Alexandria's Rocking Horse
Before Christmas 2017, Sheila had been looking at rocking horses for Alexandria but hadn't found one she liked. She told Jared and I that she thought we could build a better one that any that she had seen. Yes, Sheila worked on our ego, and it worked, partially.
Jared and I started the project together and Jared stuck with it though the part where we agreed to do it. From that point on, I didn't see much of him (any of him actually). That's probably a good thing. We both have strong tendencies to do things our way, and our ways don't always match.
I Decapitated the Horse. Twice!
I used large dowels to connect the legs to the body of the horse, and a larger one for the handle that was on either side of the horse's neck. I wanted the dowel through the horse's neck to be tight, so I drilled a hole in the neck that was the same diameter as the dowel. I then pounded the dowel in and promptly split the wooden neck of the horse. I then glued the head back on, redrilled the hole, sanded it out to make it slightly larger, pounded the dowel back in, and split the horse's neck again. I then built a transition piece to go between the top of the horse's head and the neck with a tighter grain running at a different angle and attached it to the other pieces with multiple biscuits. This time, when I drilled the hole, sanded it out to make it slightly larger, and put in the dowel, the neck held together.​
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I did have some assembly and reassembly problems during the build and head decapitation, but I eventually worked them all out.
The Horse Showed Up in Time for Christmas
Even with the assorted problems, the horse showed up in time to surprise Alexandria for Christmas. The horse was a little large for her, and she didn't quite know how to ride it (she would get on and just shake back and forth trying to make it rock), but it was still a success.
