This is a small noah's ark with pairs of animals and a ramp which are stored away inside the ark. The basic design is from the book Simple Wooden Toymaking by Bob Mathias (Hamlyn, 1974), so if you'd like to build it, I'd recommend that you find a used copy of that book or find one in your library. The first one I made was based on the book, but for subsequent ones I scaled down the size in order to be able to make the hulls from 1.5"-thick wood, which is more readily available that the 2"-thick stock used in the original design.
Apart from that, the only original thing I did was to design several additional types of animals. The book includes 15 two-dimensional animal designs, most of which I liked. I came up with a more lion-like lion, as well as a rabbit, a beaver, a crocodile, and a whale, and sculped most of them to have a slightly three-dimensional appearance. I'll be adding templates for those animals to this web page (soon) but for now, I'm just presenting a few additional photos. For the other animals and the ark itself, you'll have to find a copy of the book.
- Lions - Pine
- Brown Bears - Walnut
- Hippopotamus - Mahogany
- Seals - Fir
- Elephants - Elm
- Polar Bears - Pine
- Kangaroos - Mahogany
- Pelicans - Pine
- Whales - Douglas Fir
- Giraffes - Pine
- Rabbits - Maple
- Squirrels - Teak
- Crocodiles - Mahogany
- Rhinos - Walnut
- Beavers - Teak
- Penguins - Apple
