Puppet Theatre for Clara

  My grand daughter's 3rd birthday is two weeks away and Eva and I are making puppets and a puppet theatre as her gift. This project had to be designed from scratch to suit special criteria.  We wanted the theatre to be portable, hence the handle across the top and it needed built in storage space. 

The front of the theatre,
made from 1/2 inch birch plywood.

The back of the theatre featuring 10
cubby holes to store the puppets.

  When making a project like this using plywood I need two very common but special tools.  First  I use my carpenter's square to determine whether I am working with a 90 degree corner. I've found that when I cut up a sheet of plywood sometimes a corner will get out of square by a couple of degrees.  That error can get multiplied as more pieces are cut. If your square is suspect, here is a video showing what to do. 

  The second tool is a straight edge.  I use my straight edge to check whether I drifted off line when cutting my plywood sheets with my circular saw.  I find that breaking down a large piece of plywood can be tricky without a panel saw.  Even though I use a straight edge as a cutting guide small errors can creep into a long cut none the less. 

  Checking the corners and the edges are true makes for better results down the road. I think that were I a heavy user of sheet stock I would buy a plunge cut saw .

cheers, ianw