Rocking horses make a great gift for children of all ages. Wooden rocking horses look beautiful in a child’s room, are strong and sturdy and will be a treasured object for many years that can be passed down from sibling to sibling and even between generations. There are many artisan wooden horses available from skilled craftsmen but these beautiful horses can be very expensive. If you have some experience with woodwork it is a simple task to build your own wooden rocking horse that will be even more special to your child.
Woodworking plans are available from several specialist websites online and hardware stores and shops selling timber often send them. Most plans have instructions for building furniture or small structures like garden sheds but there are also plans available for children’s toys, most notably rocking horses.
Building your own rocking horse rather than buying one has several advantages. You can customize the plans to your own preferences, adding your own design features. You can also scale up the plans to make the rocking horse suitable for an older child. You can even make adult sized rocking horses using a rocking horse plan!
picture by designandtechnologydepartment on flickr
If you’re not already a skilled woodworker, look for a basic plan. Plans are usually marked with the level of skill required, whether this is beginner, intermediate or advance. Be sure to read the instructions carefully and plan everything you need before you start. You’ll need to buy the recommended kind of timber in appropriate sizes and have quality tools including saws, a hammer and sanders. You’ll also need some kind of workbench or ideally a wood working area in your garage or shed.
Once you have some experience of following woodworking plans, you can choose a plan in any style you wish. The more challenging rocking horses will take a little longer to build but you can be sure to achieve impressive results. You don’t have to stick to horses – there are plans available for a whole range of other animals along with motorbikes, boat and airplanes!
There are some free rocking horse plans available on the internet so if you don’t have a lot of money to invest into your project this is a good place to start. However you’ll often find that paid for plans have easier to follow instructions and often contain full size patterns so you don’t need to do any scaling up in preparation. Many sites offer reviews of their plans so you can read through to find a recommended plan that is easy to follow with a good end result. A decent plan will usually not set you back more than 20$.
If you’ve found a rocking horse plan that you love but don’t have enough confidence in your abilities to create it, why not commission a local woodworker? This will obviously cost more than building it yourself but you’re sure to achieve a perfect finish and this is a great compromise to buying commercially available rocking horses.