About Jorlaxis

We cut solid wood animals that come apart at the neck. A magnet in each face, one fitting per size, and the rest is up to whoever is playing.

Jorlaxis started with a complaint. A wooden bear had lost its head to a dropped shelf, and gluing it back on meant the head was fixed in one position forever. The obvious question was why a head should be fixed at all.

The answer turned out to be a pair of small magnets, recessed into each face so the two surfaces still meet flush. The head lifts off with about the force it takes to pull a fridge magnet from a door, and it clicks back on square every time. Once one animal did it, every animal had to do it, and once every animal did it at the same two fittings, the heads started ending up on the wrong bodies. That is now the point of the whole range.

A wooden figurine separated into two halves, showing the small recessed magnet set flush into each joining face — Two faces, two magnets, set flush. Nothing protrudes and nothing shows when the piece is together.

How a piece is made

Everything starts as rubberwood — a pale, close-grained hardwood from plantation trees that have finished producing latex and would otherwise be burned. It is dense enough to hold a fine edge and light enough that a child can carry six of them at once.

Blanks are cut oversize, shaped, then sanded by hand through three grits until the surface reads smooth against a cheek. The magnet seats are bored last, on a jig, so both halves of a given size are interchangeable across the whole range.

Unfinished pale wooden animal blanks in a row on a workbench beside a block plane and a square of fine sandpaper — Blanks waiting for the second sanding. The shapes are cut deliberately simple — detail is the first thing to chip.

The finish is the short part

A clear plant-based oil, rubbed in and wiped back. Nothing over it. It darkens the wood by roughly a shade and brings out the grain, and when the piece eventually looks tired you can do the same thing again at a kitchen table.

Where a piece carries colour — a hen's comb, a graduate's gown, a shield — that is water-based paint, applied thin so the grain still shows through. We do not lacquer anything. A lacquered toy stays perfect until it chips, and then it looks broken.

Two wooden figurines beside a shallow tray of clear wood oil, one raw and pale, the other freshly oiled and warmer in tone — Left, raw off the sander. Right, one coat of oil. That is the entire difference in finish.

Two sizes, and why

Pieces come in a small fitting and a large one. Within a fitting, every head goes on every body. Across fittings they do not, because a bear's head on a chick would fall over and a chick's head on a bear looks like a mistake rather than a joke. Two sizes turned out to be enough to keep it interesting and few enough to keep it obvious.

A row of wooden animal figurines of different sizes arranged along a pale shelf against a blue-grey wall — The range as it is usually found — on a shelf, in the wrong order, with at least one head on the wrong body.

Where we are

Jorlaxis is a trading name of U INTEGRITY CO., LIMITED, registered in Hong Kong. Our office is at 19/F, No. 3 Lockhart Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong. Orders ship from our fulfilment partner and everything is handled by email at info@jorlaxis.com.

One thing we will not bury

Every piece contains magnets. They are recessed and glued, and we test the pull on every batch — but swallowed magnets are genuinely dangerous, and more than one is worse than one. Nothing we make is suitable for children under three, and we would rather say that plainly here than in six-point type on a box.