As Western actor and performer, I am familiar with wagons and other historic wheeled conveyances, so I am in awe of your quality and attention to detail. Preserving history is the name of the game. We have lost too much of it already. Posterity will appreciate what you are doing today.
I was always asking myself how thus conversion can be done. Very interesting to see. Very good done i think. Many thanks for another high quality educational and entertaining video.
I have zero interest in wagons , but man I love watching your channel ! The mix between woodworking , blacksmithing , and the cool other stuff you do is just amazing sometimes. Great job keeping an older tradition alive and maybe inspiring a younger generation to not go so techy . Because when technology collapses like it must , these skills will be needed.
I was wondering how a new steel axle would look, until about 9:09 when I see you cut a slot into the wood axle to accept the steel axle. Very neat, very professional, the strength of the steel and the look of the wood.
I like how you've combined the skills of machinist & carpenter along with a wheel wright. I've seen superb videos of all three skills but never in the same video as you have done. Excellent work!
Your videos are again very interesting, you, your ways and your projects all really interest me perhaps because I also have a shop. I have a complete wood shop and do a lot of metal fabricating, welding and turning. In your videos I've seen so far are many tools mostly of which look shop made that really interest me and make me think they'd be nice in my shop also. Love your videos and your work... keep it up, please.
Very interesting to see how these can be converted! I just watched a different chuck wagon wheel greasing video and was wondering if when they use to use tallow as wheel grease did they usually have a maintenance schedule back in those days or did they wait until there was a failure? How long did the wheel spindles and hubs last in the long run when they only had tallow to use and on a long trip did a wagon wheel need to be greased more than once for the trip or did one greasing last for awhile?
I've watched the entire video series on the Piedmont Wagon. Amazing craftsmanship on display. I have one question. The tapered roller bearing has been around since the 1890's long before rubber oil seals and high pressure Lithium grease. What did they originally use for oil seals? Leather packings? What lubrication was used with the tapered roller bearings? Thank you and God Bless.
I really enjoy your videos. I was in Yellowstone last week, so close yet so far, as I had no wiggle room in my route, would have liked to stop in, just shake your hand. I do have a few Qs about the 'letting in' the new into the old. The ends of the steel axles, they do not appear to be co-axial with the old spindle. Should the cuts made with the table saw have been another 1/2" or so deep? Could you have pieced in a piece of wood on the bottom, a long piece of lath, same width as the steel square stock, to cover the new with wood all way round? Was there some other factor at work, getting all the bits to line up? Also, are the steel axles solid square, or tubing with only the hub ends solid? If solid, how deep did you have to vee out material in weld prep, does the weld penetrate all the way to the center, or is 1/4" in sufficient, given the strength of steel vs wood in these sizes (2" sq steel vs 4" sq for the wood)? Is the wood now just a decorative wrapper, and the internal steel axle is as strong or more than the old wood?
I have a wooden gypsy wagon.one of my back wheels has travelled towards the wooden bit on the middle of the back axle.the wheel stub metal round bit you see from the side is protruding about an inch more than the other stubs.... so the wooden part of the wheel has shifted from where it should be.any advice on how to fix it please?
Do the axles flex when under load and going over bumps, it really puzzles me that you cut them to fit, rather than waiting to order them till you have an exact measurement, I would think those welds would eventually crack if the wagon was used a lot?
Mr Smith I was interested in your question, cause I'm a machinist by trade since 67. I've worked with metal and welded a lot, although I don't claim to be an expert welder, I have done my share. You consider equipment being built, it take considerable amount of welding to hold the metal together depending on the weld being done correctly it will be stronger than the metal. After cutting he probably ground the end of each shaft to a 45 degree angle, about 1/2" deep to give him an area for the weld. After welding, grinding to clean up the shaft, he heated the area to anneal it so it would not break. I hope I have explained this in a way that you understand. At least I tried.
Thank you for your response. I enjoy your videos, I've seen every one by now. It seems to me that you have your dream job; you put so much care and effort into the work!
I've been interested in the boxings of original wagons. What is the history of boxings and wheel bearings? How did wheels originally spin smoothly before wheel bearings?
The squeaky sound of wood bearings on old wagons hasn't been heard for over a century, so I wonder how the magpies learned to mimic that exact sound. I can't think of anything in the environment that could make a similar sound.
Ouch. If this wagon is for regular use ... and why else make the bearing conversion? ... the join between the steel axle and the wood fake axle looks temporary at best. Two years on, how is this repair holding up? Also, the protocol of making the hub bore concentric with the tire rather than the hub seems at first glance to make sense. But the distance from the center of rotation to the tire now varies around the wheel, and with it the stress on each if the spokes. I predict that the spoke located at the point of greatest radius will fail first under hard use. Which just got a *whole lot* harder now that a flexible wood axle has been replaced by a heavier, inflexible ateel axle.
Mr. Engel’s, since I found your channel I watched every video. They are all great, no exception. Introduction of the background hammering noise (music if you say so) extremely disturbing. Those music gave me a constant ear running so I stop watching any and all videos which are using background CRUTCHES.
