Wooden Wheelbarrow

Easy Decorative Wood Craft Project

The Decorative Wooden Wheelbarrow is an easy wood craft project you can make for any season or purpose. You can use it as a wheelbarrow-o-plenty for a Thanksgiving holiday decoration or a planter for your patio in the Spring.

Building the Wooden Wheelbarrow

This wooden wheelbarrow is made entirely of used fence boards, including the wheel. The material used to make the frame is a single fence board ripped down the middle, making the size of the pieces roughly 2 inches x 3/4 inches.

Wooden Wheelbarrow - Side View — Diagram [A]

Diagram [A] is a side view of the wheelbarrow frame with the front wheel attached. It shows the size of the front wheel and the placement of the cross members and rear legs.

Wooden Wheelbarrow - Front Wheel Attached — Front Wheel Attached

Wooden Wheelbarrow - Front Wheel — Front Wheel Assembled

I constructed the front wheel from four 8-inch fence boards nailed together perpendicularly to form an 8 x 8-inch square (1.5 inches thick). Draw a 5-inch diameter circle on the square using a compass or similar device, and cut the circle out with a jigsaw or band saw. Simple, eh?

Wooden Wheelbarrow Frame - Top View — Diagram [B]

Diagram [B] shows the frame and front wheel assembled. Since this wheelbarrow is decorative, I nailed my wheel between the front pieces of the frame so that it doesn't move.

Wooden Wheelbarrow Bucket - Top View — Diagram [C]

I made the frame around the base [C] from a 14-inch x 3-inch fence board on the back (cut with an 8-degree Bevel on each end). On the front, I used an 8.5-inch x 2-inch fence board (also cut with an 8-degree Bevel on each end). The two sideboards are rips that taper from 3 inches to 2 inches and are 20 inches long. See Diagrams [C] and [D].

Once I assembled the frame, I scribed the angles on the bottom pieces before cutting them so that the angles would match precisely. I nailed them in between the tray frame so they would be flush with the bottom.

Wooden Wheelbarrow - Parts — Wheelbarrow Frame and Tray

We assembled all the components of the wheelbarrow using a combination of 1.25-inch and 2-inch galvanized 16-gauge galvanized finish nails.

Wooden Wheelbarrow Finished - Side View Diagram — Diagram [D]

This Wooden Wheelbarrow is an easy wood craft project you can build to learn the craft of woodworking.