toy safety ????

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mac1012

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Hi i am thinking of selling the small rocking horses i make and have a couple of people wanting to buy.

While i am very keen on safety and the construction is soild and i use only child friendly varnishes etc , i wondered if anyone on here sell their toys and has any experince in child safety en71 and how it fits in for a spare time home based maker like me ?

thanks mark
 
Hi Mark

If these people are family I would let them buy them, but if they are people you do not really know you are opening a can of worms if something goes wrong.

If you are in business you have to have public liabilty insurance and also should have products liabilty insurnace as well, this is where selling an odd thing you make as a hobby can go wrong.



I make furniture and not toys so I am not up on the regs regarding toys.

Tom
 
yeah ok thanks i looking at selkling them i got info about self certification and testing thanks for advice bit pressing ahead and doing risk assments i will look into insurance
 
All I can add is when I manufacture goods for retail and some were classified as toys you must meet strict codes, do research on what you need to meet. In my case I had to send articles to FIRA for testing to destruction/fire. They sent back a report if it passed if it was all well and good, if it did not I had to make the changes and retest.

To be clear the responsibility for manufactured goods is by the manufacturer and not the retailer. As a manufacturer we set up quality circle to go over new goods and highlight issues, before testing.

The above is not cheap and is put against the cost of goods retail value. You would also have to print a disclaimer, as an example we had patio chairs that were held together by lock nuts. We did not say the buyer had to re tighten and check slackness frequently. A buyer then used this chair to stand on to reach above head height, it collapsed due to nuts being slack. We did not say not to be stood on either. So we had a liability claim and more disclaimers to be printed. With toys I remember particular emphasis was placed on finger access, paint as you stated and trapping. In a Wendy House the hinge side had to be closed to stop such trapping or gaps made wider, we also had to set palisade spacing at the front to prevent heads being stuck. The list goes on and you end cost goes up to compensate. Even giving away free you are still liable as manufacturer.

Sorry to rain on your parade, everything could go swimmingly until the unexpected happens.
 
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