A while ago I had seen a project by souichiro on Lumberjocks.com , he made an awesome Mario Building Set (
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/41525)I really wanted to try it myself, but didn't quite have the right person to make it for. Then at Christmas my son got a Mario game and dove in to a "Mario Phase" It was the perfect opportunity to make this project. I used a 2x4 to cut the base platforms that got painted brown, and the rest was cut from pine 1x4's. I made the tube pieces from a 1 1/2"x2" reducing coupling from my husband?s plumbing stuff, it works really well and the guys can actually fit down the hole. (I am pretending that I meant that to happen, it really was more of an accident/afterthought)
I printed pictures of the different people and characters and used my scroll saw to cut around the outsides. The painting took a really long time, the characters and blocks are all double sided so they can be seen from all sides. Not all of the characters are finished. You can see Boswer is only outlined, and we are missing all of the koopa turtles. those pieces will come a little later.
We have already improved the "thwomps" by drilling a hole through them so they can slide up and down the poles and really thwomp things.
My son has also requested a couple of red, blue and grey platforms for lava, water/ice and the castle levels.
Thanks for looking!
Katie (MrsN)
If you would like to see bigger pictures you can check out my web album
https://picasaweb.google.com/KNWoodworking/February72012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKP3-JOY-8u5UQ&feat=directlink