Climbing triangle for a toddler

Things You've Made
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This is my first project on the LowRider 3 and one of my first real woodworking projects. It’s a climbing triangle for my daughter, who just turned two.

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Plans are from here. It’s designed for a hybrid CNC / manual templating approach, but I was able to CNC cut all the ¾” plywood thanks to the phenomenally large size of the LR3. I rounded over all the edges with a handheld router and then sanded. Dowels are 1 ⅛” diameter, approximately 24” long, cut on the miter saw and then glued, screwed, and sanded. Everything was finished with a couple coats of mineral oil. If I was doing it over again I’d make two changes:

  • Use a stop block with the miter saw to get all the dowels exactly the same length from the start. I got them close enough in the end, but it took more effort than it should have.
  • Modify the round pockets on the legs for a tighter fit to the dowels.

I started this project 10 months ago and it was the impetus to build the LR3 (after my plan to use a makerspace CNC fell through) so it’s really satisfying to get this done in time for my daughter’s birthday! She loves it btw :smiley:

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I have seen something similar in action recently, and they really seem like they are worth the time investment to make one. I watched this little girl climbing for a long time then fall asleep under it.

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Do they make them in adult sizes?

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Hey, you have a CNC, you can make it any size you want :wink:

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The adult sizes usually have restraint points as well…

What? Did you really think I’d pass that up?

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