Comments on: PLYWOOD PLAY PLANKS (Dec, 1953)

By: Daria

Daria — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 02:55:04 +0000

Thanks so much for publishing this! My dad made a set for my brothers and I couldn’t stop thinking about these, so I found this link. And after I forwarded it to my brother, he did the sweetest thing and made my son a set for Christmas! They are fabulous!

I will note for those googling this that he did have to router the edges–they were too sharp otherwise. And there are a lot of edges!

By: Plywood Play Planks | Unschooling Conversations

Plywood Play Planks | Unschooling Conversations — Fri, 06 May 2011 01:42:28 +0000

[...] Planks var addthis_product = 'wpp-255'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":false};These Plywood Play Planks look like the coolest thing since Lincoln Logs, although on a much grander scale. When I was a [...]

By: Pete Countryman

Pete Countryman — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:13:52 +0000

Dinky Dalton is correct, and as I recall, the next size up were “Double Daltons.” We also used to make a kind of scooter out of about 4 planks. They didn’t roll, but they scooted. Those things were seemingly indestructible.

By: Kathy Countryman

Kathy Countryman — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:40:15 +0000

Almost right, Mary Ellen. Kevin says they were Dinky Daltons, which apparently has some connection with Huckleberry Hound. It’s easy to check. I read somewhere that “It’s a goggleable world, after all.”

By: Mary Ellen Countryman

Mary Ellen Countryman — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:39:55 +0000

As number 12 child, of those eventual 13, I can attest that we were still playing with these 15 years and more after my Dad constructed them. We had the most professional-looking kool-aid stands in town.
We had nicknames for all the different sized planks, but my brothers should chime in here and remind me what they were. I seem to recall “Dinky Dories” for the 6 inch long ones.

By: Toronto

Toronto — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 01:59:44 +0000

Kathy – that is so cool! You should see if you can get a copy of that issue of MI.

I had a similar Google experience this summer. I took a bike trip back to where I was born, a military base in semi-northern Quebec. While making some notes about the trip, I used google and the first hit that came up mentioned my father moving into base housing as they were expecting another child (me.)

It’s a goggleable world, after all.

By: Kathy Countryman

Kathy Countryman — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 23:57:20 +0000

Hooray for Play Planks! I was just thinking of the prototype set my dad made for Christmas 1951, when we were only five of the eventual thirteen children. So I googled. What a bonus: There is a picture of my dad, David Countryman when he worked for the Douglas Fir Plywood Association(DFPA), now known as the American Plywood Association. He is the man with the C clamps. He also made the box, deep enough for the expanded set, and long anough to hold the six footers that were part of the set. The plans that were available from the DFPA showed both sets, as I recall.

By: Perry

Perry — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 20:16:45 +0000

It is so great to see these. I am from a family of 10 kids, and my dad made a big double batch of Play Planks for us one Christmas. No storage box, though. We got years of great memories out of these things, speinding all our rainy Seattle afternoons building forts, pretend fishing boats, and all that. I am a little depressed that we never once thought to make a pitched roof. I’m pretty sure that the longest ones my dad made were 6-footers, not 4 like those shown. And he used marine grade plywood, too–he used to run a lumber yard, so he got it at cost. What great memories.