Al’s Woodshop – tricycle repair

I’ve been given a kids wooden tricycle to repair, I feel like I’m running a community men’s shed.

The damage is obvious, the handle bar was made from a softwood so no surprise the thing broke off. Here I’m knocking the pin out with a pin punch.

Found a nice piece of hardwood, I think it’s Balau.


Used digital callipers to measure the diameter of the steering shaft – it’s 28 mm. Later on when I fit the handle bar on I’ll need to figure out how to drill that blind hole…hmm.	Used the original as a template, I’ll drill the centre hole first.
I have several boxed sets of Forstner bits and hole saws, went through them with the calipers and found a 28 mm hole saw. It pays to drill a test hole – in the same material – so did that using the off cut – good to go.	When the drill bit breaks through turn over and drill through from the other side.
Drilling from the other side.	Done.
The blade on this 14″ homemade band saw is to wide to cut straight around those ends so I’ll have to keep cutting out to drop the off cuts and then pick up the line again.	So far so good, now for some sanding.
I don’t have a belt sander (future project) so I’m using my improvised Bench drill drum sander to smooth those curves.	And the homemade disc sander will do the ends.
Now for the tricky part, I need to (blind) drill the handle bar so that it lines up with the hole in the steering shaft. I’m using a drill bit to mark a line across the top of the shaft, then I’ll have to measure down to the center of the hole and transfer that to one side of the handle bar to get a starting point – fingers crossed.	I’ve tapped the bar onto the shaft with hammer and a block of wood – it’s a nice snug fit. We have a centre line now to measure down and centre punch the drill point.
We got it right (phew), the hole is off to the left because my bit of timber is a bit thinner that the original – that’s fine.	Tap in the pin – done.
This ends this particular men’s shed session – Cheerio