Child’s Bicycle


Alan Holtham makes a wooden toy that generations of children can enjoy

Wooden balance bike on workbench.

This wooden bike is great fun to make – the construction is very simple and uses the minimum of materials. The end result is a sturdy toy that will last forever and will probably become a family heirloom. These push-along toys are aimed at children from 18 months onwards, the four wheels and chunky construction making it both robust and stable. The trick though is to achieve a compromise between being sturdy and not being too heavy, hence a lot of the cutting and shaping work in the final stages.

You won’t need a lot in the way of tools to make it either. A decent jigsaw and a router are essential, but that’s about all. The curved surfaces are easier to finish if you have access to a bobbin sander, but you do not necessarily need a sophisticated version, just a simple bobbin held in the drill press will work perfectly if your workshop equipment is more limited.

Technical issues

Before I started I was concerned with some of the technical issues like the steering mechanism, how to make suitable bearings in the wheels and what to use for tyres. In fact these were all easily overcome, the only real problem being that I had no plan to work to, so I had to make it up as I went along.

This suck-it-and-see approach is rarely successful, but there was no option here – although I did start with a simple sketch drawn to scale to determine the main dimensions. There was inevitably a certain amount of trial and error and I had to remake a couple of the components which were obviously the wrong size when I made them. The most critical part is the seat height which will depend on the age of the child you have in mind. I suspect I have probably made it a fraction too high for very young children, but you can easily alter this and I did consider putting it on riser blocks to allow for some adjustment as the child grows.

Timber selection

Stack of assorted wooden planks on a bench.
1. I used a selection of hardwood offcuts for my bike, in this case pieces of Goncalo alves, ash and maple, but use whatever you have to hand, or consider using plywood and painting it in bright colours

Making the bike frame

Carpenter measuring wood plank with ruler and gauge.
2. Start with the central strut component, setting out a curve that maintains the strength but minimises the weight as much as possible
Using a jigsaw to cut wood.
3. A decent jigsaw with a sharp blade should cut through thick hardwood with reasonable accuracy, but cut just clear of the line to allow for cleaning up
Person sanding wood with bench spindle sander.
4. Take your time to gently sand back to the line using the bobbin sander, maintaining the smooth flowing curve
Drilling into wood block with handheld drill.
5. The 22mm hole for the steering pin needs to be drilled dead square, so ideally use a drill press and keep clearing the bit as you drill to prevent it binding or burning
6. For the rear wheel support, I didn’t think I could drill the very long hole for the back axle accurately enough so settled on routing a slot just deep enough to take the piece of 10mm bar I was using for the axle
Wooden dovetail joint on workbench
7. This slot was then capped with a piece of contrasting timber, working on the ‘if you can’t beat it, feature it’ principle
Person drilling wood block with a drill press.
8. The hole for the axle in the front wheel support is very much shorter and I managed to drill it using a long 10mm bit, but backed the drill out regularly to clear the swarf, otherwise it gets pushed off line
Drilling wood with a vertical drill press
9. Use the pillar drill again to make the 22mm hole for the steering pin in the front wheel support and the handle bar sections, but note that the handle bar section was drilled at an angle of about 5° so that it leans back slightly on the finished bike
Person using drill press for woodworking dowels.
10. The rear axle support and central strut are simply screwed together, so you can make a feature of this by counterboring the holes and cutting contrasting plugs from scrap material
Person assembling wooden furniture with joints.
11. The steering pin is a piece of 22mm dowel which you can glue into the bottom wheel support at this stage. Then make a trial assembly to see that everything lines up correctly
Clamps securing wood block on workbench.
12. The contrasting capping is simply glued over the rear axle slot using standard PVA adhesive

Making the seat

Jigsaw and wooden pieces on a workbench.
13. The contrasting capping is simply glued over the rear axle slot using standard PVA adhesive
Wooden guitar body on workbench.
14. The small raised support on the seat is not essential but it’s another nicely contrasting detail. This will be just glued in place, but don’t do it yet

Making the handles

Carving wood on a lathe with tool.
15. I shaped the steering handles on the lathe, but you could use standard dowel as an alternative if turning is not an option
Wooden balance bike on workbench.
16. A trial assembly showed that everything was beginning to come together nicely, but the bike is rather on the heavy side, both in appearance and in weight, and needed lightening in some way
Woodworking tools on a wooden workbench
17. To lighten the weight I drilled large holes in the front axle support and handle bar assembly, and then rounded over the edges using a bearing-guided cutter in the router
Wooden tenon joint and tools on workbench
18. I was not entirely happy with the area where the steering components joined the main strut as the shapes did not match up perfectly. I overcame this by turning a couple of large wooden washers in contrasting timber, once again making it into a feature. All the other components were given the same severe rounding over treatment to remove the sharp edges and minimise weight

