Make A Kids Train Board, step by step

All aboard! (Can I get a choo choo?)

As promised via our little Instagram/Facebook sneak peek yesterday, here is the story of how we made a little train board for Clara. Why a train board? Well, Clara is nothing short of obsessed with the one at Barnes & Noble (a pleasant big track is screwed into place on a little pedestal board and kids flock from all sides of the book store to play with it). In fact if we pull into the parking lot (which also leads to a ton of other stores) before we even turn off the car Clara is shouting “we are getting to play with the trains!”

So when John suggested that we make our own version of one with a train set that we got for Clara’s second birthday from a few relatives of ours, I remembered seeing this one over on Aubrey and Lindsey’s journal so I googled around for a few others to gaze at (like this one). As for our specific objectives, we had a few goals in mind:

• to use all of the Melissa & Doug train pieces that we already had and make a pleasant big track
• to use solid wood if we could for the board part (simply to avoid the off-gassing issue of MDF/plywood since solid whitewood is pleasant and light – and low-cost)
• to paint something lively on the surface to give Clara more play ideas (ex: the train is going to the beach, the train is going to the forest, the train is going over the water)
• to paint it with low-VOC paint, seal it with low-VOC sealer, and attach the tracks with screws from beneath to avoid fumey glue (simply in the same eco vein as the wood choice)

So here is how we got ‘er done using nine dollar’s worth of sample paint from Home Depot and one plank of 12″ whitewood for $19 (also from Home Depot) – for a total of $28 spent. First John got a twelve foot long 10″ x 1″ board of whitewood and had them cut it down to make three equal 10″ x 1″ x 47″ boards right in the store. Then he joined them together with his Kreg Jig (you could also use flat bracing pieces of wood or metal along the back to connect them and add some felt pads to make sure nothing scratches the floor). Then he sanded everything to keep the board from feeling rough or splintery. See how the seams are barely visible (these arrows point them out for ya).

Next we pieced the train tracks together in about a million distinct configurations before at last deciding to go with this one (it has hills, an elevated part, a bridge, a tunnel, and even an area where the train will shoot down an incline and off the board – which we thought would be Clara’s go-to part):

Then we brainstormed what we thought the background should look like on a piece of paper and came up with this (the light green is grass, the blue is the ocean, the stripe next to the blue is sand, and the dark green is the forest):

Then I sketched that layout onto the board with a pencil – simply marking the lines of delineation between the water, the beach, the forest, etc.

Then we ran to Home Depot and grabbed three $2.95 sample pots in Japanese Fern, Mirage Lake, and Shamrock all by Behr Ultra (which is low-VOC).

After we brought them home it was time to take the whole track apart so we could paint the background (pointer: take a photo of the track configuration that you’ve landed on before dismantling it so you remember how to recreate it when you’ve painted your background). I began with the water and then I brought in the grass (these two do not touch, so I did not have to worry about if the blue paint was still wet when I applied the green):

Oh and I did not prime anything because we did not mind this looking like painted wood (we thought a few knots showing through could be authentic and charming). But if you do not want them to show through, a coat or two of stain-blocking primer should do the trick before you paint your design.

Then I gave that stuff a while to dry since I would be going up against the edges of those for the sand and the trees (and did not want things to smear) and came back a few hours later to paint the forest. That was the most lively because there is that sort-of-bushy shape.

Then I brought in the sand, which was simply leftover no-VOC white paint (we enjoyed the idea of a white-sand beach between the ocean and the grassy plains, haha).

Then we let the whole board dry and I applied a few thin and even coats of my go-to eco poly (Acrylacq by Safecoat). We have had the same quart of it since before Clara was born and it is still going strong (seriously, I cannot recommend it sufficient- not only is it low-VOC it is in fact non-toxic). I simply brushed it on in thin and even coats, being careful not to belabor certain areas (if you brush things over and over they can get gummy, so I moved swiftly across the board, let it dry, applied another coat, left that dry, and applied one last thin application).

As for why we chose to temporarily attach the tracks to the board:

• at this age for Clara, putting the tracks together herself simply led to frustration (crying/throwing stuff) so it was not truly a good time for her when things were not attached.
• yet, we noticed how much lively she had at B&N when things were nailed down (it still led to a lot of creative, independent play with talks about trains stopping under tunnels, trains crashing, trains running out of fuel, people stopping at specific destinations, etc).
• if she ever has a hankering to build her own track down the line, we can consistently free up this track by simply removing the small screws on the underside of the board – so it’ll still be truly functional and flexible for spur-of-the-moment-building if it is detached later.

We simply saw how much more lively she had at B&N with the fixed track (no tantrums or frustration of trying to make things go together, etc) so we thought a fixed track made the most sense for now. So after we gave the poly plenty of drying time (48 full hours) we laid out the track on top of the newly sealed board and attached the whole thing with screws from underneath the train board. In other words, John took out the tracks one by one, drilled a pilot hole from the top of the board through to the bottom…

… and then held the track in place on top of it and screwed up to attach the track to the board from underneath).

That is how he got the track to stay in place without looking like it is covered in screws (using counter-sinking screws meant they sunk into the back of the board and did not stick out and scratch the floor). We also brought in felt furniture pads to keep the board from rubbing on the floor/table/ottoman if it gets plenty of use.

As for the elevated part of the train, we attached those blocks to hold the track up the same way we did the rest of the track (a pilot hole through the board from above followed by a screw driven from the back of the board up into the block to hold it in place without seeing any hardware). Then to hold the track in place on top of each of those blocks, we drove a small finish nail into the groove of the track and into the block, which in fact proved to be truly sturdy without being especially obvious (you have to get fairly close to even notice them at all).

When it came to making that one piece of track look like it led off the corner of the board, John simply traced the shape of the board onto the bottom of the track, and cut it along that line that he drew (and then sanded it to make it pleasant and smooth). Then he simply drilled that track in from below like the rest of them (he in fact had already attached it, which you can see in the pic on the right, so he took out it, cut it, and drilled it back in).

Next came the big test. Holding everything upside down to make sure it was all attached. Thankfully it is all pleasant and sturdy. As in, Clara has taken strong joy in kicking the elevated part and it is all holding strong.

Choo-choo, baby. Here is the whole shebang in action:

Clara loves it. As expected, there is plenty of chatter about people going to the beach, the forest, and over the hills and valleys, and contrary to our guess – her go-to feature is in fact rolling them down the middle hill and into a big pile-up. Sometimes she even lets us get in on the chugga-chugga action.

Are there any other train board fans out there? At first I thought making new tracks would be part of the lively, but seeing how much Clara loves the fixed one at B&N, I am glad we made her a souped up board with a lively little background to make playing with it even more exciting. Things like adding an environment behind it and having trains shoot off the board have certainly upped the train-playing ante around here. And John may or may not have played with it a little himself after Clara went to bed last night. Not kidding.

And perhaps the best thing about it is that it is pleasant and flat, so it can slide fully under the sofa for storage when it is not in use. Here it is halfway in:

That is in fact one of the reasons we thought a board would work better for us than a table, since we used all the tracks and trains that we had to build this, so we did not need additional storage or anything). It is pleasant that we can stash it away in a second and that seems to make it even more special for Clara (she loves things that we bring out and tuck away, like markers and Play-Doh a bit more than things that are consistently out at her disposal). Perhaps it is like those special “limited edition” holiday Oreos? They consistently feel more special than the regular kind to me. Haha.

So that is the full $28 train board rundown. What have you folks been building/painting/sanding lately? Any lively kids stuff in the works?