Jim,
Great looking rocking horse! Thanks for sharing the photo.
To the many other participants,
I just have to mention at this point, as this thread winds down, that the direction that this thread took (Testing for lead under the new provisions of CPSIA 2008) was not at all what I had in mind when I started the thread.
But the implementation of CPSIA 2008 ended up being an important topic throughout the woodworking and the craft communities at large (similar threads and articles on the topic appeared in several other forums and on-line woodworking magazines that I look at). It was an important topic, and I'm glad that it was discussed on this forum.
However, it was not what I had intended in this thread. This is the
Beginning Woodworking Section of the forum and toys are often one of the first projects newcomers to our hobby attempt. I really wanted to get some discussion going on the woodworking aspects of toy making - the best woods to use, finishes (or not), best types of joints, fastener types to be used (and avoided), etc. - things needed to build a basically safe toy. (By the way, the toy "use and abuse" strength and small parts tests that I mentioned back at the start of the thread are nothing new, they have been the law of the land for almost 30 years.) The goal was gathering woodworking information that would be useful to all, but especially for someone just starting out.
Well, it was a good thread anyway, and I'm glad that we stopped CPSIA 2008 for a year, but we didn't stop Jim from finishing his project!
Dennis
