Wooden Military Toy Hauler (Helicopter, Jet and Truck With Gun Turret) *** Template PDF Added ***

So for Christmas I built a couple things for my kids. One was a Wooden Toy Hauler but needed one more toy for my middle boy. I had a lot of fun building the wooden toy hauler but didn't want to just build two of those. He had been asking for a RC helicopter so I figured I would do the same type of design but work in a helicopter. I ended up with a helicopter, airplane and a truck with a gun turret (I wanted it to be a hummer but I think that you would have to have a pretty good imagination for that). Anyway it was fun to build and pulled behind the same type of semi as the other instructible so I thought I would post it out there in case others wanted to do something a little more difficult but still pretty easy. Maybe get some better ideas on how to make the truck cooler. :)

Like the other one the supplies were pretty much what I had laying around. Some 2 x 4's and some screws and a piece of scrap 3/4" for the wheels.

Tools:

scroll saw
belt sander

drill with large hole bits.

Supplies:

7/8" dowel couple inches

2x4

3/4"x4 for the wheels.

1/2" plywood for the plane wings

Screws to hold the wheels on (but some find that using dowels is better)

So once you have the basic shapes cut out you can pretty much make it how ever you want. The wings I build were a little wide and I think if I were to do it over I would make just some simple wedges for wings. I put some shots of what I did with the dowel to make it attach to the wing and body better.

Ok ... so the airplane was probably the most time consuming but not too bad. I flattened out the dowel and nailed it from below into the wing. Then put it on the side of the plane and nailed it through the dowel again to attach it to the airplane. I thought that it would be kind of cool to run a dowel through the body of the plane and attach the wings on a single dowel. Making it so the wings would rotate for vertical take of and landing but I was running low on time so I opted for the nail it on method. The turret on the truck is pretty much a larger dowel with two smaller dowels poking out the side. I do have one also pointing down into the truck to allow it to rotate. I'm guessing there are better ways to do that but that was pretty easy and didn't take long. The helicopter blade on the top was a a larger dowel rounded and then cut off. A smaller dowel inserted into the top of the helicopter and then the blade then the cap. It rotates just fine. I added two little dowels to the front of the airplane for guns but what a pain to line them up and drill out the trailer. I don't recommend that. As with the toy hauler you have to put little dowels in the trailer to keep the things from sliding off.

Like the toy hauler I didn't paint or stain these. My kids had a blast with markers and customized them with windows and doors to their liking.