# Rocking Tractor



## kweinert (Jan 19, 2015)

There's a young lady in our life that will be turning 2 in March. Her dad and I are building a rocking tractor for the occasion.

The plans are from Cherry Tree Toys and I got started today.

The rear tires are 15" in diameter so I've cut 6 sets of 1x that will get glued up.





Since it's too cold outside to do glue ups I started with the engine. It starts with 2x4 parts for the upper and lower block. They're chamfered at 22½ degrees.





I use my magnetic gauge to set the blade angle. In this case I set the complimentary angle. The next thing was to drill holes on the angle on the lower block for the spark plugs. Somehow ii though I'd be using the 22½° angle so I started seeing up the drill press.





Turns out I was wrong.





So I put the lower block in the vice and used my hand drill. I was careful starting the hole and ensured that all the flutes of the Forstner bit touched at the same time.

I did all the drilling for the blocks and head, then ran the head through the table saw to chamfer the edges.

The spark plugs are a composite of two different plugs so I had to drill out one to fit in the other.





Here is the progress so far. Just a stacking of pieces as none of the sanding has taken place yet.

Reactions: Like 5 | Way Cool 5


----------



## manbuckwal (Jan 19, 2015)

Great project ! She will be a happy lil girl when she gets that .

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## justallan (Jan 22, 2015)

Cool project, Ken. I'll be watching.
I've made a couple rocking airplanes and found that other than where the seat is for weight and "rockability", that less is actually more. Instead of trying to get things perfect, I went more for almost an animated look.
I think the next one I may do a Harley.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Tony (Jan 22, 2015)

Looking good so far Ken, I'll be watching! Tony


----------



## kweinert (Jan 27, 2015)

Hmmm, I'm not good at this classroom thing. I don't remember to take pictures until I'm done and then it's kind of pointless.

So for the next step I needed to cut out all the pieces that get attached to the engine block. I used my scrollsaw to cut out the templates that I had glued to the 1/8" hardboard and then I tried using my oscillating sander to trim them down to the lines. That didn't work out so well - just too much power, I think.

So I went over to the shelf on the workbench and pulled out my older belt/disk sander combo and that worked much better. Used the disk to do pretty much all of the trimming then the belt side to clean off the fuzzies from the back side of the templates. Then I grabbed a small drill bit to put a hole in the templates in the center. Bit was sized to that my spring loaded nail punch fits through. Makes it easy to mark the center of the holes.

Got all the parts and pieces marked. Since I don't know all the plugs that were called for in the plan I bought the parts kit. However, it didn't seem to include the 1 1/2" dowel so I cut out a chunk of 2x4 and turned it round.

All the pieces are now glued and screwed to the block. It still needs to be painted that John Deere green but here's the progress so far:

Reactions: Like 6 | Way Cool 3


----------



## tocws2002 (Jan 27, 2015)

Looking good. Can't wait to see the finished rocker. I made a rocking motorcycle for my oldest son and it was definitely a fun project.

Keep the pictures coming.

-jason


----------



## Adam Fausch (Mar 16, 2015)

Looks good. I am building the same project right now for my youngest. I am building mine out of Oak. Now half way through I know I should have chosen a different wood.

What are some things you are noticing? I bought the parts kit too. But because I chose Oak I am having to go buy the parts in Oak anyway.

I have the base done and just started the engine yesterday so your pictures are really helpful.


----------



## Adam Fausch (Mar 16, 2015)

kweinert said:


> The spark plugs are a composite of two different plugs so I had to drill out one to fit in the other.
> 
> 
> View attachment 69316





Thank you for this. I have been staring at the directions trying to figure this out. I was wondering what parts went together to make the sparkplug.


----------



## kweinert (Mar 16, 2015)

Ok, so I really need to go to the Kenbo School Of Classroom Instructors. I'll load some pictures of the progress so far as it's due for final assembly this week.

Here's the base.




Her dad took a torch to the top pieces to give it a little more definition. After I cut out the rockers I clamped them together so they'd have the same profile. I ended up getting them just a bit flat in the center so we had to reprofile them after the base was assembled.

Hers a side shot of it "assembled" - parts just stacked.





I cheated on the tires. Instead of making threaded dowels and cutting a bunch of hex nuts, we went with buttons. I did turn the hubs for both front and back tires.

I thought the back tires were going to be a major pain, but basically it was 5 cuts on the bandsaw for each indent. In, in, across diagonally, across the other diagonal, finishing cut across the bottom. Because the tires are too big to fit between th blade and the post, after doing all the "in" cuts I turned the tire over and used a straight edge to connect the lines on the back side.

Here's a shot of the Abstract Tractor Art.




The stacks aren't painted yet. I think I would do it a bit different next time. Those look too much like handles for my comfort, so instead of just glue I screwed them in from the bottom as well. Next time I think I'd paint them well in advance so I could tape them off when I sprayed the body.

Reactions: Way Cool 1


----------



## kweinert (Mar 16, 2015)

Here we are with painted stacks and a fender attached.




And all the black is done now as well.


 

Just need to paint the centers and hubs yellow and put it together.

One note on the fenders: I thought that screwing them together would work better (they are two piece assemblies) but I had issues with splitting. I'd go with glue and shooting a couple three nails in it next time.

