PARKSIDE EMMA Toy Cart Instruction Manual
- June 5, 2024
- PARKSIDE
Table of Contents
PARKSIDE EMMA Toy Cart
Materials
Use a medium-density fibreboard for the toy cart. However, you can also use multiplex plywood or another flat plywood.
Sides and bottom:
- 1× medium-density fibreboard, 1000/1500 mm, 12 mm thick
- Cut the side panels to: 2× 400/600 mm
- Cut the front and back panels to: 2× 350/385 mm
- Cut the bottom panel to: 1× 385/540 mm
Miscellaneous:
- 4× rollers/wheels, Ø 140 mm, 20 mm thick
- 1× threaded rod, Ø 8 mm, 1000 mm
- Cut the threaded rod to: 2× 500 mm
- 1× cable channel, Ø 15/15 mm, 1000 mm
- Cut the cable channel to: 2× 500 mm
- 8× washers, Ø (inside) 8.4 mm
- 4× M8 cap nuts
- 1× rope, Ø 12 mm, 500 mm
Tools
Other materials
Wood: Check! Tools: Check! Lay out the items
below where you can reach them, and you’re ready to start:
Safety
Caution! Sawing, drilling and sanding are fun. Injuries, not so much. So make sure you use adequate protection while working!
Assembly instructions
Our tip: Read through all of the work steps before you start. Everything ready and within reach? Understand the instructions? Then it’s time to build. You got this!
Preparation
Draw and cut: Begin by carefully drawing the individual pieces on the
fibreboard with the dimensions found in the assembly diagrams. As you do so,
remember that the saw blade on your handheld circular saw is 2 to 3 mm thick.
Keep the width of your saw blade in mind as you draw so that all of the side
panels are exactly the same size as their counterparts. Next, use a compass to
draw a corner arc with a radius of 40 mm on the corners of the side panels.
The corners will be rounded down here later. The drill holes for the pull rope
and the two “eyes” are also drawn at this point.
Cut along the straight lines using the handheld
circular saw and the rip fence.
Tip: Where the rip fence is too short, just fix a straight edge or a
level onto the board with two screw clamps and use it as a guide rail.
Side panels: Only glue is used to hold the toy cart together. To help
stabilise it, mill grooves into the two side panels with the router. To do
this, set the milling head (12 mm groove cutter) so that it sinks 5 mm into
the wooden board. Then set the rip fence on the milling machine so that the
distance to the bottom edge of the board is 30 mm. This milled groove for the
bottom panel will start and end exactly 18 mm from the front and rear edge of
the board.
Now mill from the groove’s end point for the
bottom parallel to what will later be the front and rear edge of the side
panels – at 18 mm from the edge, to exactly 30 mm below what will later be the
top edge, to create grooves for gluing the boards to the front and back
panels. Sink the milling head on the left end of the groove when you start.
Tip: Before milling, draw the exact groove on the board, especially the
start and end points, which will be crucial to the final result. This allows
you to always see whether you are milling “in line.” Clamp the board tightly
to keep it from moving while you mill.
Now mark the positions of the axles on the bottom edge, 20 mm from the bottom
and 95 mm from each side, and drill through the markings with a 10 mm wood
drill bit.
Once this is done, take the jigsaw, clamp in a
narrow bayonet blade and round off the corners of the board along the arc that
you drew earlier. Then you can use the sandpaper to sand the saw cuts smooth
and chamfer all of the exterior panel edges slightly, or them off with the
router.
Front and back panels: Notch the top and bottom of the boards for the
front and back so that they sit flush in the glue grooves of the side panels.
To do this, use the jigsaw to saw out a piece measuring 15 mm high by 5 mm
wide on each of the four corners (see assembly diagram).
Now give the front panel its two “eyes”, which should be drilled 115 mm from
the top and 105 mm from each side. After marking the holes, clamp a 40 mm
Forstner bit into the bench drill and carefully drill through the board.
Now there are just two more 15 mm holes to drill with the small
Forstner bit, where the pull rope will be attached later. They should be
positioned 105 mm from the side edge and 185 mm from the bottom edge.
Bottom panel: The bottom panel is actually done once you’ve cut it to
size. All you have left to do is treat the edges, which you can chamfer
slightly with sandpaper and a cork sanding block.
Lettering
To mill a name into the side of the toy cart,
first rough out a stencil for each letter you will need. You can use a thicker
plywood to do this, for example. All that matters is that each letter is the
same height. The width of the stencil cut-out corresponds to the diameter of
the copy ring on your router – the milling head will run through the centre of
the stencil.
Once the stencils are done, use a pencil to
mark the bottom edge of the letters on the stencils as well as the centre of
the letters and the distance between each letter on the side panels. Then
position the in a row on these markings, fix them in place with screw clamps
and set your router with the copy ring into the stencil. Now sink the milling
machine into the wood and start on the stencils, letter by letter.
Tip: If you want to cut the letters all the way through instead of just
milling into the wood’s surface, you will need to leave a connector in closed
letters like “A”, “O” and “B” so that the inside of the letter doesn’t fall
out.
Assembly
All pieces are now finished and can be glued together. Before you start,
attach a rope to the front panel with the “eyes” by sticking it through the
two 15 mm drilled holes and make a sturdy knot on the inside at each end. Then
take up the front and back panels again and round the top and bottom edges of
the panels off a bit with sandpaper. The sides will remain sharpedged, as they
need to fit tightly into the glue groove.
Now apply wood glue to the glue groove on one side panel and
insert the front panel with the face into one of the short grooves. Then do
the same with the bottom panel and apply a thin bead of glue to the bottom
edge of the front panel. Finally, assemble the back panel in exactly the same
way. Use a rubber mallet and some extra wood to hammer the panels into the
glue groove so that they fit flush together.
Apply a bead of glue to the groove of the remaining side panel
and stick the panel firmly into the panels that have already been assembled.
Use extra wood and a rubber mallet again so that the edges of the panel sit
all the way in the glue groove. The bottom panel will form right angles on its
own. If your work is a bit messy, you should use screw clamps and extra boards
to hold the panels in place until the glue has set.
Undercarriage:
I chose to use wheels 140 mm high and 20 mm thick. The axle length will be
based on the wheel thickness. Simply adapt the plan to your materials here.
The cable channel on the underside is always 37.5 cm long. Use double-sided
tape to attach this.
Tip: If you would rather build wheels yourself, you can do so
with the help of the router: Use the compass to draw a circle. Set your
desired size and use the groove cutter to cut the wheel out of the remnants of
your medium-density fibreboard in 5 mm increments. Now chamfer the edges of
the wheels with sandpaper and make a hole in the middle with the wood drill
bit (8 mm).
Now run the threaded rods through the box and slip a washer onto
each end from the outside, then a wheel, then another washer and finally use a
spanner to twist on a cap nut until it is “hand-tight”. You can also apply a
bit of liquid threadlocker to the thread first.
YOU’RE DONE. YOU DID IT!
What a great toy cart! After you’ve hopefully had fun building it, now it’s
time for the box’s little owner to
take over: to use it for hiding, tidying up or trips to the moon, Mars or
Grandma’s house.
Assembly diagrams
Preparation
Lettering
Assembly
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