Rebuilding a Sheep Wagon that was a Basque Shepherd's Home | Engels Coach 

That's really neat. Essentially an 1880's camp trailer. I've always had a fascination for these wagons. Cannot wait until the next installment !!

Love the pictures of your beautiful state. Cant get enough of the wagon building. Thank you for posting these windows into the past.

Lol! You amaze me! I recall starting a few home repair projects as a young feller. I started out to just do some superficial repair and renovation. Of course when I got into it I found dry rot and other problems. What I thought would be an afternoon job turned into two weeks after work and on weekends, with the bathroom nearly gutted and everything but the window and tub/shower being replaced. I finished it off with a custom vanity made from notty pine and a matching light box. I remember wondering what to keep and what to rip out and once I started ripping, well I guess I didn't know where to stop. Lol! But it did come out nice. Oh and as I finished nailing the new trim on the window, I ended up missing a nail and putting my hammer into the window so it got replaced too! It amazes me what you are able to salvage and keep of the original wagons, and that vinegar and metal filing trick is about the neatest thing I have seen. I like it so much I'd be inclined to try it on my next wood working project. Thanks again for your willingness to post these videos!

In The UK and other woodworking circles, spraying on the Vinegar and Iron mixture is called Ebonizing. It reacts with the Tannins and Lignin in the wood. That is half of the recipe for Iron Gall ink, used on many manuscripts for over a thousand years... The Gall part is derived from various sorts of Tannic and/or Gallic acids.

Mr.Engels, I have, and do enjoy your work, very,very nice! I appreciate your integrity to the folks who built it before us! I myself have been in wood work for most of my life, and have 40 year's in upholstery and auto trim! Love your work very much! Thank you most kindly Wayne

Its funny how things are, here I am watching this video in the Caribbean and I have been to the three locations where this wagon has been, Joliet, Rawlings and Meeteetse.

Nice camera angles and editing. I will be waiting for more video's on this sheep wagon repairs. I love the work that is done at yours shop. Thank you for showing us how it is done.

Welcome to Basque country!

Really Good show, Mr. Dave!! Sheetrock screws do seem to have their place in woodworking!! Looks like the Montana weather is cooperating and the doors can be open for a time! Thanks for the Friday Fun Time!!!

Its a credit to your knowledge that you replace what should be there as opposed to what was there - ATB

Well done gents. Absolutely looking forward to the next installment !

Fantastic. I was raised nearly 60 years in Rawlins, Wy . Hans Larsen was into many things but I never suspected that he built sheep wagons.

Dave, Both you and Dan make the work look easy, but I bet the repetitive jobs like Dan removing ~10,000 staples gets old fairly fast! I do recommend that Dan wear safety glasses or goggles to keep the rust, and crud from flying off of something being pried out, like the staples. I scarred my left cornea because a piece of rust got past my eyeglasses -- an Eye Surgeon had to remove the piece of metal from my eye. I only work while wearing goggles now since crud has gottem past glasses once & safety glasses once. I've been binge-watching all of your videos to watch how you restore these old wagons & buggies. Fascinating!

Mr. Engels, thank you so much for sharing your work with us. I seldom turn on the t.v. but I always look forward to your videos.

Fascinating work. Love seeing the real craftsmanship that goes into what you do.

Nice work as always, shout out to Dan the man for putting up with us looking over his shoulder like this. Sheep are still a big deal in Rawlins Wyo. Getting right up there between the windy continental divides and running coyote food for a living seems like a bad idea in all sorts of ways, but they are still at it hot and heavy. Must be the adverse winter weather making for the best wool ever? That's a rough life living out of one of those, takes a special type to come back for more too.

Cool project. Thanks for sharing

Very cool brother, very cool.

Love the videos. But I have to say I was surprised those skinny metal saw horses are what you relied upon for holding up the body.

And once again thanks for bringing us on for the ride. See you next time.

Vinegar and iron filings just went on onto my ‘gotta try that’ list...brilliant... I just love what you guys do...👍🏻

Wonderful, just wonderful I can almost feel the history behind the wagon

You and your associates are doing a great job of helping history be viewed as in the older days. Thanks for producing and sharing another amazing video. ….13

Dave, once again I got totaly packed by this video. Thanks for making it and it enhanced my joy of wachting this channel. Please keep on going this way. Kind regards, Bram

Would it be safe to call the sheep wagons the first mobile homes, or at least the first RV's. It's true you do learn something every day. Today thanks to you I received a history lesson.

2001 hobbies ongoing,,,,,,,im building one as a demountable type at the moment in uk in a similar body style with more outside storage. this has been added to youtube at exactly the right time to help me. absolutely brilliant. I definitely be playing with the vinegar mix as i've been experimenting with various colour stains. whilst iv'e studied the jim howard vids this gives a great new perspective with the dismantled areas being renovated. surely that little door has to be a vent ? ill add one of them rather than a metal grid just for the hell of it.

