About two months ago a friend called to ask if I could build a glider horse for his new baby daughter for Christmas. I had never done anything like this before but I said yes anyway. Then I got down to doing some research on these. Many are eleborate carved horses bordering on a Carousel Horse. To much for this project. No plans found anywhere so I started with a basic rocking horse and a hugh file of photos off the Webb of Glider Horses. After two months of work I have finished it. Solid mahogany and hand carved. The body head and neck are each separate glued up blocks, cut to rough shape and then assembled with 1″ dowels. The the whole horse was shaped using an angle grinder, rasps, files carving tools and sandpaper.  It is finished with one coat of linseed oil and three coats of garnet shellac, then waxed and buffed. On many of these the hair is real horse hair. Not having access to that I used black  three strand rope. I drilled holes, and then glued in lengths of the rope with two part epoxy. Once it was dry I untwisted the rope and combed it out with a thick hair brush. Completed just in time for Christmas.

Launch Gallery