Wheely board

This article also available in Spanish

I was trying to think of a present for my nephews for Christmas. Thinking back ages ago when I was little, anything you could sit on with wheels was just the best.

So I built this wheeled platform out of some scraps I had lying around. It took about an hour and a half, start to finish, with no design ahead of time, and shooting video of the build too.

I cut four blocks of wood to form the wheel holders. Here's cutting the slot for the wheels. The slot is a bit narrower where the bolt will go. The idea is to then chisel the slot so it's narrower just around the bearing, so the wheel itself won't rub against the wood. When I used similar wheels for my under bed drawers, I just put a washer on either side of the wheel, but they are really tricky to get in, and I didn't have any washers of the right size lying around.

Next, cutting away part of the block to give it a bit more ground clearance...

... and drilling a hole for the bolt that mounts the wheel. 5/16" bolts fit the 8 mm axle holes on most rollerskate wheels close enough.

Mounting the wheel. The wheel is a really cheap rollerskate wheel. I usually collect old rollerskates to recycle the bearings, but these wheels were really cheap ones and the bearings could not be removed. So they weren't much use for that.

The bolt is threaded straight into an undersize hole (9/32") on the other side. That way, it's held tight and I don't need a nut.

Now mounting the wheels on the bottom of a piece of plywood. That piece of plywood, already finished on the top, came from the garbage.

Wheels mounted. I also rounded the corners of the plywood and the wheel mounts. After that, I realized the board was maybe a bit long, so I cut 15 cm off one end to make it more kid-sized.

Trying it out. Wheee!!!!

More fun with it.

After I shot that, right after I roll out of frame, there was a bit of a thud from how I dismounted. So I thought it would be funny if I had an accident, and made some crashing noises that I edited in right there. I also shot the board rolling away empty, which I edited in right after the crashing noises. So before you ask "were you hurt", well, the "accident" was completely faked!

More kid's toy creations:

Curvy board