When I was little I hated toys. All I cared about was conversation, with a couple exceptions: I liked legos, and I liked these wooden blocks in kindergarten that I used to spend hours with creating mosaics of simple shapes. My wife and I are expecting a baby boy at the end of February, and I wanted to make something reminiscent of these blocks for him.
I thought it would be amazing to make these blocks magnetic, and within a picture frame. This way he could play with them on the table, and if he was particularly proud of a composition, we would hang it up on the wall. So that’s exactly what I did. It’s also pretty cool for adults.
I got a picture frame from Big Reuse in Gowanus (definitely visit if you haven’t yet) for $2, some stainless steel sheeting, some oak for the blocks, magnets, glue, rubber feet, and Bob’s your uncle.
Materials
First thing was to cut the stainless steel sheeting. ITP is not really equipped for cutting steel, so I enlisted the once-upon-a-time tool-of-the-week: the nibbler.
I knew it would be tedious, but that it would cut straight and true. However, it was a little more tedious than I could bear. The below time lapse is 60X the speed of life.
I asked the ITP shop staff about steel-cutting alternatives, and I was directed toward the jig saw, so it finished it using that.
After that, it was just sawing some simple shapes on the miter saw, drilling some holes in the back of them with a forstner bit, inserting magnets, gluing them, and sanding the blocks to finish.
