Pirateship Wagon Yarg!

My Son wanted to be a pirate for Halloween this year and I wanted to do something special since we got him a bagged pirate costume earlier this month. His 3rd birthday was a day before trick or treat in our neighborhood this year so I wanted him to have this for his birthday as well as for his costume. I had a radio flyer rusting in the garage and I decided to repurpose it.

I went to the local hardware store and picked up some spray paint for the water effect, pvc pipe (2",1.5",.5"inch) some couplings, foam pipe insulation, some pipe glue, rope, zip ties, pack of Battery powered LED lights 30count. Craft store got my hot glue refills and some fabric (3yards). Also had some scrap plywood laying around and random pullies and rope tie off hardware along with my drill with plastic drill bits,hot glue gun and box cutter.

Attached the 2"x2' PVC pipes. Left enough room so my son would fit in the back straddling. Pre drilled holes for the brackets and hinges that I used to mount the pipes with screws cut the front mast about 6inches shorter then the back. Then glued the couplings on along with the 1.5"x2' PVC also cut front mast about 4" then the back.

Cut the .5"plywood with a saber saw after just drawing and eyeing a boat like shape width and length hanging about 5" past walls of wagon. Then I placed the board on the top of the masts and marked circles so that I can cut holes to slide it over them. This also gave the masts even more stability. Drilled through the board and into the lip of all 4 sides of the wagon. I then used small nuts and bolts to fasten them together. After I attached with PVC glue and screws the small .5" PVC pipes for front end and drilled a hole trough deck to place the stabilizer pipe. Then cut a piece of scrape furing strip and drilled a hole at the top so that I can mount the boat skin later.

Cut the decorative side walls out of some scrape 1"x12" and attached one side permanently and the other side with a hinge so he would have a door to enter the ship. I had an old plastic organ that had a decorative top to it and it worked well for the back end gally. So I removed the keys and mounted it with some screws and hot glue. Put an angle on the seat for comfort because trick or treating can take a toll on a young ship captain like my son. Repurposed the negative piece that was left over from the decorative sides as the front rib mount and used more furing stripes for the rest. Drilled holes for the bottom sails and attached the .5" PVC pipes with Zip tie.

Used cardboard sheets that I eyed and attached with staples and then hot glued it to the sides and ribs. *note: make sure there is enough room from bottom of the side so that it won't hinder the steering and rub on the wheels. I didn't get a picture of the process for outside second layer of faux wood slats made from 2" strips of cardboard. I hot glued them starting from the bottom up overlapping about a .25" for the effect.

Attached the fabric to cross bars with zip ties. 3 cross bars total top two on each mast are floating so that the pullies can create the up sail and down sail effect along with a rope tie off hook on rib inside.
Next I made the helm out of cardboard and hot glue attached to mast with a long lag bolt.
Next made the rope ladder by stringing the top 4 times up and down to front mast and then knoted and hot glued the vertical ladder.
Next connected the rope from front to back with zip ties and hot glue so that I can mount the LED lights and it also stabilized everything in this process.
Next I hot glued the foam pipe insulation on the edge of the ship walls and seat for safety and looks. Made windows out of cardboard for the back gally.
Made a lantern out of a clear spray paint cap and with the extra fabric made some cargo bags and used tin cans for barrels. Painted and hot glued a jolly Rodger flag to top of the mast. Hook and chain as anchor.
Next spray painted everything.

Hot glued LEDs to top rope. And or coarse the wife and I topped it off with a pirate family.