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When arranging the territory of a suburban area, it is worth thinking about an interesting design of a playground. Of course, this question is relevant for a family with small children, but it is worth trying for grandparents, to whom grandchildren come all summer. Often, adults resort to a standard solution to the problem by buying a plastic container for sand in the store. Will a child be interested in such a sandbox? To lure a kid with a game, you need to come up with a non-standard approach to solving the problem with the playground. Alternatively, any child will like the sandbox machine.
Where to park a car with sand on the site
A play structure in the form of a car is no longer just a sandbox, but a full-fledged object for decorating the interior of the courtyard. It is necessary to position the car so that it does not catch the eye as a free-standing structure, but harmoniously complements the surrounding environment.
However, it is important to consider that decorating the yard is good, but you need to remember about the rules for placing a sandbox for children, and they should be followed:
- The sandbox machine is optimally placed in a partially shaded area. It is better if the playground is illuminated by the sun in the morning and plunged into the shade by lunchtime. Morning sun rays are not so dangerous for humans, moreover, they will warm up the sand that has cooled down at night faster. If there is no suitable place in the yard, the car can be placed in the sun, and an awning can be pulled over the body to shade the sand. You can make such a canopy with your own hands in a couple of hours. It is enough to install four pillars, and fix a piece of tarpaulin or any other material to the tops.
- The wind is not the best friend for children playing in the sand. Small grains of sand will constantly clog your eyes, settle in your hair and clothes. In a draft, a child, in general, will constantly have a cold. It is advisable to place the sandbox machine in a place that is poorly blown by winds.
- A playground with a sandpit should always be in full view of adults. Parents need to supervise children at play at least occasionally.
- When building a sandbox car, parents should take into account that the machine is childish, and it will not save the sand in the back from dirt and rainwater. The structure cannot be installed in a lowland flooded at the slightest rain. The car is parked on a flat area, or better - on a dais.
- If there is a reservoir in the yard or ornamental poisonous plants grow, you should stay away from these places. After all, there is no guarantee that even the most obedient child will not get out of the car and go looking for adventure.
Having learned these simple rules well, parents will protect their child from unforeseen situations.
What kind of sandbox will we build
It’s probably silly to ask such a question, because we decided that it would be a sandbox car, and not a ship or other structure, that would be in the yard. But the car can be different. There are many ideas for making machine-shaped sandboxes. You can quickly put together a box from the boards, resembling a body, and attach something similar to it in front of it, reminiscent of a cabin, inside which a child will not even be able to climb. Who needs such a sandbox? Unless a parent trying to put a tick in the correct upbringing of a child.
Another thing, if you approach with soul to the construction of the sandbox of the machine. The sand box can be placed in an ambulance, fire engine, crane, etc. The structure itself is almost the same.It is important to think about the design of the frame: choose the appropriate paint for the car brand, attach some part from a real car, take care of license plates, headlights, etc.
An important condition for creating a sandbox in the form of a car is a comfortable cabin. This part can be called a highlight of the design. It will be interesting for the child to get into the cab of the car, steer, press the pedals, and click the switches. All this imitation can be assembled with your own hands from the trash lying around in the garage.
Material for making machine
The main material for the construction of a sandbox in the form of a machine is wood. However, here we can mean not only edged boards, but also OSB boards, plywood.
Whole machine parts can be cut out of a sheet of plywood or OSB. As a result, all that remains is to fasten them together. Such work is not easy for a beginner. Here you will have to accurately build the drawings, transfer them to a sheet, and then cut out all the fragments of the car with a jigsaw.
Plank is a simple and traditional material for most jobs. It is convenient to make a car body for sand from it. If you show a little imagination, you get a comfortable cabin. It so happens that after the construction of the house there are no unnecessary scraps left, then the board will have to be bought. You do not even have to worry about the calculations of the tunic in the tunic. There is no extra board. Over time, you will want to make a bench, swing or table on the playground.
For such work, a pine board is usually bought. It is easy to process, but quickly turns black from moisture. To protect the wood from decay, all workpieces are impregnated with antiseptic solutions. The sandbox machine board is used with a thickness of 25-30 mm. You will also need a bar with a section of 50x50 mm. The car can be lifted off the ground to keep the wheels spinning. For this, the machine is placed on four concrete supports, and the lower frame is made of a thick bar with a section of 100x100 mm. But such a car is difficult to manufacture, and we will not dwell on it.
Now let's move on to the materials that will help give the sandbox car an aesthetic look. Let's start with the wheels. The easiest way to solve the problem is with old tires. The tires are buried halfway against the body of the machine. If you want something unusual, then you can take the wheels from the wheelbarrow, and, together with the shaft on bearings, attach them to the car body. Just for them to rotate, the car will have to be built raised above the ground.
You can make a car cabin with your own hands from the same boards or cut it out of plywood. A visit to a scrap metal collection point can help parents make their work easier. Here you can find and redeem an old cab from a truck. Of course, it is impossible to deliver her home without the appropriate equipment, but this option will make the child happy. Inside the cab, a seat must be made, you can attach a real steering wheel or bend an imitation out of the tube. Old switches and buttons are attached to the panel, and more children will be surprised by the flashing LEDs from Chinese toys.