Reactions: Like 2


----------



## kweinert (Mar 17, 2015)

Here's another hint/shortcut. I was looking for a way to avoid hand sanding all those recesses in the rear tires. 6 total rings with all those treads. I ended up going to HF and buying one of these:





(http://www.harborfreight.com/oscillating-multifunction-power-tool-62302.html) because they also have this attachment:




(http://www.harborfreight.com/multi-tool-finger-sanding-pad-and-paper-set-6-pc-61832.html)

and it's just the right size to fit in between the 'treads' of the tire.

Other thoughts on what I might do differently next time. I'm headed out to the blue box store to pick up a couple of, for lack of knowing what they're really called, double sided wood screws. Like a hanger bolt but with wood threads on both sides. That's what I'm going to use to add stability for the steering wheel column. I think that I might add an extra piece under the engine cowling and use those to hold the stacks on. That way you can nicely finish them without worrying about getting black on your newly green cowling and still have the extra support.

I don't know if it's my relative lack of skill or if I did something else wrong, but I'd cut the side pieces of the cowling a little longer than what the pattern shows. The vertical side matched up perfectly, but that angle on the horizontal piece is supposed to match the angle of the piece the steering column attaches to. Mine isn't close enough to really make me happy, so I'll cut the next one longer so I can sand it down to match after it's assembled.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## kweinert (Mar 17, 2015)

Adam Fausch said:


> Thank you for this. I have been staring at the directions trying to figure this out. I was wondering what parts went together to make the sparkplug.



I drilled a hole in some scrap that the bottom piece of the plug would snugly fit into and used it to hold while I drilled the top for the other piece.

Reactions: Useful 1


----------



## justallan (Mar 17, 2015)

Ken, that's going to be friggin' awesome. Great build and nice work.


----------



## justallan (Mar 17, 2015)

Ken, in your OP you mentioned a young lady in out life. Either I read it wrong or there is some sort of program called "Out Life"? I googled it and came up with bug nets and a program for guys getting out of the pen (I highly doubt that's it). Feel free to tell me I've lost it.


----------



## kweinert (Mar 17, 2015)

That's what happens when you use a tablet, predictive text, and a lack of proofreading. Change 'out' to 'our' and it will all make more sense :)

Reactions: Funny 1


----------



## kweinert (Mar 17, 2015)

The package from the blue box store calls what I picked up 'dowel screws'. Just so you know :)

Oh, the other things I did just to provide a bit of a custom look to it: Went on EBay and found someone that prints John Deere stickers. I got a pair that are of the vintage that the tractor appears to be. Also hit up Etsy to get a custom Colorado plate with her name on it.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## justallan (Mar 17, 2015)

kweinert said:


> That's what happens when you use a tablet, predictive text, and a lack of proofreading. Change 'out' to 'our' and it will all make more sense :)


The bad part is I would have never figured out the plain obvious here. LOL


----------



## kweinert (Mar 18, 2015)

Getting closer. 



 

Have paint issues to fix on the other two tires. They bubbled on me a little bit.

Reactions: Way Cool 5


----------



## kweinert (Mar 18, 2015)

@Adam Fausch Here's something you might want to look at.

Now that I'm about ready to put the tractor on the platform I find that the rear tires actually sit on the rockers, not on the cross piece. I didn't really know if this is by design or not and I thought I had done something wrong, but looking at the final assembly picture it clearly does it in their assembled rocker as well.

This means that if I run the screw up through the rear cross piece into the tires it'll be visible. If you want to have the rear tires sitting on the cross member you'll want to increase that 14 1/4" to about 16". And, of course, make the 4 top pieces of the platform correspondingly longer. I might have to add another piece on top of the rear cross member to 'fill in' the hole left by the tires sitting on the rocker.

It may be that they expect the weight on the back to be more so they set them on top of the rockers on purpose. In that case I'd probably ignore the holes they have marked to fasten down the rear cross member and put it in so the top of the 2x4 is flush with the top of the rocker. It's too late for me to make that change at this point, but I thought I'd mention it in case you haven't made it that far yet.

Reactions: Thank You! 1


----------



## Adam Fausch (Mar 18, 2015)

kweinert said:


> @Adam Fausch Here's something you might want to look at.
> 
> Now that I'm about ready to put the tractor on the platform I find that the rear tires actually sit on the rockers, not on the cross piece. I didn't really know if this is by design or not and I thought I had done something wrong, but looking at the final assembly picture it clearly does it in their assembled rocker as well.
> 
> ...




Thanks. That's good to know. I have built the base but not so far along I couldn't make some adjustments.


----------



## kweinert (Mar 19, 2015)

The tractor needs to be screwed down yet but here's essentially the finished product:

Reactions: Way Cool 9


----------



## kweinert (Mar 20, 2015)

The next one is for a friend and will be done in IH colors.

I did have to take the 80 grit to the rockers to reduce the flatness. It wasn't much of a rocking tractor up till then :) that was just me getting of the pattern when I sanded it initially.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## kweinert (Mar 20, 2015)

Ken, Tayler's dad, cut a couple of small blocks to fill in the gap between the cross piece and the top of the rocker. I tacked those in with a couple of nails and the screws will go through them to hold it down securely.


----------

