Building a Kit Rocking Horse

I described in an earlier post how I made sockets for the supplied glass eyes using a 22mm spade bit: The right eye socket, before the horse was dyed a darker brown. The instructions that came with the kit suggested attaching the eyes using wood filler as glue. I didn't feel confident that this would work, having never tried it before, so I decided to use epoxy instead. Having checked that the eyes were going to fit ok and that everything was clean and dry, I mixed up some quick-setting (five minute) epoxy and spread some on the back of each eye, then used some tape to hold them in place while the glue cured. This worked very well. You made a believer, out of me. The only things left at this stage were to fit the (real horse hair!) mane, forelock and tail, saddle 'er up, and mount her to the stand. But she looked so good, I couldn't resist mounting her straight away (stop sniggering at the back, Jenkins!): Very cool. The combined horse and stand are ...

The next step is to apply a couple of coats of varnish to the stand and the horse, and then assemble the stand. Things are really starting to come together! There's not much to say about the varnishing. I used Ronseal's Ultra Tough Satincoat clear varnish. I didn't want a really glossy finish, hence the Satincoat, and I expected the horse and stand to get a few knocks from my three daughters, hence the Ultra Tough. I brushed on three coats, sanding lightly between each coat with fine (240 grit) pap er. My biggest problem with the varni shing was that I was doing this in an unheated detached garage in the UK in mid-December, so the temperature was barely 5°C (40°F): too cold for the varnish. It gets quite treacly at those temperatures, resulting in a pretty thick coat each time. That's why (I think) the finish ended up quite glossy, despite using a satin varnish. I did try warming up the tin of varnish with a fan heater, but that didn't make a lot of difference ...

Now that all the sanding and other prep is finally complete, you can move on to the finishing.  I dyed mine (her name is 'Rosehip', by the way) using Colron Wood Dye in Indian Rosewood; many rocking horses are painted, either in the classic 'dapple grey' pattern or in more individual style, but I can't offer any advice on how to do that. I got dye on this chap's sleeve, sorry dude. I was quite nervous about starting this phase because I'd never dyed wood before and I really didn't want to ruin all the hard work I'd put in up to this point. However, having watched a few videos on YouTube, I dived in and it turned out to be very easy. The most important tip is to really flood the surface of the wood with dye, using a rag that is completely saturated. Spread it out evenly to leave a glistening, even layer, and then leave it! Don't be tempted to go back and touch up a small area, because any extra dye you add after the first coat has dried ...

It's been over nine months since I last updated this blog, so I must apologise for keeping you all waiting so long; but now, the story continues... Before moving on to finishing, I next drilled the holes necessary for the horse's eyes and tail. The kit comes supplied with two glass eyes attached to either end of a short length of wire - snip the wire to separate the two eyes. They're about 18mm (3/4") in diameter and the instructions suggest drilling holes to mount them, using wood filler as glue, without providing much detail. I pondered this for a while, but here's how I did it... The location for the eyes is easy to find, as it's where a dowel comes right through the head to hold the two halves together. At this stage the ends of the dowel should have been cut off and sanded down flush with the rest of the head, but they're still easy to see:   The end of the dowel marks the eye location I started by drilling a small pilot hole, maybe 4mm or...

In previous posts, I completed the assembly of the stand and the rocking horse itself, so all the major parts are now complete; the next stage of construction will come pretty much at the end of the project - mounting the horse on the stand.  Before that though, there's a whole lot of sanding to be done! Sanding the stand is straightforward; the wood is already very smooth as delivered and it consists mainly of large flat surfaces.  You should ideally have sanded each piece down to around 220 grit sandpaper before assembly, so the main tasks now are to ensure that there are no rough spots or glue residue left anywhere and to ensure that the wedged tenon joints are sanded flush.  You can use an electric sander for most of this, but the posts are a little trickier and you'll need to do those by hand, and take your time. If you'll be dying your horse, like I did, it's important to get a consistent smoothness across each piece, because the dye will be absorbed differently...

At this stage, with the stand and the horse's body completely assembled, I decided to make a small modification to the two rails.  These are the lengths of wood to which the horse's feet get bolted, and which receive the ends of the hangers.  As supplied, these were shaped to a point at each end, and were pre-drilled for the hangers, but they had sharp square edges. As all the stand's parts had nicely chamfered edges, I decided to add a chamfer to the rails as well. Rails as supplied - note the sharp edges The only slightly tricky thing here was to NOT chamfer the two areas on each rail where the horse's feet would go; I didn't want to be left with a gap where the chamfered edge ran under the feet. With the stand and the horse's body and legs assembled, I dry-fitted everything together so that I could lower the horse on the rails, drill holes for the horse's mounting bolts, and mark the outline of where each foot overlapped onto the rail. With this ...