There is a lot of building going on at Scitech at the moment with the opening of our new feature exhibition Ingenious.
All that hammering and gluing took us back to our childhood and we just couldn't resist the temptation to build a billy cart.

A billy cart (or gravity racer) is a fantastic way to start woodworking, designing and losing your skin on bitumen.

So let's build it!

Step 1: For Easy Reference

All the instructions including parts and cutting lists can be
printed out on this single A4 size .pdf

Billy Cart Demo Instructions.pdf
Download

Step 2: Materials

The parts required for this Billy cart are:

Qty.4 X 3.5 x 4" pneumatic trolly wheels - take some of the bumps out of the road
Qty.1 X 1200 x 396 x12 mm Plywood BC boards
Qty.2 X 1200 x90 x 35 Pine beams
Qty.2 X Axle 'Adjustable Ambassador' 450-600mm 1/2in
Qty.4 X Mounting brackets (supplied with adjustable ambassador)
Qty.4 X Split pins
Qty.1 X Roll of clear vinyl tubing 16mm x 2 mm
Qty 1 X Zenith M10 75mm stainless steel cup-head bolt
Qty.2 X M10 Hex nutQty.3 X M10 Washers
Qty.1 X Roll10 mm Rope - partly for steering, mostly for dragging your cart up the hill
And as many 25 mm wood screws as you desire,we used around 20.

All should be available at your local hardware store.

Step 3: Tools

And the tools of course...

something to measure with
something to mark with
something to cut wood with
something to put screws in
something to drill holes with (+ an M10 drill bit)
something to tighten nuts with
bandages optional...