Body box
This is the largest construction of the whole project. Your template will show you the length of the parts, draw out all of the pieces on the template.
You will be using most or all of your clamps up here, you might even want to
borrow a few more for this phase. It is important to get the box tightly squeezed from all directions when gluing. Getting all of the parts ready
first and doing a dry run is smart. Also, gluing up smaller
assemblies ahead of time can prevent a lot of slippery glue work
later on, this is important to remember. That is one of the reasons for the internal blocks you see in dotted lines, they can be pre-glued and glued
up against later on as solid corners. After the box is glued
up it is good to pop in the pole holes as you can measure
and square off more easily from the body box at this time while it is still
rectilinear, refer
to your template. With a glue-up that is 100% stack lamination you will want to
get this hole drilled in earlier, probably before any gluing occurs.
Decide how you will be mounting your animal when finished. For a typical
home display mount use 1" i.d. pipe, this will need a 1-3/8"
hole in the body. For my animals, which I actually use on operating "Flying
Horses" style carousels, I use the 1" i.d. pipe too as the animal's pole, but it
runs through a 1-1/4" pipe sleeve which has a 3" x 5" x 1/4" flange welded onto
the bottom. The flange has 3/8" diameter holes drilled into it and is lag
screwed to the animal from below. This is necessary for ride use. You can free-hand drill the pole holes,
although a drill press is prefered. Do not use a spade bit for this
operation, use a Forstner bit or similar, I broke my nose with a spinning electric drill handle learning this
lesson!
This is one type of simple body box, the end where the neck attaches can be
much more open depending on your design.
The diagonal slash line gives an idea how the neck attachment area can be modified,
much more than this can be eliminated if necessary.
Plan it in and the wood can be sized at the assembly phase to minimize waste.
Note: I put a small vertical reinforcement near
the pole area for strength, remember,
I use a sleeve to run the pole through and riders will be sitting on my animals.