A surprise for your child is guaranteed with a self-made rocking horse. And if you implement the building instructions together with the child, team spirit and creative thinking are also encouraged.
What you need:
- Glued wood, thickness 25 millimeters:
- Head 55 x 28 centimeters
- two seats 47.5 x 19 centimeters
- two hind legs 26 x 22 centimeters
- two runners 96 x 14.5 centimeters
- two backrests 9 x 7 centimeters
- Spacer 12.5 x 8.5 centimeters
- Beech wood sticks with a diameter of 25 millimeters:
- two round rods, length 26 centimeters
- Handle bar, length 20 centimeters
Rocking horses have been around since the 17th century and have lost none of their fascination since then. In the meantime, however, it is no longer just royal children who are delighted with a rocking horse, but every child deserves the joy of such a toy . If you want to build a rocking horse, you will find the perfect building instructions here.
You will need this material for the assembly instructions
- To surprise your child with a homemade rocking horse, all you need is glued wood, a handle bar, two round rods, a good saw, a drill, wooden dowels, sandpaper and wood glue.
- For painting you need suitable wood paints of different colors and finally varnish to make the colors scratch-proof. Whenever possible, choose materials whose fumes are non-hazardous. When the finished rocking horse is in the children’s room, it should only bring joy, not worry that the vapors of glue and paint could harm the child.
- Possible decorations, such as a seat made of imitation leather, artificial hair for the mane and tail and wiggling eyes can be chosen as desired, but are generally not necessary.
- Finally, you need a good template that you can use to saw out the individual glued wood parts. In this regard, the Internet provides great templates .
Now build the rocking horse
- First transfer the individual cuts to paper using the grid according to the assembly instructions and cut out these templates. Then transfer this to the glued wood.
- Now saw out the individual parts with a good jigsaw. Sand all edges round and clean with sandpaper.
- Then drill holes with a diameter of 25 millimeters in the head and legs of the rocking horse at the marked points for the rods. If you want the rocking horse’s eyes as a hole, drill them out with a diameter of 25 millimeters. If you prefer googly eyes, skip this step.
- Now you can connect the rear legs and the spacer with dowels, two dowels per side should suffice. To do this you will need to drill holes in the rear legs and spacer, making sure the holes are on the same level.
- Now the seat is pushed into the cut-out on the horse’s neck. Fix the two parts with glue and a dowel that goes from the left side of the cutout to the right side to ensure the best stability.
- The seat is then glued to the backrest, using two wooden dowels to ensure good stability.
- Now 15 millimeter deep holes are drilled into the runners at the marked positions, each with a diameter of 25 millimeters.
- Then insert the rods into the head and hind legs and then glue them to the outside of the runners. Now attach the head and legs to the rod (with dowels and glue), and finally the handlebar is also glued.
- Finally, you can add the finishing touches to the rocking horse by painting, decorating, and beautifying it however you like. With good wood, however, this is not necessary, the wood structure also looks very appealing in its natural look.
Perhaps you would also like to make building instructions yourself, for example for a rocking dinosaur, a rocking giraffe, a rocking elephant or a rocking duck. And when your child is helping to implement the building instructions for the rocking horse, then the computer and television are also switched off for a while.