Nice work Dan...

Just great to see Dan tearing into the stripping out work . he don't mess about .

Vinegar and Metal filings... Genius! Thanks so much!!!!!

Such dedication and hard work. Thank you!

These videos make we look forward to Fridays. Well, them and the weekend. Kinda a tie .

Thanks for posting!

My dad was born in one of these in Wyoming back in 1931! I look forward to this series of videos.

My dad was a homesteaders in Wyoming after WW 1 and lived in one of those until he got a house built.

It‘s awesome to see how you fix all the Parts and how good it looks after ... i like it 👍🏽

When I saw Don spraying the wood I just knew what he was doing, I used vinegar and steel wool to darken a new fence to match an old one. That Sheep wagon is looking great.

I never know what I'm going to see on your videos. The old iron hand jack used at the start is exactly like one we used on the farm for 50 years. I still have a pair of nippers like those Dan used to remove the canvas from the top. And the vinegar and iron filings to darken the wood is genius!

Wonderful ECS :) Another enjoyable video :) Thank you for sharing them :)Sincerely ...............

I'm just looking for the part where you fit the rims to the wheels...then reassemble the undercarriage. Excellent work by the way.

You sure have lots of faith in those cable inches. Be safe.

thanks again, looking for next week as always

Just love your work.

A great video as always.

Excellent as always.....

Once again I take my hat off in awe of your skills. It looks exactly like the one Sir Terry Pratchett describes in the Discworld novels.

you guys truly are artist i know there.s not much call for westerns these days but are you ever called upon to build or make repairs for the movies

Thank you, It is very interesting to me what people will do to a beautiful wagon. Them they have to spend a lots more money t have it rebuilt correctly. The good part is you get to see, fix, and make a little giving them a new life. Are you going to do anything to the stove or is it in good working condition? What little i could see it looked like the top is bent up. Have Fun with this sheep wagon.

Now THAT is cool. I wonder how they could stay in there with a stove that big? Even burning buffalo chips or grass twists, that is a lot of heat. I really like those old rear ends (automotive rear ends that is). I don't know what they came off of but somebody is looking for one just like them.

Will have to try vinegar and metal filings!

so cool, thanks for the fun fact about Rawlins!

Your videos are so interesting they go very quick. I enjoy them very much.

It was beginning to look like the Ship of Theseus, for a little while. :)

Love your videos. Just wanted to say you ask a lot of those scrawny legged saw horses to carry the weight of that carraige and Dan!

I MADE A CAGON JUST LIKE THIS ONE BUT IT WAS A WOOD MODEL MUST SMALL THAN THE ORGINAL. FRANK LACHER

Well done!

I'd buy that wagon just for the stove inside it.

Hey, that's from my neck uh the woods.

An original that's over 125 years old! Are there many around in as good a condition?

I also had a question about what type of fasteners were being used to replace the drywall screws. Secondly, the felt was used as insulation. Is there a 21st century replacement that you will be using? It is interesting to me how the Romany bowtop vardo ended up being used in the US. Of course the running gear was much heavier, perhaps because of a lack of real roads as compared to Europe. You could pull a bowtop with a single horse but it seems that the sheepwagon took a team. I always look forward to your videos.

where could i find a stove like the one in the sheep wagon in this video? thank you for the tips and info

You guys doing great 👍🏼 I enjoy your video a lot thank you for sharing

Speaking about darkening / Ebonizing / Iron Gall ink: We have a lot of Coastal Live Oaks and they have a lot of galls. Anyway when I was a child my dad told me about driving nails into the galls and soaking them in water to get ink. Didn’t work very well because someone forgot the vinegar. I’ll have to try it again and maybe report back.

I thought I watched all the old videos, I guess I missed a few.

Hello! I just bought my first sheep wagon! It has 20 layers of paint on it! What is the best way to remove the paint from the inside of the of the wagon? It appears to be some sort of masonite. Thank you!!!

🤗❤️👍

Thanks for another interesting video, I really love i!

What is the definition and purpose of a sheep wagon? 06:00 - good supply of shop rags!

do you mark or number parts as you dismantle? Or have a diagram? Just memory?

Basque sheperds Named It “etxekarro “

Is that some kind of old linoleum or vinyl flooring on the insides?

They got rid of the wood wheels so they could pull them very slowly down the hiway with a pickup!

Does the vinegar trick only work on pine or will it work on hard woods?

I understand that it's called a "sheep wagon" but it's really a shepard's wagon.

why make a special wagon like that instead of a typical covered wagon ?

This video was Bahhhhhh .... get the joke... sheep wagon... bahhhhh ... yea ..ok I wont quit my day job. Another great video!

Rashen. OK OK OK OK ok

So the shepherder's wagon was a real Basque-etcase. Sorry. I couldn't resist. I will exit the comments section now.

They brought you a piece of junk and you will send them home with a new wagon.

What an absolute mess that was.