How To Make a Cake Walk Wheel

 

I am by no means a carpenter. But my hubby is a jack of most trades and when I have an idea that requires a saw, hammer or any mechanics he is my knight in shining armor.

 

I wanted a cake walk wheel for our Halloween Boo Bash and he again rode in on a white horse to my rescue.

 

The Wheel

 

We used a 30 inch round precut  particle board table top. I believe we found it at Home Depot. I don’t know how much they are as we bought this years ago. It is used for the ‘Grands’  table for just about all holidays.

 

 

My hubby drilled a hole in the center and inserted a nylon bushing. This allows the round to spin on the base. You can see the bushing in the center of the table.  I just leave it in and it isn’t ever in the way.

 

 

Before we reconstruct the wheel for this years Boo Bash I will paint the table top. I used foam sheets from Michaels in Halloween colors for the floor squares and matching wheel squares. You can get 4 squares from one 8 x 11 sheet for the wheel. Since I wanted them to be temporary I used double stick tape to attach them. My daughter has one of those cutting machines and made all the numbers for me and I found the cute silhouette’s at Michaels also. I added the pumpkin to the stand to mark the winning number. We thought about tacking small nails around the edge but since we use this table top we decided not to. If you decide to add the tacks nail them between the numbers and add a piece to the stand with a spring load of some kind so that it will bend as the wheel turns and make the usual spin sound.

 

The Walk

 

Using the same foam sheets as the wheel I spaced them around the treat table and secured them to the floor with double sided tape.

The Stand

 

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My hubby used a left over metal fence post. He drilled holes in the top to attach the  wheel to the post.

 

 

The base was something left over from an old weight bench set. It was the perfect size and the fence post slid right into it. This too will receive a coat of paint this year.

 

To secure it for our first party, he screwed it through the holes he drilled in the base to our subfloor. Not something I recommend unless you are under construction like we were. This year it will be set up outside on the deck. I’m not sure I want screw holes in my deck either so we will probably use a bungee cord and secure it to the post of the patio cover. I can add webbing and spiders along with some pumpkins to camouflage it. If it had a bigger base, securing might not be a problem. You just don’t want it to move when you spin the wheel.

 

The only problem we had was with balance. Because I attached the foam pieces I had to play around with it to not land on the same numbers all the time. This can be resolved with painting on your numbers and designs. Like I mentioned above, this year I  will be painting it to match the floor mats. All I need to do is trace the numbers and silhouette’s and paint them in.

 

So there you have how we made our cake walk wheel.