Assembling the bike

Person assembling wooden piece with screwdriver.
19. The seat and rear axle support are screwed to the central strut, the contrasting plugs being used to fill the holes
Close-up of wooden wheel on plank surface
20. A nylon washer is fitted between the axle support and the wheel to maintain a small gap and provide a smooth rubbing surface
Close-up of a metal bolt on wood panel
21. The cap nuts and washers provide a secure fixing for the wheels, the nuts being secured in place with a touch of epoxy glue, but don’t fix them yet as you will need to dismantle it all for finishing
Wooden tricycle for toddlers with three wheels.
22. The heavy profiling considerably reduced the weight, so now just give everything a thorough sanding to make sure that there are no remaining sharp edges and the bike is ready for finishing

Adding the finish

Holding acrylic sanding sealer can in workshop.
23. To finish I used an acrylic-based spray lacquer over a sanding sealer. Although I don’t think the type of finish is really a safety issue on a toy like this, these acrylic materials do have the benefit of complying to the EN71 toy standard
Applying finish to wooden chair components
24. The aerosol spray makes it very easy to apply, but as with any spray job, don’t try to be too ambitious with each coat, but rather build up lots of very thin ones to get an even finish. To reassemble the bike, glue the remaining half of the steering pin into the handlebar section, taking care to line up both top and bottom components. Re-fit the wheels, but now do put a spot of epoxy on the nuts to keep them in place and the job is done

The wheels

I deliberated for a long time about making the wheels. You can buy ready-made plastic wheels with rubber tyres, but I felt that this would spoil the appearance of the finished toy. To me the wooden wheels add to the chunkiness and solidity. The problem with homemade wheels though, is getting them truly round, and then making some sort of bearing and finding a suitable tyre. The bearings are actually just a short length of metal tubing that I found in our local DIY store and which is a perfect clearance fit over the 10mm studding I was using as the axle. Using studding also allowed me to fix the wheels using cap nuts I bought from the same place. You will also need some steel washers to go behind the nuts and some nylon washers to fit between the wheel supports and the actual wheels.

Electric jigsaw cutting wooden circle on workbench.
25. Start by cutting out the wheels with a jigsaw, again cutting slightly on the waste side of the line
Wooden circle and electric router on workbench.
26. They can either then be turned on the lathe, or if you do not have a lathe, rout them to perfect circles using a trammel of some sort. I use the Trend N compass which allows you to rout circles
smaller in diameter than the base of the router
Wooden disc blanks on a workbench.
27. To use this particular trammel, you have to drill a 5mm pivot hole, but before you do this use a Forstner bit to drill a shallow recess to take the steel washer, otherwise if you do it the other way round, the holes are unlikely to be concentric
Woodworker using router on wooden surface.
28. Then it is just a question of routing round the edge of the wheel, taking several light passes with a straight cutter to clean up a perfect circle
Person cutting wood with utility knife and ruler.
29. For the tyres, I went to a local rubber supply company who gave me some offcuts of ribbed floor matting that I cut up into suitable strips. The other alternative was going to be cutting slices off a car inner tube
Applying adhesive to wooden disc for woodworking.
30. The rubber is held on the rim with contact adhesive, so spread an even layer on both the wheel surface and the tyre and allow them to dry before bringing them together
Carpenter measuring wood with metal ruler.
31. Overlap the two ends of the rubber and then slice through the two to get a perfect butt joint
Person using router tool on wooden disc.
32. Once the adhesive is thoroughly dry, use a bearing-guided 45° chamfer bit in the router to cut back both the timber and rubber
Stack of wooden speaker cabinets on carpet
33. The smell from this process of routing the rubber is not particularly pleasant but it does leave a perfectly fitted tyre!
Hammering metal tube into wooden disc
34. Cut short lengths of the metal tubing and knock these into the wheel to act as the bearing. A touch of epoxy glue on the outside ensures that they stay in place
Wooden tricycle for toddlers with four wheels.

Further reading

One Response

  1. Great design and final project! Is it ok if I print your design and make some very slit modifications? Do you know the angle cut of the bevel on top of the back piece or the angle of the end of the central strut?
    I have a new great granddaughter that I need to make this for. I think I will make two sizes of wheels so that it can grow with her.
    Thank so much.

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