If it is possible to attach pedals inside the cabin, it will be, in general, happiness for the baby. Then the question will arise where he will spend more time: in the cockpit or in the sandbox.
Making a sandbox machine from a board
As the simplest option, first we will consider the process of making a machine from an edged board with our own hands. Let's remember that we are still building a sandbox, so we focus on the box. We will already attach the cabin from the material at hand.
Sandbox box manufacturing and installation
So, first of all, we need to make a sandbox box, which is also the body of a car in our design. Adults know that sand is a favorite toilet spot for domestic animals. In order for the child to play in clean sand, the box must be made with a lid.
The photo shows an interesting and simple drawing of a box with a lid. It consists of two halves fixed to opposite sides by door hinges. U-shaped blanks are bent from two tubes. When the lid is closed, the child can use the structure as a handrail when playing with the car. When you open the lid of the sandbox, the two halves turn into benches or tables, and the bent tubes act as legs.
It is easier to cut the halves of the covers from the OSB plate, but you can knock down the shields from the board no thicker than 20 mm. Flanges with mounting holes are welded to the ends of the bent pipes. They are screwed to the lid with self-tapping screws or bolts.
And now we proceed directly to making the sandbox box of the machine with our own hands:
- The car body will be square. Let's stop at a size of 1.5x1.5 m. This sandbox will be enough for three kids to play. A square measuring 1.8x1.8 m is marked under the box on the site.A sharp shovel is used to cut off all the sod soil to a depth of 30 cm.
- The bottom of the resulting pit is covered with a 10 cm layer of sand or gravel. From above, the pillow is covered with geotextile or black agrofibre. Whatever the cover of the car's sandbox, there will be a gap somewhere or they will forget to cover it, and rainwater will wet the sand. The drainage layer will help drain moisture into the soil, and the covering material will prevent germination weeds in the back of the car.
- A square box is assembled from the boards. For reliability, a connecting groove is cut out at the end of each workpiece. The body height is 30–35 cm, so the number of boards per side depends on their width. In the final, you should get a wooden box, like in this photo.
- Now we need to attach legs to our sandbox. To do this, take a bar with a section of 50x50 cm, and cut from it four blanks 70 cm long. The legs are fixed at the corners of the box at the same level as the edge of the sides. The lower part of the posts is treated with bitumen so that they remain in the soil longer.
- Now it remains to dig holes under the legs, pour 10 cm of rubble on the bottom and install the sandbox box in its permanent place. The pits are densely clogged with earth. It is not worth concreting them, since the car does not experience a special load on the sandbox.
The cover of two halves is already ready, now it remains to attach it to the wooden sides with hinges.
We attach the cab and other elements of the car
So, the sandbox itself is 100% ready, but it cannot be called a machine. Now is the time to ask the child what brand of car he prefers. The shape of the cabin will depend on this. Making it out of boards is more difficult. The photo offers two of the simplest sandbox designs in the form of a truck and a racing car.
A truck is shown on the left. The cabin of the machine is made of a metal tube with a diameter of 15–20 mm. The frame is connected by welding, after which it is dug in close to one of the sides of the sandbox. The back and front wall of the machine, as well as a small roof, are cut out of plywood or OSB, after which they are attached to the frame with hardware. On the back wall, two pieces of tube or corner are welded perpendicularly to the uprights from the pipe. For reliability, they can be connected to semicircular handrails, as shown in the photo. A board is laid on the welded pieces of pipes. This will be the seat.
Next, it remains to attach the steering wheel to the front panel, and decorate the entire car. Headlights with wheels can be simply painted or cut from plywood and then painted.
The photo on the right shows an example of making a racing car. The cab is replaced by a front end with a hood made of two thick pieces of round timber. The steering wheel is fixed to the left blank, and an imitation of a gas tank cap is screwed on top with a self-tapping screw. In front of the cab, the driver's seat is fixed from the board to the sandbox box. The wheels of the racing car are made of buried tires.
In the video, the sandbox truck:
Colorful Machine Shaped Plywood Sandbox
To make a sandbox machine, you can use an OSB board or 18 mm plywood. Here you will already need drawings with exact dimensions. Aesthetics of the design depends on correctly cut blanks. The photo shows a sandbox car in two parts. The body and the cab are made separately, then they are connected. According to the presented drawing, you can cut the sheet into the required fragments.
The workpieces of the machine are cut out with a jigsaw, after which all ends are carefully sanded with sandpaper. Metal corners and hardware are used to connect car parts. Another diagram in the proposed photo will help to understand the order of connecting all the blanks.
When the sandbox car acquires a complete look, an old steering wheel from a car is installed inside the cabin. The hood lid is secured with door hinges so that the child is interested in playing with it.
The finished plywood sandbox car is painted with multi-colored paints. At this stage, the wheels, headlights and other details of the car are drawn.
Once installed in a permanent place, the machine can only be filled with sand and given to the children. Let them begin their exciting journey in a toy car carrying a full body of sand.
