Thread: Billycart

I though Billy carts were traditional made from whatever you had on hand, Crates, pallets etc. All in all it doesn't matter what it was made from as long as you had fun making it and the kids had fun driving/crashing it

Any photo's BTW?

I had fun actually making it, and in the end I used wood I already had for a while, but I didn't have as much fun fixing it. (thats what I felt like when the kids first crashed it)

Haven't built a billy-cart since I was a boy. brings back memories. Isn't that part of the fun, crashing them.

Your right John build em wreck em and rebuild em

In all the posts I have read about billy carts there is ONE MAJOR difference to when we built them as kids.


Those kids who are now dads are still building them not like my dad saying there's the timber you can use go build it which is what I told my boys (30 & 26 now).

Of course this is the fun part doing it yourself watching wheels fall off you know the ones you got from the rubbish pile down the road or the ones from the old stroller or even the old stroller with a few modifications.

The off you go find the bestest biggest hill around only to find half way down it you forgot the breaks out go the hands nope that wont work gravel rash

out go the feet only to find your thongs went flying off so now your using your heels

ok only one thing for it roll off and let it go a few quick and back to the workshop/shed and fix it then off again.

Yeah, I remember I used an orange box for my cart but those was the days when oranges came in wooden boxes.

start of each school hols the trolley/cart went on the back of me bike and off to the timber yard. They would be waiting for me and load all their scrapes and baack home again.
biggest ever made seated 9 kids, man that sucker moved, actually drove a car off the road as we came down the hill around the bend and holy mike where in ell did he come from, but off the road he went. Luckily for us it was the local grouch/grumble guts and the local cop ..well his kid was one of the gang so he saw the lighter side.

Oh Gawd... this brings up some long repressed memories!

Growing up in the bush, I didn't exactly have easy access to pram wheels or the like. I'd more or less resigned myself to being one of the billycart deprived. Then my Mum went into hossie to deliver one of my siblings (these things happen when you're pregnant) and Dad decided to drop us kids off at an Aunt's for a week or two until Mum was ready to come home.

I was all depressed, as this Aunt lived in the Big Stink and we weren't allowed to roam the neighbourhood at leisure, as was our wont in the bush, until I discovered that the boy nextdoor (who I'd always detested as a bully) made his own ball-bearing billycarts! We quickly became friends (funny that! ) and the rest of my tenure flew by in a flash as we hurtled down the local pavements on these contraptions, bums clearing only a few cm off the ground. Sideways, forwards, upside down... what a blast!

Even better, his Dad let me take some bearings home so I could make my own... however, in the bush at the time paved roads were a rarity and footpaths were basically cattle-tracks winding through the undergrowth on the side of the road.

Yes, I made my billycart. And sat on it, stuck in the very first rut, wistfully dreaming I was flying again.

Then I discovered the local tip had a few Morris Minor rear-ends and old iron bed frames. But I won't go there... my bum still cringes when I think of what the ol' man did when he saw the final result of that fiasco.

The ball bearing wheels didn't do too well steering though on steep slopes .... still got the mark of a bumper bar on my skull when we did a 180 and ploughed backwards into it . That was the last time I rode pillion!

Im basically in Skews memories... well similar anyways... came down an visited some rellies for a few weeks and noticed this old thing on wheels out the back yard stuck under the chook roost dragged it out and was standing wondering what the bloody hell it was when one of the cousins came out "ah that peice of crap dont worry about that" "what is it?" he looked at me as though I was demented and said "your fn jokin right?" "nope what is it" "you mean yous mob dont have gocarts up there?" "gowhats?" "geeeeez mate OY YOU MOB THIS POOR BUGGARS NEVER HAD A GOCART!!" oooh shyte embaressment plus as all the kids came pouring out from wherever they had been when they heard it

after some time trying to explain that no Id never seen one never been on one and had no idea what its supposed to do I felt like some sort of alien... when one of them said "well mate were gonna have to do somefun about that eh" and so we all got stuck in an fixed it up a treat well as good as a bunch of 5 - 10 year olds without a clue could...

"Sit there!" said one pointing to the cross peice up near one end "there?" Yeah you sit here like this put yer feets up on this bit like this an steer with this rope go on get on" so I did as I was told and then suddenly theres four pairs of hands pushing into my upper back and were ROLLING!!! geeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzusssss!!

"Hang on were goin out front Jimmy check where mum is QUICK!!" and one little cousin bolts for the house and as were passin the side of the house his curley head pops out a window "shes right Billy shes in the kitchen makin tea" "Bloody beauty!!" and someone else calls out from behind "HOLD TIGHT YER DOPEY BUSHY!!" since Id sorta relaxed into the rythim an had slacked off on the rope thing but I soon grabbed it up again as we exited the drive and went tearing straight across the road "TURN!! TURN!!" someone grabbed the rope on the left side and we careened back onto the road... oh right so thats how it works eh better check this out thinks the bum on the board and turns the other way all the while being shoved mightily in the upper back we scream into a tight turn wheels liftin "STRAIGHTEN UP YOU BASTARD!!" from the bigger cousin runnin toward us... so I did just as I felt these big hands thund down on my shoulders "RUN!!" geeeeeeeeeeeez we were howlin along then the preasure lifted and then no one was behind me and the road had started seriously heading DOWNWARD in a rush!!


"FFFFFFFFFFFNNNNNNNNNNNNgoooooooooooooodddddddddddddddddgggggggggggooooooooooooodddddddd!! came the scream from the bum on the timber peice

a gentle so damned gentle I didnt even know I had done anything tug to the right and suddenly Im headin for the bloody great tree on the side of the road a tug back and Im zoooooooomin toward the parked truck on the other side another gentle tug and Im hurtling downward again...

then... lets say a car carrying me mum and a few others came around the corner and STRAIGHT AT ME!!... of course no brakes of course no way to stop other than to hit something preferably something soft... but of course there was nothing like that was there

a week or two (cant remember now) in the local hospital later I hopped out on crutches proudly carrying my "war wounds" broken leg in two places broken shoulder broken fingers on left hand several large cuts containing many stitched to face head arms hands legs and BUM!!!... man was I in some serious pain

BUT!!! For the rest of our stay I was a LEGEND!!! seems I tore through the fence on the left just behind the parked truck through the bush into the shed of the old buggar who everyone hated ending up slammed against the wall under the old disused Fergie tractor in the corner.

A legend I was for many years ...till some other git namely my eldest son beat the record of bones broken and stitches gotten in a billy cart ride

Great fun!!!... although sometimes I wonder if maybe some brakes of some discription wouldnt be a good idea

I livel on the side of a hill, so downward slopes were not a problem... So dad decides I need a billy cart. He is no wood worker, but he is a fitter an turner. What he good with.... Steel. S I had a steel framed billycart. that thing was virtually indestructible (It got damaged much later when dad used it as a trolley to move a vintage car engine...)

in the middle of our backyard was a flat section that was used by the digging equipment when we built the house, so it went down, flattened out, then dropped about three feet almost vertically, then continued the normal slope. The challenge was to stay seated after it landed from the three foot drop. got to find whet he did with that after he bent it. My kids have already started riding bikes down that slope... it is time I guess to reserect the old billycart (Or make a new one)

PS What are brakes??? isnt that when you put it sideways??? mine never had brakes