LumberJocks Woodworking Forum banner

Project Information

So, made a couple of these for my Grandkids.

Bunny body is 1" poplar, the axle is a 5/16ø piece of dowel, and the wheels are 1.5"ø wood balls from a local craft store.

Cut the body out on the scroll saw and rounded the edges with a 3/16 roundover bit. Drilled the holes for the axles so that about 3/8" of the wheels were below the body.

The wheels came with one edge flattened and a small dent right in the middle of that, which made it very easy to drill the 5/16ø hole for the axles right on center. Just held them in a vise and drilled about halfway thru with a handdrill.

Sprayed a couple coats of shellac on both the body and the wheels, since shellac is the most kid friendly finish I know of. (hey, if it's good enough to coat M&M's it should be fine for an 8 month old who is going to stick it in the mouth constantly)

Glued the wheels to the axles and we're good to go. I made the axles long enough to go all the way in the hole in the wheel and still allow about 1/4" per side clearance with the body. It's pretty stable when you push it along.

These are very easy to make and I figured maybe there are a few people here who may like to make one or two for their own kids. I suppose you could paint some detail on the bunny body and seal that, but I liked the plain look better.

Have fun,
Don

Gallery

Comments

· Registered
Joined
·
84 Posts
I really like the job you did on these and I would like to make quite a few of these for all of my grand children and great grand children. Where can I get a copy of the pattern you used?
 

· Registered
Joined
·
63 Posts
As far as the pattern, I just Googled "Easter Bunny clipart". There are thousands of images, mostly of face-on views, but there are a few sideviews.

This one is a kind of mixture of several I found that I altered until it ended up looking like it does. Most of them had ears sticking up that were a little too pointy for me so that got rounded down to be more kid friendly.

I just freehanded a bunch until I had what I wanted, then made few copies to spray glue onto the wood.

You can print out one of the pictures and trace it. Maybe then alter it to something you like even better. Believe me, if I can do it, you can. LOL. I'm not an artist by any stretch.

Let us know how yours' turn out.

Oh yeah, one piece of advise. Keep the small inside curves large enough for the roundover bit you will use to smooth the edges to get into those curves. Learned the hard way that will make it much easier when you are doing that

Have fun
 

· Registered
Joined
·
63 Posts
Charles,

Does anyone ever get used to being called Grandpa? I have four Grandkids and I still can't get used to being a Grandpa. What happened to my 30's? LOL

Thanks for the compliment. I think more kiddo toys are in my future. :)

I was watching a TV show over the weekend and saw a toddler playing with one of those boards that had different shaped pieces (squares, rounds, triangles) of different colors to put into the proper holes. Looks like a fun little project rather than buying something generic. One could get creative with that. Rounded corner rectangles, ovals, pieces inside of pieces, etc. I seem to remember back before sliced bread, I had something like that as a kid. :)
 
Top