scaled,
as I didn't particularly like the ones that came with the original plans, and preferred the simpler designs used here.
(I also designed a few animals myself, to provide a full complement to fill the ark.)

The ark was built using an old industrial scroll saw which I bought over 30 years ago (to make wooden toys for my own children
when they were small); sanding and finishing were done with a disc sander for the flat sides and outside curves, and drum sanders
for the inside curved pieces, together with a small hand-held orbital sander. Final finishing before varnishing was done by hand,
using 180 to 240 grit abrasive paper (which I was taught to call "glasspaper" in woodwork classes at high school!).

The ark was finished with three coats of certified child-safe clear satin varnish (not easy to find!), and given a final polish
using a home-made wax polish made from pure bee's wax from my cousin-in-law's beehives and pharmaceutical-grade mineral oil.