Getting started

I bought the plans a few months back from Real Life Toys and what you get is a build manual and six or so large printed plans. I digested the manual as fully as I could, read a lot of advice from the excellent and very supportive forum on Toylander Owners Club and set about getting the material for the body shell.

I decided to everything by the book - no off-piste, I know better type deviance from the plans - just everything as specified. The main material required is 12mm sheet. I opted for moisture resistant MDF over plywood as MDF is easier to work and has a smooth finish which should lend itself better to painting. MRMDF was tricky to find but I got some from Nixon Knowles timber merchants for £25 for two eight by four sheets. The manual also specifies 19mm batten which is an odd size and had to be machined down specially by Nixon Knowles. Credit to them is due for doing this without moaning about it as it was a small, crappy job for £10 of wood.

With the wood and MDF safely back at the house it was time to get cutting.

The floor pan is the single largest component to be cut and is also the first to be cut. The plans for the floor are printed across two sheets of paper and according to the manual you are supposed to join the plans together, fix them to the board and cut out the shape to exactly 1433mm. Having taken advice from the forum I measured the plans and transferred the dimensions directly to the board before cutting out with a circular saw. Next on are the bulkhead and the seat riser. These are both pretty easy as they are just basic quadrilaterals although the bulkhead has a bevelled edge at the top.

The body sides are probably the most tricky shape to get right and, following some forum advice, I decided to make a template and cut both sides using this to ensure symmetry. I used 6mm MDF for the template as it is easier worked than the 12mm stuff. Once I had the shape as right as I was going to get it I clamped the template to the workpiece, cut approximately around it using a jigsaw and then did the final cut with a router using a bearing-guided copy bit. As it turned out I was pretty chuffed with the results. The top edge of the body sides needs to be half rounded along its length so I bought a 12mm radius roundover (or ovolo) bit with a bearing guide and got the right effect in a few minutes. Others had suggested sanding but I don't have the skill, stamina or patience for such a process.

Next to cut were the inner wings and the tailgate. These all came out pretty well by my standards so I was looking forward to seeing how it all fitted together. This is where my first crisis of confidence happened. When all the pieces were offered up to each other it was apparent that the floor was about 12mm longer than it should be. There followed a week of sleepless nights, some ranting on the owners club forum and a lot of good advice, most of which centred around the premise that I would need to be a bit more versatile and open-minded about the dimensions. I also took a visit to eastern Derby to see another Toylander in production to get some ideas. I took Bob with me and we had a good old gander at it and I was quite buoyed up and was ready to just hack the excess off. Then followed a visit from Brian, another Toylander builder, from Rotherham who drove down specially on Easter Sunday to give me some advice. Following that I got the trusty router out and ripped the offending material from the back of the floor pan.

With the surgery out of the way I was able to get on with assembly. This is where I am now.