{"id":180,"date":"2013-03-13T21:37:57","date_gmt":"2013-03-13T21:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diyguidebook.co.uk\/?p=180"},"modified":"2016-10-24T19:44:32","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T19:44:32","slug":"the-rocking-horse-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelbibby.co.uk\/woodwork\/?p=180","title":{"rendered":"The Rocking Horse Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"google_plus\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"google_plus\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/span>

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I’ve had a couple of pdf files sitting on my computer’s desktop for a really long time, which contain the plans for a simple child’s rocking horse woodworking project. I initially downloaded them from a site called www.woodstore.net<\/a> (an American woodworking magazine) back when I was first getting into woodworking. However, I didn’t know anyone with children at the time and didn’t really feel the need to actually use them, so the pdfs have just remained on my desktop collecting virtual dust. It wasn’t until the arrival of our little baby daughter last summer, that I was prompted blow off the cobwebs and actually start to build the project.<\/p>\n

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The designs for the rocking horse project which I downloaded from woodstore.net<\/p><\/div>\n

The rocking horse is designed for children aged 12 months to 3 years and so as Olivia was only 5-6 months old when I started the project, she would have to wait a little while before she could actually use it. However, knowing how long it would probably take me to finish I figured that it would be a good time to start.<\/p>\n

The design was pretty simple and also quite efficient, in that it was almost entirely cut from one large laminated furniture board. The only other required material was a short length of wood dowel which would be used as the rocking horse handles.<\/p>\n

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The rocking horse was cut almost entirely from one piece of laminated furniture board<\/p><\/div>\n

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The laminated furniture board which was to make up most of the project<\/p><\/div>\n

The first step in the build was to mark out the pieces on the board. The design contained a handy set of images as part of the pdf which, when printed on A4 paper could be combined to create an actual size plan of the rocking horse parts. The idea was to then glue the printed designs onto the board and then use them as a template to cut around. The prints included all of the more complex shapes like the horse body, tail, ears and foot rests. The other details were carefully measured out and drawn onto the board with pencil.<\/p>\n

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The plans could be printed on A4 paper and stuck together to form a template for cutting around<\/p><\/div>\n

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The printed plans were stuck onto the furniture board with spray glue. Other parts of the plan were measured and drawn with pencil.<\/p><\/div>\n

Only one side of the horse was cut using the printed plans. The other side would be cut later by using the first cut-out as a template for the second. So now with the plans either stuck to the surface or drawn in place I used my jigsaw to carefully cut out the shapes.<\/p>\n

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Using the jigsaw to cut the shapes<\/p><\/div>\n

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The board was securely clamped down while cutting<\/p><\/div>\n

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All the pieces cut to size<\/p><\/div>\n

With all of the individual pieces cut there was still one more task to perform before removing the templates. All of the screw holes which were needed to attach the various parts of the horse, needed to be drilled in the correct places. Fortunately the designs had all of the holes drawn in place and so drilling them was pretty much a case of point-and-click. I used a counter-sink drill bit to but cut the hole and also create a sunk recess so that when screwed together, the screw heads would be kept below the surface and out of harm’s way.<\/p>\n

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All holes were clearly marked on the plans.<\/p><\/div>\n

With all of the holes drilled the paper plans could then be removed and the cleanup stage begin. Because the two sides of the rocking horse had been separately cut, were not exactly the same size. In order to remedy this I clamped the two halves together and using a long bearing-guided router bit, I trimmed the excess from the larger of the two halves flush by using the other half as a guide.<\/p>\n

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Using a long bearing guided router bit I matched to two halves by trimming one flush to the other<\/p><\/div>\n