ROCKING HORSE BY COLIN WILSON
Carving a small plywood rocking horse made from a design by Judy F. Fergusson.
The horse is made from one 4ft by 4ft sheet of 9mm First Grade Finnish/Russian Birch Ply.
Pieces were cut out using a powered fretsaw/scrollsaw and then glued together to form the two halves of the horse and then both halves glued together to form the whole.
The glue used was Cascamite, also sold as Extramite and Polymite.
Once the glue had cured, shaping and carving was done using a Proxon longnecked angle grinder, fitted with a miniature carbatec cutting wheel, then a Black and Decker power sander and finally hand sanded, sealed and varnished.
The rockers were simply cut out of the same 9mm ply, using the power fretsaw, glued, screwed and pinned together.
Mane, tail and tack were obtained from Anthony Dew, the Rocking Horse Shop, Fangfoss, Yorkshire.
Lovely to see this post about Colin Wilson and his rocking horse carving. Colin was a larger than life, retired policeman and champion archer and pistol shooter. He always had a good tale to tell and was very popular at the craft fairs selling his children’s toys and wooden novelties.The items were beautifully painted by his wife Hilary, and sold at very reasonable prices. He wanted others to enjoy them as much as they did.
In fact, I met Colin long before joining the club. He was a regular entertaining stallholder at the annual Helmshore Museum Christmas Fair with Brass Band.
I agree, Colin is sadly missed, although he never did get any carving done
True, I think he tackled a few very small pieces. Derrick, Ken Speakman and Colin sat as a solid three chewing the fat every week.