Little Red Wagon- Viewer Project of the Week

November 16, 2007 | Filed Under Blog, Project of the Week 

This week’s project comes from Art in Lake Forest, CA. Its a sturdy classic red wagon and is a design from the New Yankee Workshop. I actually built one of these with a student a couple years back. Its definitely not as easy as it looks. Great job Art! Let’s hear about it from Art himself.

I built three of these red wagons for my three grandchildrens’ families. It’s based on a Norm Abrams’ New Yankee Workshop plans. Most of the project is red oak, including the painted wagon sides. The most interesting challenge was the front and rear axle assemblies, especially the front with it’s steering table. The most difficult fabrication was the front axle support’s 16-inch long, 1/2-inch wide hole into the 2-inch square red oak’s end grain. The hole is for the threaded rod that runs through the support and the wheel axle holes. Bolts at the rod’s ends hold the wheels on the wagon. I only have a 9-inch Craftsmen bench top drill press. I made this l6-inch long hole with 7- and 18-inch drill bits and the drill press’s metal working vise that I turned perpendicular to the ground. I kept the vise in the exact same position throughout the process. Starting with the 7-inch drill bit, then ran the longer bit into the existing hole. It took a while, but I’m proud to say the holes all came out the other end close enough for it’s purpose.

Wagon Wagon Wagon

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Comments

2 Responses to “Little Red Wagon- Viewer Project of the Week”

  1. Dan Pleska on November 17th, 2007 4:58 pm

    Hi Art,
    Very nice wagons. I’m sure that the recipients of those wagons will really enjoy them. I built a wagon similar to that a couple of years ago and was faced with the same dilemma of drilling a long hole in end grain. I solved my problem a little differently. I cut a 3/8″ slice off of the bottom of the yoke assembly, cut a 1/2″ wide by 1/2″ deep dado for the axle to fit in and re-attached the 3/8″ cut-off with glue and counter sunk screws. Since all of the force/weight is on the section of the yoke above the axle, the cut-off piece should hold just fine. Hope this helps if you make any more.
    Dan

  2. Mike on February 5th, 2008 10:12 am

    Art,

    I built the very same wagon and I had to modify a good deal of the construction due to a lack of tools. I had the same problem drilling a long hole for the axle, and I don’t even have a drill press. I did something similar to what Dan did. I took the piece of stock that was to house the threaded rod-axle and ripped it in half on my table saw, then I cut dadoes 1/4 deep centered on each piece and glued it up using a few screws. Dan is right that the top piece will take all the stress, and honestly there should not be a whole lot of stress on that piece anyways.

    cheers,
    mike

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