If really strong paper toys are required (for example, the various articles of doll's furniture, the table and chair, etc., are more valuable if strongly made), an excellent medium can be made by pasting (using ordinary flour paste) two or three sheets of paper together and allowing them to dry thoroughly under pressure. Both or all three sheets must be pasted over before they are brought together to avoid subsequent curling. This will, however, prove too stiff a medium for children younger than five.
Skewers will be found very useful in toy-making. Any ordinary metal skewer is useful for boring holes in cardboard and corks, while the short meat skewers, three inches long (cost twopence per dozen), are an excellent substitute for bradawls when the children are making the early light woodwork models; later on in woodwork a fine workman's bradawl is required, or a drill.
Wooden skewers are useful for axles of all kinds.
Another useful boring tool (for making holes in paper, corks, or cardboard) is the metal pin stopper supplied with tubes of seccotine. This bores a hole in cardboard or paper that is the right size for a match. When boring holes in cardboard the children will find a cotton reel useful to bore upon; their meat skewer or seccotine pin stopper can then pass through the cardboard into the hole in the reel.
Methods of joining Cardboard and Paper Edges. (1) Leaving a flange. In Fig. 1 the shaded portions represent flanges—flange A is for joining side of house B to C, flanges D, E, F, G are for holding the roof; they must, of course, be bent at right angles to the sides B and H. (Note flange in socket of candlestick, Fig. 49, Chapter IV, and in pigeon-house, Chapter X.)
Fig. 1
If Fig. 1 is made of cardboard, flange A must have the surface of the cardboard pared away, otherwise the joining will be clumsy. The dotted lines represent bends only in the case of paper, but half cuts in the case of cardboard.
Fig. 2