Getting back to baby furniture, I have seen different kinds of little pusher wagons that kids learning to walk can use to help them build muscles and coordination. A co-worker mentioned that his daughter had a plastic store bought walker that she was learning to walk with, but that it was so light that it would shoot away from her. I had him measure her height to the shoulder to act as a rough starting point
I will probably build one for us and a few for friends having kids. That means making use of templates to repeat the work once I figure out what I want it to be like. I broke out the compass and thin bandsaw blade and got curvy.
I added holes to the templates and used a transfer punch to copy those holes over to each part. That way the wheels will connect in the same spot, and the handles will go on evenly. To add a little color and flare I painted green accents to the handle and wheels and a racing stripe for +2 speed. When the paint was all dry I coated everything with polyurethane.
I was worried the walker would go skidding across the floor if placed on anything other than carpet. I printed thin TPU bands to act as tries and glued them to the wooden wheels. The TPU isn’t as grippy as a rubber tire, but I was able to produce it in house and it will grip better than the bare wood.
I spent some time fiddling with the arms, and probably built them a little too short. I will give this to the co-worker and have him test it out on his daughter.
The finished product looks nice. It is heavy enough that a child just learning to climb up will not have it shoot away, but light enough they can still push it. Lock nuts set the tension at the wheels, so there can be more or less resistance as needed.
I gave this one to the co-worker that was complaining about the plastic one his daughter was using. The only catch was that he had to report back how it worked, and let me tweak it if need be. A few weeks later the reports were in. The bigger kids liked to play with it too! They treated it like a bumper car and crashed it into a lot of things. Also they wrenched on the handle hard enough that the arms were flexing where they screwed into the body. Lastly, it was a little on the wide side.
No problem, this is why I gave it to him! I didn’t like how the old arms turned out, so I went ahead and remade the template. Instead of freehanding some curves I got more systematic. I drew two circles that were the size I wanted each end of the arm to be, and drew them further apart than the original arm so I could move the base down lower on the cart. Then, to connect them, I set my drawing bow to a nice curve and connected the tangents of the two circles. The results look a lot better than my first arm template.
I assembled everything with pocket hole screws from underneath, and a few visible screws on the side. That let me take everything apart for alterations. I trimmed the center width down from 16 inches to 12. That should lighten the look and load of the thing and make it more maneuverable.
Original Width 
Trimmed Width
The bumper car comment had me wondering. I had left the bolt heads stick out beyond the wheel. If they caught a piece of furniture or baseboard, the bolt would probably fair better than the target. Also, there wasn’t much cushion to the tires. I mostly added them for grip, not as a bash protector. I counter-bored all the wheels, to recess the bolt heads, and upgraded to 5/16″ bolts as that was what I had available. The old tires were cut off and replaced with thicker ones that wrap around the outside face of the wheel. Now they shouldn’t be so offensive to fine features in one’s house.
With those upgrades complete I reassembled everything and gave it back to my co-worker. If there aren’t any more changes needed I can go into production and make a few for myself and other co-workers that are having kids.
Kilted Craft Works 