Thin-panel joinery for rocking horse?

[johnpipe108]

I have decided to make a toddler's rocking horse, from the plans in Anthony Dew's "The Rocking-Horse Maker." The rockers are 35-1/2 inch, tip to tip, and the rocker seat is about 12 inches off the floor.

The material called for is 3/8-inch birch ply, and I was able to get 30 x 24 inch sheets of BB from the local Woodcraft. I want to put a 6-inch piece in the middle of each panel to make the rockers, to stay with the dimension in the plans, as they are for a very stable rocker, said to be almost impossible to tip over in use, and I don't want to deviate from the specification.

Here is what the plan looks like:

I would like suggestions as to the best way/ways to do this; hopefully, it will be practical to do this for this application. This is going to be for grandson Nathan, who will be one year old on the 26th.

Thanks very much,

John

 

[johnpipe108]

Thanks, I will probably do some simple lap-joints; that fancy stuff is out of my league :drunken_s

Some kind of stringer re-inforcement sounds good, sounds like that would that be similar to the bracing across the back of a guitar? And I think I would double up along the inside of the curved edges of the rockers with a re-inforcing piece, between the cross pieces, to strengthen and help insure the panels don't flex at the joints.

I will think about some simple methods to conceal the panel joints.

John