Waimate Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Duncan Lyall says he spends about 30 hours a week making wooden toys in the garage behind his Rhodes St house (his wife Pat says it might be more). Hamish MacLean takes a look.
At Duncan Lyall’s Waimate home the car sits under a sail in the driveway.
There is no room for it in his garage or attached sheds out back.
Over the years the Waimate Volunteer Fire Brigade Chief Fire Officer has built a workshop that would make most woodworkers green with envy.
A metal inert gas welder, cut-off saw, grinder, steel bender, steel lathe, bandsaw, bench drilling machine, a thicknessner, planer, router, a variety of sanders, ripsaw, and crosscut saw form an elaborate assembly line where he fashions toys that hark back to a simpler time.
Mr Lyall said his first wooden toys were made for his children about 45 years ago.
"I made cots and rocking horses for the girls, for them to play with," Mr Lyall said, while giving the Otago Daily Times a tour of his workshop in November.
"So I just, you know, carried on doing that."
Mr Lyall has 11 grandchildren.
And now that he has retired, his wife Pat says he is out in the garage by about 8.30 most mornings, working away at toys for the company he first established in 1986, Pleasure Wood Toys.
"A lady came up the other day and said her parents bought her a truck 22 years ago," Mr Lyall said.
He has modified his gear over the years and refined his process.
He has a "home-made wheel maker" for the tractors he builds.
"I like making things so I can make things easier to make," he said.
"I potter when I want, but I probably spend 30 hours a week up here."
Mr Lyall started his working life as a joiner, then worked in the Debonaire Furniture factory. He also drove a truck for a year, and while he spent 20 years at the freezing works, he worked as a builder in the off season.
Not many people had rocking horses now, but youngsters on farms still played with toy farm machinery, emulating their mums and dads at work, and every doll needed a cot.
A couple of years ago, he retired from RD1, but had been a woodworker of some description "all my life".
"When I built the house, it might sound silly, but in our lounge, I had my workshop in there for a start, until we built the sheds," Mr Lyall said.
