Introduction: American Girl Sized Rocking Horse

So here is a pretty easy one. For Christmas I built this for one of my girls. I found a simple design I liked online ... there are a bunch out there similar. I used an American Girl doll to size it down and this is what I ended up with. There is a template there your welcome to use to duplicate.

Step 1: Supplies

Ok ... so I wanted to use things that I already had to keep costs
down. I had some left over 1x6 from a ceder fence project and used those to build the rocking horse. Wider wood for the head might have resulted in a cooler design but I didn't have any right off. Tools:

Chop Saw

Belt Sander

Scroll Saw

Drill

Finish Nailer

Supplies:

Around 7 feed of 1x6 2x19" for the Rockers

2x12" for the Head and Seat

2x6" for the Tail and Seat Back Scraps for the extra support pieces

Step 2: Cut and Sand

Ok ... so these aren't terribly complicated designs and I'm guess anyone making this probably could improve it pretty easily but when you get done the parts kind of look like these. The rockers could probably use some fun cut outs ... its a lot of blank wood. Just don't cut out where the supports go across. Another option would be to do some nice tole painting on there. Note where the cross support boards go. Those should be nailed to the head and tail and to the side rocker pieces.

Step 3: Building Your Horse

So putting this together I just used wood glue and a finish nailer. Nothing fancy as its not going to have to support much weight. The head wasn't as solid as I wanted so I ended up using a screw to hold it in on the bottom (see pic). Then nailed the scrap round pieces left over from seat back on the top around the head to make it more stable. They kind of look like shoulders for the horse. Its pretty solid so hopefully we won't break it in normal play.

Step 4: Finish to Your Liking

Ok ... like my other wood working Instructable this is where I leave it off. I probably will paint this brown and add a strap round the nose and then hook it to some reigns but I haven't gotten that far. Other options would be to cut a dowel and put it across the neck some place. I thought also about taking the guts our of some old climbing rope to make a mane but we'll see how much time I have before Christmas. Enjoy.

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