(By Loren Krussow) – This column is usually more about having fun than getting work done. We don’t want to forget to make some of the free time around the shop fun. Whether pressing forward into some new-type project or activity which may test your personal skills or regressing back into good ‘ol childishness, it’s good to not have demands on you sometimes and to simply create something fun.
I’ve learned you don’t really feel the weight of demands when you’re making toys for kids.
Using a few tools and any acquired wood-shaping or metal-banging skills to try to produce the childhood toy you never had, or to help recall the one you did, can fulfill both the need for a new challenge and giddy pleasure. If there happens to be a kid around to hand it off to later so much the better, at least there’ll be an excuse!
I started this sheetmetal, pedal-powered Jeep because I believed my then-three year old daughter was ready for her first real machine that didn’t say “Playskool” on it. I chose the CJ-style over other cars or trucks because the panel-forming would presumably be the simplest.
I began by making the poor girl lie on a piece of cardboard in the living room so I could trace her profile with a marker and work out seating position and relationships to the steering wheel and pedals. With that much sketched out in full scale I toured the hardware store to find wheels and other necessities, and sourced gears and chain from a discarded bicycle. Having those real parts in hand, I was able to complete an accurate layout of where the mechanical components would go, and proceeded to the shop for the construction.
One gets a new respect for the guys who design cars when trying to build one from scratch, even a toy. Details you never thought about before will stop the whole project until you figure out how that link should attach or where some bulkhead needs to go and what it should support. Gradually it came together without a lot of re-working. With main parts formed and fit together I realized there were sharp edges everywhere and set about bending hand-safe steel rod to fit along the perimeter of each panel. It took hours to get that everything welded in and ground smooth.
The steering wheel I had “borrowed” from a riding mower didn’t look right so I made one up from more round rod. The pedals spin on a crankshaft made by forming bar stock with a gas torch, with bearings at the sides and a covered sprocket. There is of course another sprocket at the rear axle and only one wheel is driven so that corners can be made on concrete.
When I had the fabrication done and road tested (guess how) I shot some primer over it and used a little handy metallic purple (not Plum Crazy, but close) for finish (OK for a girl’s Jeep). My custom-painter friend Roger Doomey happened along and pin-striped it one evening, and upholstery guy Rindy Awalt built the seat from scratch using black vinyl with colored piping. Rindy, who does some pretty high-end hot rod interiors, sure gave me a strange look when I showed up at his place with a pedal car but once he saw how much effort was already represented he smiled and got into the spirit of things.
My daughter was plenty happy to get her new Jeep but shortly set about using it to trade seat time with the other neighborhood kids so as to try out their toys. Everybody wanted to ride in any case and it was lots of fun to watch them all buzzing around. Bangs and scratches took their toll on that paint-and-striping job, but I didn’t make it to just sit there and look pretty!
Kids grow fast, and eventually the pedal Jeep became too small and was moved to the shed for storage. It will get some freshening up when the next kin comes along who wants it, which could be nieces, nephews, or even grandkids. I know it will last to see the day.
