# Toy-Making at Home: How to Make a Hundred Toys from Odds and Ends/A Wooden Wind Wheel and How to use the Wind Power Machine

Layout 2
​A Wooden Wind Wheel for the garden is a splendid little model to make—interesting in itself, but doubly desirable because so much can be done with it. Of course, it can be made quite small and very simple, and still provide unending amusement to smaller brothers and sisters; but for our own purpose it is just as well to make a larger and stronger specimen, one which can be employed as a power station for the working of smaller toys.
The main parts are: (1) a circular hub, about 2½ to 3 in. in ​diameter, and 1 to 1¼ in. in thickness (for the smaller varieties a cotton reel will do admirably); (2) six or eight sails, each about 6 or 7 in. long and 3 in. wide at the extreme end, tapering down to a little more than the width of the
Fig. 67.
hub at the other; (3) a hardwood axle; and (4) a driving wheel. For this last a cotton reel will do splendidly, especially one of those with wide flanges and a slender centre. The general arrangement is shown in Fig. 67.
​The cutting of the hub is not a very difficult matter if you have a fret saw. It should be cut across the grain if you can get a suitable piece of wood. The sails also are quite easy to make. For these you cannot beat cigar-box wood. The cutting of the grooves in the hub for the insertion of the sails is the most trying piece of work. These grooves should be just
Fig. 68.
large enough to allow the sails to fit tightly, and should be cut at an angle of 45° across the hub. The sails should then be glued in with carpenter’s glue.
For the axle secure a piece of round wood, such as an odd length of half-inch dowel-rod. This should be cut to a length of about 4½ to 5 in. On this should be fixed the wheel itself, and, at a sufficient distance to prevent the sails catching the string, the bearing wheel. A French nail in each end of the ​axle will then secure it in position between the side supports and secure an easy running.
If you have a play shed in the garden, this apparatus can be erected at the top of a high post projecting through or at the side of the roof. The driving strings can then pass through a hole in the roof or the wall, and the power can be transmitted by a double pulley wheel and another driving string. If you have no play shed, it is not at all difficult to rig it up outside a
Fig. 69.
window. You can try that, and prove your own inventive abilities.
How to use the Wind Power Machine.—One thing which this mechanism will drive in good fashion is an overhead tramway system—a very pretty little toy when in working order.
For this all that is required is a number of cotton reels, a length of stout cord, and one or two of the model trams described on page 21. If you care to, you can make proper “standards” for the cotton reels. Fig. 68 shows such an ​arrangement. The flat base is for heavy weights when the system is rigged up on a table or other place where nails cannot be used. These reels must turn freely to allow the easy passage of the cable. In one place there must be a double reel (Fig. 69) for the transmission of the power. The lower reel will act as the ordinary cable wheel, while the other, glued firmly to it, will carry the driving belt from the wind machine described above.
The model trams must be fixed to the cable. This is done by means of two wires, fixed to the pole of the tram and twined round the cable. When this is connected up and the cable drawn tightly round the standard reels, the vehicles circulate rapidly on what is really a complete model tramway system.