Little Red Wagon

Owen’s Aunt Erin and Uncle Patrick bought him a little red wagon for his first birthday.  A Radio Flyer to be more specific, an American classic toy since the 1950’s.  He’s been enjoying it a lot, putting his other toys in it and pulling or pushing it around the living room.  The other day his friend L climbed in and Owen pushed him around in it.  Too cute.  The only issue with it is that when Owen sits in it and you begin to pull him around he sometimes falls over.  Now don’t worry, he doesn’t fall out or anything, he just tips a bit and you have to keep reaching back to catch him or accelerate very slowly.  We’ll have to keep doing this until he can grab hold of the sides and keep himself upright.  Or, I can build higher side rails that are easier for him to grab and maybe even a back rail.  Some other models of Radio Flyers come with these, but that’s not the one Owen got.  This works out great as I love doing this kind of thing and this was just the excuse I needed to make some more dust in the garage, I mean shop.

(Click on pics to enlarge.)

If you’ve read any of my previous posts on wood working, you know I didn’t buy anything for this project.  The builders left plenty of material in my garage to keep me busy for awhile.  There were about four or five boards for framing windows left that were 1”x4”x16’.  I used one of these previously to make some knock down saw horses.

So I started by looking at many pictures online of the wagons with rails to get an idea of size and shape of the supports.  They were simple enough, looking mostly like a “J”.  Originally I was going to have three rails on each side, but this got narrowed down to two rails of equal size on each side.  I was also originally going to have three “J” supports but this was taken down to two as I didn’t want to put one right in the middle of the Radio Flyer logo.  With this I now made sketches of the “J” supports and side rails.  I decided on two rails 2.25” tall and 34” long matching the length of the wagon.  On the first rip cut of the rails, I was left with a piece 34”x1.125”.  After looking at this and comparing it to the other rail of 2.25” I decided the contrast of the tall and short rails looked rather good together.  I can’t describe it, but it just looked more appealing.  Plus if I used this thinner piece instead of cutting another 2.25” tall rail I would be utilizing lots of otherwise scrap material.  The mission creep on this one is off to roaring start, I have however saved myself a lot of time.

With everything cut to size on the table saw, it was time to round all the inside edges so Owen and friends don’t get snagged on any sharp corners.  This was easy enough since I’d made a crude router table months ago.  After that some sanding was in order.  I married into a great Porter-Cable palm sander.  This works well if the objects sanded is stationary and dust collection is not an issue.  It was hard to keep the sander in one hand, the hose from vacuum in the other, and hold the rail being sanded in my third hand.  So I reversed everything.  I flipped the sander over and clamped it in the wood vise along with the hose.  This freed up both hands and I could easily swap from piece to piece to get this all sanded fairly quickly.

With everything cut, routed, and sanded, all that was left was to drill a few holes, insert a couple dowels and glue everything up.  After the glue dried, I had some small areas to clean up and then I could mount the rails on the wagon.  I really needed 1.75” bolts, but the only hardware HD had was 2”.  Now I have 0.25” sticking out and may need to cut off or cover with a rubber nut or something.

Jess told me when Owen first saw the new rails he got really excited and liked them a lot.  Wish I was home to see him.  I hope he enjoys them and they don’t break off.  I’ve really got to get some Oak or start dealing with harder woods as Owen gets older and can break things more easily.

Does anybody have a memory of their little red wagon growing up?  We’ all love to hear it.