Food-grade woods for baby toys

agnieszka

Hi,

Starting my woodworking journey hoping to build small/simple projects, e.g. baby toys and cutting boards.

I have conducted some internet searches on suitable woods, and these are often listed as: maple, walnut, birch, ash. However I suspect these lists are targeted at American woodworkers as I cannot find where to buy these woods in NSW (I'm on Central Coast). I know other woods can be sealed, but babies are 'mouthy' and might chew through to the timber beneath.

What suitable hardwoods are available locally, and where can I source/buy these? Recall I am a beginning woodworker, so I do not have jointer, thicknesser, nor do I know how to joint and thickness raw sawn wood using hand tools or basic power tools. I think the term I'm looking for is that I would need "dressed" timber?

....or, am I seriously overthinking this?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Agnieszka.

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @agnieszka. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about selecting timber for baby toys.

It's great to hear you're embarking on the journey into woodworking. We have plenty of skilled and knowledgeable members, so you've come to the right place.

Typically, you'll find most baby toys are made from non-treated Pine. It's lightweight, easy to work with, reasonably robust and non-poisonous. We have a wide selection of DAR (dressed) Pine. 

For your chopping boards, you might like to look at DAR hardwood. You'll need to consider how you'll cut up and join this DAR timber to create your chopping board, as you won't find sizes large enough to construct it from one piece. If you're not yet ready to invest in a biscuit joiner, you can make do with a dowelling jig and fluted dowels.

Tasmanian Oak would be a suitable hardwood timber that is readily available. You could use four lengths of  Porta 30 x 30mm 1.2m DAR Tasmanian Oak Standard & Better and cut each piece into three equal lengths of slightly less than 400mm. This will vary depending on the thickness of your blade and how much timber it removes from the equation. You'd then use the doweling jig to place a few holes in either side of the section, add PVA glue, insert the dowels and clamp the sections together. I've created a rendering below to illustrate. I've created a few renderings to outline the basic idea. You can fancy the board up by routing the edges.

It's essential that you seal your toys or chopping boards with a food-safe product. 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell