The Iron Rocking Horse pt. 1

Many years ago I decided to build a motorcycle style rocking horse for my grandson. Unfortunately it took much longer than I had anticipated to build it.

I had seen several different kinds online, many folks were selling plans or kits for ones they had designed. I wanted to style mine differently from all of them, and make it much bigger. Designing it from scratch was no small task. I made several mistakes along the way. Finding a safe way to attach the handlebar to the motorcycle, and then the motorcycle to the base was much more difficult than I had originally planned.

I also wanted to make it more functional than just a simple rocking horse. I wanted things like the saddlebags to be usable, the engine’s heads and crank case covers and other items to be removable using regular mechanics tools.

The biggest problem I had with the whole build was actually the very first part of the build. Or rather, what I made it out of. I wanted to use as much re-claimed material as possible. I had a ton of 1/2″ and 5/8″ pressed board in my scrap pile so that was my primary material for the chassis , wheels, and engine parts. Pressed board is just too porous, brittle and susceptible to tear out. I had to stop and re-design so much of this project because I used particle board A combination of hardboard and MDF would have been a much better choice the project would have gone much more smoothly and quickly.

I was actually stuck at this stage for way too long. I was too indecisive.

The Iron Rocking Horse pt. 2