Rocking dino

This rocking dino was made as a christmas present for my then 11 month old toddler. I could have taken longer, he is not yet able to rock the dino.

The design of the dino was drawn by myself with inspirations from several pictures I had seen on the web. Thanks go out to the unknown authors who shared their projects. The body is made of slices of 18 mm-thick commercial glued wood (spruce I believe) I had left over from other projects. Templates for the head-&-neck, tail, main body (sides), front and hind legs were cut from HD fiber boards with a scroll saw. The forms were roughed out with a jig saw and finalized against the template with a flush trimming bit using the router table I devised for this project.

http://lumberjocks.com/projects/11511

The same router table also served for the rounding of the contours with a round-over bit. Square or round edges make quite a difference in appearance here.

The rails are made from solid spruce, the outer rails being cut from three pieces and joined with biscuits before being glued to the the inner rails. This way the grain follows the curvature in the outer rails and is less likely to break. The front mitre is hardly visible in the picture, but the back mitre shows. The biscuits just help the handling, the strength comes from the long-grain glueing of the rails together.

The dino is strapped to its fundament via the blue web clamp that has become my trademark allowing easy assembly/disassembly. The strap at the same time fixes the saddle I have sawn from nylon canvas and stuffed with PU cold foam. The load of the strap is taken by a black strap running on the bottom of the saddle and stitched to the sides. The rings connecting the two straps are links of a stainless steel chain. (The lines of countersunk holes on the sides of the fundament were drilled before I decided for the strap construction – they have no meaning no longer)

To ensure an upright assembly the dino body was hung from an improvised portal crane, adjusted to level and only then the legs were glued and clamped to the body.

The eyes are made from plastic door stoppers. The cap – an important safety feature on a wild ride – was crotcheted by my mother-in-law.

I chose blue for the dino because a tiny blue plastic dino played a major role in my childhood. This dino was also my first major spray finishing job. I had to turn a part of my rather tiny shop into a spraying cabinat for that purpose (last picture).

I have not made detailled plans for this project, but anyone interested may please contact me for details.

Cheers, Justus