Backyard playground

[Wlmedley]

Christmas is coming and my three year old grandson needs a play set.He loves to swing and slide down a slide. I built a wooden play set for my son approximately 30 years ago and it's still standing and that's where my grandson heads when ever they come to visit.They live in a housing development about 1 1/2 hours away so he needs his own place to play.I built my sons out of mostly treated wood but would like to use lumber off my mill for my grandsons wherever possible just using treated 4"x4"s for upright posts.I've got red and white oak,poplar,pitch pine,walnut,and eastern red cedar and some hemlock.Looking for advice on what to use where.It will have a small roof and I figured pine for rafters and poplar for roof sheeting but don't know what would be best for areas he would be playing like deck and rails.Have already ordered slide and will probably add other stuff as time goes on.Have picture of the one I have and his will be similar

[Wlmedley]

Couldn't get picture to post.I'll try again.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Another thing you can do from the mill is make him a set of wooden blocks to play with. Run your scraps through a table saw to make squares, rectangle and cubes, hit them lightly on the sander, make a bunch of 45's and maybe take your hole saw and make some circles. Throw in a couple of half inch dowels and drill half inch holes in the circles for wheels and axles and such and toss the whole bunch in a crate or toolbox you made for him.

   Another thing you can make is big yard dice by cubing and painting dots on 4" or 6" posts.

[Wlmedley]

Howard ,that's a really good idea, thanks. I've got plenty of scraps that's for sure.

[WV Sawmiller]

   Another thing if you have a good bandsaw or want to take the time with a jig saw is to take wide thin boards and make wooden puzzles by cutting random squiggles. If you do 2-3 different color/species of boards at one time and they will be interchangeable and add some challenge to assembling them.

[caveman]

I built my oldest daughter a slide and swing set about 25 years ago.  A lot of children and adults have used it over the years.  It was made out of PT 4x6's and 4" gas pipe for the swings to hang from.  The swings hang from about 12' up so they go pretty high.  The slide and platform is 9'.  The slide was made from roofing flashing.  The kids used to get me to wax it with car wax and go put on their nylon pants so they could go fast. 

My friends and I used to stand on the platform and shoot our arrows at 3D targets in the yard to simulate shooting out of a tree stand.

I made my youngest daughter some play fence boards and other items to build with.  My grandson, who is four years old (almost five) had a big time with them Sunday night after supper.  I may have enjoyed playing with him too.  Most of the building stuff was made from oak and pine scraps.



 

WLMedley, I think making toys and playset would be good gifts for your grandson.  Share your pictures when you get them done.

[Wlmedley]

For some reason I can't get pictures to post.I've never had trouble before.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Yeah, Somethings amiss. When I post the emojis won't insert. I thought it was just my computer.

[caveman]

I had trouble posting a picture last night and went down the page further and copied the link in the box and pasted it to the response page.

[Wlmedley]

Loaded up my log deck with all the cedar logs I have and plan to mill them into 1" deck boards for my grandsons playground project.Logs all seem solid and fairly light so hopefully sap won't be a big problem.I don't have much experience milling cedar so the questions are,should I try and cut off all the sapwood I can and how much shrinkage should I expect?Deck will eventually have a roof but will still see some weather.Will cedar hold up pretty good?

 

[Wlmedley]

Also this is the one I built 30 years ago and his will be similar but hopefully a little nicer.

 

[Wlmedley]

Got a good start on grandsons playhouse today and I'm worn out.My son did most of the post hole digging and I worked the spud bar.Got it pretty square and posts plum but took longer than I figured.Hope to get slide mounted tomorrow and will have to build a ladder.After tomorrow it's supposed to rain quite a bit so I'm glad we got this much done.

 

[Wlmedley]

Made a little more progress today.Put down temporarily floor out of poplar because DIL wants cedar I plan on using planed or sanded smoother and I don't have enough milled yet anyway.Got ladder built using pt 2x4"s with white oak rungs and fastened slide so my little buddy could try it out.Still need railing and roof but I've got pine and poplar for a roof and will probably use cedar for rails and slats.Had a warm day and evening so he got to try it out after dark.Should be done by Christmas but will probably add climbing wall and swing by his next birthday which is in March.He had a good time climbing the ladder and sliding down and I had a great time watching him.

 

 

[Wlmedley]

I got enough cedar cut and smoothed up to put down floor and railing.This will have to do for awhile.I made the mistake of thinking a 66 year old man could go down slide after my Grandson kept wanting me to try it.When I hit bottom I bent my knees further than they wanted to go and by the time I got home I like to never got from the truck to the house.Guess I need to accept that I'm getting to old to try stunts like that.Seems a little better today but still having trouble walking.Going to take it easy a few days .

 

[Stephen1]

Of course you can do what a 3 YO does, just takes a long long time to recover . :D
Looks great!