Making Tin Can Toys

by Edward Thatcher

An alcohol heating lamp may be made for the turbine boiler by soldering a wick tube and a vent tube to a shoe paste or salve box.

The wick tube should be made from a strip of tin rolled up into a cylindrical shape. It should be about ½ inch in diameter and 1½ inches in length when soldered together. The wick tube should extend about 1 inch above the top of the lamp and it should be soldered firmly in a hole cut in the top of the lamp to receive it.

A small tube about ¼ inch in diameter and 3 inches long is soldered together. This tube should be soldered over a hole near the side of the lamp at the top and soldered on at an angle as shown in [Fig. 91]. It serves as a vent, allowing the alcohol gas generated within the top of the lamp to escape and it also serves as a handle. An alcohol lamp fitted with a vent tube of this description will not boil over and catch fire as so many of the small alcohol lamps provided with toy steam engines are sure to do. Vent tubes soldered to these lamps in such a manner as to conduct the gas away from the flame will provide against accidents of this sort.

A filler hole should be placed in the top of the lamp as far away from the wick tube as possible. A common cork may be used as a stopper. A small funnel may be easily made from some pieces of scrap tin and used for filling the boiler and the lamp.

A Windmill and Tower.—A windmill and tower that will look very realistic when completed may be made from tin cans. The vane wheel is composed of twelve blades set in two can lids. The vanes are cut from a flat piece of tin, care being taken to make each one exactly the same size. A large can lid is used for the outer vane support and the central part of this lid is cut away. Twelve cuts are made around the edge of the can lid at equal distances and the vanes soldered in these cuts.

A small can lid is used for the center of the wheel and the ends of the vanes soldered to it.

The tower is made of strips of folded tin and the tank from a tin can is shown in [Fig. 92].

Aeroplane Weathervane.—A biplane weathervane may be made from flat strips of tin. Large round or square cans may be opened out and the tin taken from them used to make the aeroplane weathervane. When this weathervane is mounted on a suitable spike on which it may turn about freely in the wind, the propeller will revolve rapidly when the wind blows.