Constructing Go-Carts and other Toys
My grandfather built the bungalow we lived in quite literally with his own hands and with the cooperation of the neighbours. Me dad carried on the tradition when we moved in when I was 18 months old. He was always, in the little spare time he had, doing home improvements either building garden walls or fire places.
Growing up I was always commandeered to watch but never allowed to ‘interfere’ (his word) or ‘help’ (my word) in what he was doing, especially with electrical work. This was understandable from his point of view and also me mums, who kept a wary eye on us making sure I didn’t start to ‘try and help’ when dads back was turned or off looking for a tool he had mislaid, an attribute I now know I inherited from him.
Most of the time, I would rather have been out playing with the kids in our street than just passively looking on. Still it probably awakened the quasi DIY in me, not so much the house DIY, but more in the line of constructing telescopes and later in life robots, synthesisers and as I’m fascinated by knots, Celtic jewellery [Ed: See other posts].
Dad use to rather build than buy toys for me; not that I didn’t get enough commercially made toys growing up as a single child, this was more mums doing as she thought it was better to have some conventional toys around when I had friends over.
Three things I remember he built for me. A model of Tower Bridge to drive my dinky cars over, also it had a working drawbridge when I wanted to push a boat under it.
A farm house which you could take the roof off to store all the ‘bought not built’ farm animals.
And an electrical buzz wire game in the shape on my name in capitals about 8”/20cm high with insulated areas between the letters so you had the chance to get your breath back and a pause in biting on ones tongue. This came out at every birthday party well into my teens.
I was pleased with these home made presents but its only now in reflection that I really appreciate the time that he spent on these projects just for me.
One thing that I secretly hoped he would surprise me with was a go-cart. In our street while growing up we all had bikes, and as it was a dirt road full of potholes we had fun creating a slalom circuit up and down its complete length. It was a dead end leading only into a farm and we had it mostly to ourselves, no traffic to dodge only parked cars from the locals.
I didn’t know anybody with a go-cart or recollect seeing one in the area. What I do remember is how it had to look.
Our regular newspaper at home was the Daily Mirror and there was a cartoon strip called The Perishers. There was a character called Wellington and he had a go-cart.
For this post I went on a search in the Net to see if I could find an example with one and found this strip from 13th. Oct 1965.
I don’t remember every asking dad for one built or otherwise, I think I would have got one if he had known, building something like that would have been right up his alley.
Well it never came to pass, but the idea has stayed with me in the background for over 35 years until I had the opportunity to build one, well in fact five!
Every year at H’s primary school there was a project week. I would usually help her with this when it came to constructing (Kites) or making something (paper). One year I suggested making go-carts and at the end of the week have races on open day. She was a bit wary about this as she had no idea of what to do. I had to admit at the time I had no idea either. All I had was a hazy picture in my mind of Wellingtons go-cart!
I decided to first build a mini version to get an idea what it would look like. I sketched out a plan adding the parts. I though the construction plan could be given as a handout to the kids if they were interested so they could make there own model after the project week was over.
Here is the mini version and the construction information
[Ed: Note all construction plans can be clicked on to enlarge for detail]:
Next was to build a full size prototype to see if it would work. I had to take into consideration the age of kids (bolt / screw it together but no cutting of wood), their size (adjustable positioning of the front axis), safety (hand brake) and durability (wouldn’t fall apart in the project week or on open day at the races).
So it was first to the drawing board. As I studied Technical Drawing there was not problem with creating a perspective view of the go-cart. Then an exploded view and a list of parts to what was going to be the construction package.
H started to ask parents if there were any old prams from which we could use for the wheels and axis. We got enough pram frames for all five go-carts with some wheels to spare. I bought the wood, metal brackets etc for the prototype and got to work. With trial and error it took two weeks of evenings in the basement to put it all together making sure I could take it apart again when finished. This was going to be the demonstration model to show the kids how it went all together before they would in four groups construct the other carts.
I of course took into consideration my own size and weight as I wanted at least once in my life to be pushed around in one. Surprisingly the prototype was up to my expectations as well as my size wise and that it also took my weight!
The next stage was to deconstruct the prototype and create four ‘kits’ based on the parts. Fortunately the friend of one of H’s colleagues had access to a workshop where we could cut and drill the parts. Afterwards we constructed and then deconstructed the four carts to make sure we wound not have major problems in the week. We were sure we would have minor problems making sure the kids didn’t harm themselves in their eagerness to get them finished and take a spin around the playground before open day. Although we would have parents in each group to oversee the construction we still had to keep the construction process as simple as possible due to the kids that had signed on for this project were from all classes (1st. to 4th. years). Strategically we had the little ones assigned to painting the prototype and sticking bicycle reflectors on any free spaces and the older ones bolting and screwing the other four.
One mother created cushions for the carts (back and bottom) from foam and pillow covers. The week went well and there were no accidents apart from one of the fathers banging his finger with a hammer, which was a little weird as there was nothing to nail only screw!
The weather on open day was fine and one of the school playgrounds was commandeered for the races, cordoning off the circuit and marking the track with chalk. A few wheels came off in the sharp corners but we had enough spares. Here is a picture of two that were built over that week.
I kept one and the other three plus my prototype ended up being stored in the school bunker. I was told that for quite a number of years they were brought out for the kids to play with. Some of the parents maintained them with any repairs that needed to be carried out.
