Wooden Candy Machine

My youngest son has food allergies and it's not safe for him to eat out of the candy machines. We watch alot of you-tube videos of family's building cardboard versions of this and my son thought it would be a great idea to build one out of wood. so here we go I hope you enjoy this as much as we did.

I made this from one piece of rough cut oak probably 8-10 foot long I had purchased from a local mill. This can easily be by passed and buy ready to use lumber. I got a great deal of 1 dollar a board foot so it was worth the effort to mill it myself.

Attached is a detailed set of plan I designed Using Fusion 360

hot glue

Wood Glue

">spray lacquer

3 ">1.5 inch pvc 90s

Wood: I used oak

1/4 inch plywood

3/8 dowel

">Clamps

">forsner bit set

">springs

Hinges

Lockable latch

Planer

Router

Table saw

Miter saw

Jointer

I used rough cut oak for this project if you don't have a planer and jointer I recommend using plywood or dimensional lumber to complete this. Then cut the lumber down to final dimensions 11X11 since my lumber was 11 inches when i finished milling it! The dimension can be easily modified to make this as big as you want or as small as you want.

I used my porter cable half blind dove tail jig to complete the box you could use pocket screws glue and butt joints anything will work just so it looks like a box when complete. But look how good those dovetails look!!!!

I cut 1/4 inch dado slot for the middle piece and the dividers this made for a simple assembly.

1. Using a 5/16 bit drill on the each end of the slots then with a jig saw cut out the center use a file to clean the edges.
2. Use a 2 inch forsner bit and drill 3 the big hole at the bottomas close to the bottom while still allowing a little bit of wood to show.
3. Once this is complete use a 3/8 bit to drill half way through the wood above the slots this will give the spring its hold point

Add the middle section and the dividers and clamp the heck out of it I used wood calls ( basically just scrap wood in-between the clamp and wood) to push the dove tails in evenly.

Using 1/4 ply I made little slopes to help the candy to the hole. I used hot glue for this in case i needed to move anything later down the road. Make sure to leave space for the push button piece to slide freely.

For these we will be using 1/4 inch ply I cut the 3 strips 2x10 inches. on the 3 pieces of 3/4 by 1x2 cut a slot in the puch buttons 1/4 inch by 1/4 this give good glue spot. Next drill 3/8 hole all the way through and add a 3/8 dowel with 1/2 inch showing on the rear this will allow a nice spot for the spring to rest on then drill a 1 inch hole 2.5 inches back form the push button

Add the chutes and ladders - the ladders we will save that for another day. I used some plumbing pipe to achieve this 1.5 inch fit the 2 inch perfect. I ran into a slight problem, I needed a little more pipe but didnt have it so i drilled 2 inch holes in some scrap wood this worked great. using hot glue I glued it all together.

I needed a lager piece of wood so I used my biscuit jointer and joined to pieces of wood. cut it to size

I used my router and put a 1/4 inch round over on all the sharp edges. Once that was complete I sanded it down to 120 grit then sprayed a lacquer finish on it.

The wife thought it wasn't sanitary so I added some paper to keep it off the wood. I know this may seem crazy paper is just wood chewed up and added with chemicals to form paper but she was happy happy wife happy life. add the candy. Cut out the package label and use tape to apply the labels.

And enjoy 10 minutes of fun them Mom will yell "no more candy" and dad will have to put the new candy machine up because my kids are heathens and act like they have never seen candy before!