Child's wagon steering geometry

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Hi all, I'm going to tackle building a wagon for my son as my first welding project.  Although there will be a bit of woodworking involved I want to make the frame out of steel.  I am pretty comfortable with designing the project up to the point of handling steering.  I have looked at a bunch of pictures online and it seems that each of the home-built ones have a different method of handling steering.  Some have fairly complex steering linkage while others look to be a bit more simply designed. Any thoughts on a good setup that will put a smile on my wife's face while walking to the store? Regards, -Jeff
Reply:A simple steering design would be a center pivot on the front axle and a a handle just like the radio flyer wagons have.
Reply:You can over complicate almost anything. Simple usually works out for the best. Go to a local hardware/toy store with a digital camera and take photos of the steering/handle. Go home and duplicate it. Keep it simple & put a smile on your face, her face and his face, too!  Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish has been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.                                         -Cree Indian ProverbSA 200 LincolnVictor Torches
Reply:The design where the ends of the front axle pivot is more stable than the design which pivots the whole axle about a kingpin. How much abuse do you expect your son to be able to give it? Riding down slight hills, or just holding toys in the yard?
Reply:I don't really think there will be too much abuse, but personally I like to over-engineer things so that I don't get frustrated later when some part breaks that was sized "just right" for the application (or so I thought).  I'm thinking something along the lines of these, but with smaller tires.  I like the idea of the top on the one where you can have some shade as well: -Jeff
Reply:Nice wagon, are there two or did you swap out rims?Bruce The Welding ChefLincoln Weld-Pack 3200 NORWELD StickStanford Hill Farm
Reply:Originally Posted by BruceNice wagon, are there two or did you swap out rims?
Reply:Ackerman geometry may be the answer to you question.  I beleive the two diagrams on this site should explain it.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ackerma...ering_geometry
Reply:I'm just finishing up one of my first TIG projects, and like you I built a wagon for my nephews.There are still a few small metal finishing details to handle, and I'm going to paint the chassis, but it's pretty much done.The more welds I did the better they got, it's too bad all the nice looking welds don't show, and the ugly ones are front and center.The next project will be a lot better, with much better looking welds.The cool part is I learned a ton of useful lessons about about fit up, distortion and movement from welding, the importance of clamping parts and building jigs to hold parts in place while welding.  Lots more to learn, but this was really fun. It's fairly low and the track is a lot wider than the stock setup so the little dudes should have to work a lot harder to flip this one. I made an adjustable tie-rod steering system so I can fine tune the toe-in after we take it out for a few test runs.  I purposely limited the steering lock and used a pull rope instead of a handle in the hopes of keeping them from any stand-up downhilling. I still have the scars from my youthful experiments in that area.   Last edited by exotherm; 06-14-2009 at 02:53 PM.