Here’s my free, downloadable baby doll carriage plan.
I quickly discovered my grandchildren, similar to my now adult children, went through a phase where they liked playing with babydolls. So I used an internet image depicting a similar design concept to create and build my design.
The carriage is sized to fit most typical sized dolls, but make sure you check your child’s favorite size to ensure a good fit. You can always scale the downloadable CAD models, if needed, to fit your requirements.
Construction Tips
I used 1/2″ thick baltic birch plywood for the ends and sides and 1/4″ thick baltic birch plywood for the bottom. I prefer the consistent quality of the baltic birch plywood versus the plywood you find in the big box stores.
I decided not to use any fasteners, so the mating pieces are glued using 1/4″ (nominal) dado cuts. I wanted to avoid any gaps on the ends, so the sides have 1/4″ thick tenons that insert into the dados cut into the ends. The 1/4″ thick bottom piece simply fits into matching 1/4″ wide dado.
Tip… Check your plywood thickness and match your dado width accordingly. The advertised size is most likely nominal and not the actual thickness.
The main challenge with this project is cutting the 1/4″ tenons for the side piece ends and the matching ‘blind’ dados in the end pieces. The 1/4″ dados on the bottom are just simple dado cuts. I used a router to cut the correct sized dados. A plunge router was used for the ‘blind’ end piece dados.
Tip… I print and temporarily glue paper templates onto the curved pieces. Then I just follow the template lines to cut out the piece.
Before adding the wood finish, I used my router and then sandpaper to round the edges to minimize any chance of splintering. I finished the plywood using three coats of wiping varnish. The varnish provides a durable finish suitable to these types of children’s toys.
Drawings
I have provided a downloaded 3D CAD file (.zip) that has both a SketchUp .stp file and a STEP .stp file. Using these 3D models, you’ll be able to see all the design details, plus make any of your own design modifications.
