Need advice on making wooden "skuut" push bike for my kids

[Vince Lok]

Hi guys, I'm building some push bikes (ie; bikes with no pedals, you just scoot on them) for my kids. I have the basic design thought out and I bought some spoked wheels. The frame will be 1/2" hardwood plywood. I have a few questions that maybe you can help me with;

axles:
The wheels have bearings and will take a 1/2" axle. I can use a threaded rod and wood insert nuts in the wooden frame, but I'm afraid that unless I fill in the threads where the wheel rides in the bearing, it might damage the bearing sleeve (or whatever it's called). I can use a solid steel rod and cut threads in the ends to fit into wood insert nuts (or even just regular nuts). I can use the steel rod and use "Axle push nuts/caps" on the end.

I'm leaning towards just using a section of rod with the push nuts. Would they be sufficient? (The kids will be 2 1/2 (twins) by the time they get to ride these so it's not like older kids will be abusing the bikes). Also would I need to add something to the plywood so that the holes for the axles don't get reamed out or excessively worn? Perhaps a sleeve through the wood?


head-stem hole:

OK, so for the front of the bike, it will be an upside down U shaped piece of plywood. Actually it will be two 1/2" pieces glued to make a 1" thick piece. The issue is ... how would I drill axle holes and head-stem holes LATERALLY through the sheet with any semblance of accuracy? My thought is that before gluing the two piece of 1/2" ply together, I could route a half round channel with a fair amount of accuracy on both pieces, then when the pieces are glued together, there would be a round hole between them. Any thoughts?

Hard to picture, so here's a link to plans that I plan to use as a reference;

http://crumleydotorg.chattablogs.com...es/038834.html

Thanks for your help!

Vince

[Greg Portland]

I like the idea of cutting threads into a steel rod.

For cutting the dropouts on the fork would you consider making them actual dropouts versus holes in the center of the wood? In other words, make an upside down U on each end to accept the axel. Careful measurement prior to cutting and final fine adjustment with a microplane rasp should work fairly well.

You may want to check out www.bikeforums.net, they have a section on bike building. Wood bikes (full size) are trendy right now so people have likely already solved this problem.