The one I took home stayed in the cellar for a quite some time until finally we gave it to the son of friends. He was the same age as when I wanted one; at least his wish came true then and not decades later.
Growing up I was always commandeered to watch but never allowed to ‘interfere’ (his word) or ‘help’ (my word) in what he was doing, especially with electrical work. This was understandable from his point of view and also me mums, who kept a wary eye on us making sure I didn’t start to ‘try and help’ when dads back was turned or off looking for a tool he had mislaid, an attribute I now know I inherited from him.
Most of the time, I would rather have been out playing with the kids in our street than just passively looking on. Still it probably awakened the quasi DIY in me, not so much the house DIY, but more in the line of constructing telescopes and later in life robots, synthesisers and as I’m fascinated by knots, Celtic jewellery [Ed: See other posts].
Dad use to rather build than buy toys for me; not that I didn’t get enough commercially made toys growing up as a single child, this was more mums doing as she thought it was better to have some conventional toys around when I had friends over.
Three things I remember he built for me. A model of Tower Bridge to drive my dinky cars over, also it had a working drawbridge when I wanted to push a boat under it.A farm house which you could take the roof off to store all the ‘bought not built’ farm animals.
And an electrical buzz wire game in the shape on my name in capitals about 8”/20cm high with insulated areas between the letters so you had the chance to get your breath back and a pause in biting on ones tongue. This came out at every birthday party well into my teens.
I was pleased with these home made presents but its only now in reflection that I really appreciate the time that he spent on these projects just for me.
One thing that I secretly hoped he would surprise me with was a go-cart. In our street while growing up we all had bikes, and as it was a dirt road full of potholes we had fun creating a slalom circuit up and down its complete length. It was a dead end leading only into a farm and we had it mostly to ourselves, no traffic to dodge only parked cars from the locals.
I didn’t know anybody with a go-cart or recollect seeing one in the area. What I do remember is how it had to look.
Our regular newspaper at home was the Daily Mirror and there was a cartoon strip called The Perishers. There was a character called Wellington and he had a go-cart.
For this post I went on a search in the Net to see if I could find an example with one and found this strip from 13th. Oct 1965.
I don’t remember every asking dad for one built or otherwise, I think I would have got one if he had known, building something like that would have been right up his alley.
Well it never came to pass, but the idea has stayed with me in the background for over 35 years until I had the opportunity to build one, well in fact five!
Every year at H’s primary school there was a project week. I would usually help her with this when it came to constructing (Kites) or making something (paper). One year I suggested making go-carts and at the end of the week have races on open day. She was a bit wary about this as she had no idea of what to do. I had to admit at the time I had no idea either. All I had was a hazy picture in my mind of Wellingtons go-cart!
I decided to first build a mini version to get an idea what it would look like. I sketched out a plan adding the parts. I though the construction plan could be given as a handout to the kids if they were interested so they could make there own model after the project week was over.
Here is the mini version and the construction information
[Ed: Note all construction plans can be clicked on to enlarge for detail]:
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 |
Next was to build a full size prototype to see if it would work. I had to take into consideration the age of kids (bolt / screw it together but no cutting of wood), their size (adjustable positioning of the front axis), safety (hand brake) and durability (wouldn’t fall apart in the project week or on open day at the races).
So it was first to the drawing board. As I studied Technical Drawing there was not problem with creating a perspective view of the go-cart. Then an exploded view and a list of parts to what was going to be the construction package.
 |
 |
 |
 |
H started to ask parents if there were any old prams from which we could use for the wheels and axis. We got enough pram frames for all five go-carts with some wheels to spare. I bought the wood, metal brackets etc for the prototype and got to work. With trial and error it took two weeks of evenings in the basement to put it all together making sure I could take it apart again when finished. This was going to be the demonstration model to show the kids how it went all together before they would in four groups construct the other carts.
I of course took into consideration my own size and weight as I wanted at least once in my life to be pushed around in one. Surprisingly the prototype was up to my expectations as well as my size wise and that it also took my weight!
The next stage was to deconstruct the prototype and create four ‘kits’ based on the parts. Fortunately the friend of one of H’s colleagues had access to a workshop where we could cut and drill the parts. Afterwards we constructed and then deconstructed the four carts to make sure we wound not have major problems in the week. We were sure we would have minor problems making sure the kids didn’t harm themselves in their eagerness to get them finished and take a spin around the playground before open day. Although we would have parents in each group to oversee the construction we still had to keep the construction process as simple as possible due to the kids that had signed on for this project were from all classes (1st. to 4th. years). Strategically we had the little ones assigned to painting the prototype and sticking bicycle reflectors on any free spaces and the older ones bolting and screwing the other four.
One mother created cushions for the carts (back and bottom) from foam and pillow covers. The week went well and there were no accidents apart from one of the fathers banging his finger with a hammer, which was a little weird as there was nothing to nail only screw!
The weather on open day was fine and one of the school playgrounds was commandeered for the races, cordoning off the circuit and marking the track with chalk. A few wheels came off in the sharp corners but we had enough spares. Here is a picture of two that were built over that week.I kept one and the other three plus my prototype ended up being stored in the school bunker. I was told that for quite a number of years they were brought out for the kids to play with. Some of the parents maintained them with any repairs that needed to be carried out.
The one I took home stayed in the cellar for a quite some time until finally we gave it to the son of friends. He was the same age as when I wanted one; at least his wish came true then and not decades later.
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