How to build a wooden marble run

Gather the following materials on how to make a wooden marble run:

• A quarter sheet of ¼-inch birch plywood
• 1 pack of 40 pieces button magnets
• 1 bottle carpenter's glue or craft adhesive
• 1 bag marbles
• 60, 80 and 120 gauge sandpaper

Rip a ¾-inch-wide strip from the plywood, use the excess wood for drawing ramp shapes, straight lines, rolling curves, and ski jumps. Be sure to make one that has a lip on both ends. This piece would catch the marbles at the bottom of the run.

Clamp safely the plywood to a workbench and use a jigsaw and a curve-cutting blade to cut out the ramp shapes. Then smooth all rough edges of the pieces using 80 and 120 gauge sandpaper.

Crosscut the ¾-inch-wide strip into spacer blocks, which would go behind your ramp pieces. Using a simple and affordable hand miter.

You then put together the pieces by using glue in the two spacer blocks and magnets to the back of each ramp. You can use more adhesive the larger pieces. Be sure that all the blocks are tightly glued together so that they don't disassemble over the edge of the ramp and interfere with the marble as it rolls through.

Place a board and weight of some kind on top of each ramp and the spacer blocks to provide pressure and a better glue bonding strength. Allow the glue to dry for a couple of hours.

You must bevel the back edge of each ramp using 60 and 80 gauge sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood, or just use a rubber sanding. The beveled edge provides a secure track for the marble to roll in. You could now set your marble run for a dry run.