William Hursthouse - trike for grandson, August 2006
This is a 30 year old photo - a trike I made for my son. All that survived two boys growing up was the outer rim of the steering wheel, and this photo.
I made the original when we were living with my parents. I found some mahogany veneer in Dad's workshop, and laminated 30 strips together to make the outer rim of the steering wheel - so this part was quite strong and when all the rest was broken, I hung that outer rim up on a nail and forgot about for 25 years until my wife said: "how about fixing up the old trike for Bodhi?" Yeah right, I thought, didn't I keep the broken bits? Apparantly both our memories are going - we had forgotten our boys had totally trashed it :-)
The basic ingredients of the second version. This time I had some 18 mm "Brownwood" plywood left over from making the kitchen doors, so it is all made out of that. The bushes are industrial plastic bearing plastic, scored for a few bucks from the wholesellers nearby.
On the original version the steering colum was the weak point. I started out making this version all out of ply but it was too bulky so I resorted to steel - a few bits of rusty stuff from the back yard. But I didn't want the steel to show.....
a better view of the bushes - the ply is routed out a bit bigger, so the steering column will only touch the bushes. The pile on the right will be on top, this veiw is of the undercarriage, the tape is just to make sure there is plenty of play in the bushes
Only the outer rim was still okay - the ply accross the middle was too thin in the original and had been smashed (energetic boys racing it down the concrete drive). So two layers of new ply. The dowl is cut down on the lathe so it will slide inside the metal pipe steering column
I was really happy to be able to get the wheels from a local manufacturer - made here in New Zealand, NOT in China!! I took the first photo with me when I went shopping, and the guy helping me had grandchildren, so he was very sympathetic :-)
Finished just in time - The birthday boy with his maternal grandfather (not me - I was taking the photo, and the kid is my son's)