Decisions, Decisions!

Carriage restoration isn't really a linear process.  It's a procession of decisions made on a day to day basis, and feeling free to change your mind about how to go about a thing, if a better solution comes to mind before you're totally committed to your first idea.

For us amateurs and first-time restorers, the decision making process is much more painful, because we don't have the experience to anticipate the consequences of our choices, and the making of a correct decision automatically in any given situation has not yet become instinctive.  We have to try harder not to make mistakes, but we don't automatically know when we're right, and when we're wrong.

I once knew a jack-of-all-trades, a clever and meticulous workman who was skilled with wood, metal and auto finishing.  He elected to go into the carriage business, taught himself how to make wheels, etc.  and began charging for his work.

He took on the restoration of a dilapidated rockaway and did a spectacular job of restoring the vehicle, repairing all the split panels, etc., doing a great job of buttoned upholstery - including the ceiling - and finishing with a splendid - lacquer - paint job.

The lacquer, highly unsuited to carriage work, disintegrated almost immediately.  I think that was the end of his career in carriage restoration.  The catastrophic failure of his meticulous paint job was too much for him to bear, and probably caused him a great deal of mischief with the rockaway's owners.

So don't be discouraged if you find the decision making very difficult.  We'll get through this together.

Since a horse drawn vehicle is a collection of assemblies and sub-assemblies, each one has to be evaluated individually, using several criteria, in deciding whether to repair or replace or simply leave alone.  For instance, three wheels of a carriage "look" sound to you, but a spoke is broken on the fourth.  What should you do?

• Decide whether you are knowledgeable enough to judge the condition of ALL the wheels, remembering that they may be 100 years old, "rode hard and put away wet."  
• Decide what the consequences of  failure of ANY wheel would be if only one wheel is sent to a professional wheelwright for evaluation and repair or replacement.
• Decide whether you are qualified to make repairs that may affect soundness.
• Decide whether you'd just feel safer if a professional evaluated and rebuilt the entire set of wheels.

When faced with a worn or broken part:

• Would this part cause a catastrophic event if it failed?  (A wheel yes, worn upholstery, no.)
• Do I have the skill to repair or re-make (can you weld, can you select replacement woods and shape them, can you machine/fabricate/cast metal?)
• Can I buy it new? (Many times the answer is yes)
• Can someone else make me a new one better than I can?
• Can it just be patched up to look nice and be safe? (A broken shaft replaced, or repaired with a tubular metal shaft end, which are sold new).

How about dismantling wood and metal parts?

• Will I damage or destroy the wood if I try to remove this riveted-on piece of metal?
• Despite looking okay on the outside, has this bolt rusted in half inside the wood?
• How do I get this frozen screw out of the wood without having to wreck the wood?
• Can I ignore this one little area of dry rot when the rest of the wood is sound?

If a repair is warranted, what materials do I use?

• Ooooh, that's a good one.  Lots of bad decisions have been made here that have guaranteed premature failure.

Many people have sent their old carriage out to someone else for "complete restoration" and gotten back a bright, shiny paint job that hides a plethora of ill-advised patchwork repairs.  

If you are "doing" your first carriage, you'll probably make some sub-optimal decisions somewhere, your facilities and tools, not to mention your technique, may not be up to doing a first class job, but that shouldn't stop you from doing your best and rescuing an old relic from obscurity or destruction, not to mention having the pleasure of using it!  Just try to remember in all your efforts that safety and soundness come first; shortcuts for the sake of expedience will always backfire.

SO! With that train of thought finally pulling into the station...

This is the story of what happens when you decide to save old parts, then decide you made a mistake, then decide maybe you DIDN'T make a mistake, then end up throwing two weeks of work into the garbage can.

In the last post I had decided to save the shaft cross bar, and at least covered a little useful territory on paint removal and screw extraction.  I was still at odds about what to do about the irons; should I fit them to the new shafts, or should I buy new...assuming the new irons would fit the new wood.

Never assume anything.

I had first decided to try using a fancier pair from a different set of shafts.

The new wood arrived, and I decided there was too much bending involved to work with the cast irons.  Using the irons from the shafts I was replacing was the next choice.  After all, they'd be shaped to fit the old cross bar, at least.

Now, I've got a problem with my work flow again.

I did most of the bending on one shaft iron to fit its new wood before I cleaned the metal.

Heat and a wire wheel revealed two beautifully hand made pieces of work.  I'm so happy I decided to save the old originals!

until...

Until I am well into re-bending the iron (with heat) and

drilling holes in the new wood to match the irons...

and I come across this...

Yes, that little crack through the bolt hole.  No bother, I think, I'll just take it to the welder.  Only it turns out it's not that easy.  You see, wrought iron, which we're assuming this is, has a bad habit of crystallizing, which is going to make arc welding highly unsatisfactory, and render the entire part potentially unsafe, owing to the particular position of this crack, which is in the curve of the shaft heel*.  Unfortunately, there is a similar crack starting in the same position hole on the other iron.  Given the extensive wear throughout the entire sub-assembly known as "shafts", I finally had to admit - with the concurrence of more knowledgeable restorers - that these parts HAVE to be replaced for the sake of safety.

To hell with it.  I tossed the crossbar and singletree too.  That is of course AFTER I had decided to do some repairs to the crossbar, struggle to remove all the hardware from it, strip it, and fit it to the shafts.

All in the trash.  What I have to show for it is a budding case of tendinitis in both arms from all the pounding, and another delay while I wait for the new parts to arrive.

The biggest decision one has to make is whether to admit your first decision(s) cost you a lot of time and effort that didn't pay off.

Conservation is one thing.  Rehabbing an old buggy to put it back into service is another.  The decision that favors safety is the one that counts the most.

*For extensive information about wrought iron, visit Real Wrought Iron, Ltd.

Shaft Project Rewind - Let's Start Over

All photos are high definition - click on a photo to view larger image.

I discovered this morning that while some new wooden shafts ship with the crossbar, others do not; you order them individually by the length you need.

I got two sets of shafts yesterday (one for a separate project) and neither had crossbars.

That's okay, I realized that I hadn't taken into account the narrow track of the buggy.  I decided to see if I could salvage the old crossbar, which would already be cut so as to place the shafts at the correct distance and angle apart.  So today's project was to entirely dismantle the old set of shafts.  We already know that the shafts themselves are not fit for service and will be discarded.

Already I'm heading for a bit o' trouble!

I've also decided that I'm going to salvage the old irons after all, and not use the ones I've already done so much work to!  First order of business, grind the ruined threads off the shaft iron bolts, heating the nuts to make them easier to spin off.

Since the eyes on these shaft irons are heavily worn, I'll take the irons to the welder and have him replace them with these new ones, ordered from Witmer Coach Shop.

Once the irons were removed, it was time to separate the shafts from the cross bar.  The cross bar has a tenon in each end which inserts into a mortise on each shaft.  The ones I've seen in the past are held together with a nail or two hidden under the shaft irons.  But what I mistook for a nail on these shafts turned out to be a wooden peg. I had gouged out the shaft wood attempting to get a claw on the "head" of the nail, never intending to salvage the shafts.

 When I discovered my mistake, it was an easy matter to drill the peg out, although on my first attempt, the drill went a bit crooked and a chip came away from the tenon.  The chip glued right back into place.

 

The second attempt was more successful and the tenon popped right out.

The tenons were plugged and repaired.

Next I wanted to see just what kind of shape the rest of the crossbar was in, so I decided to strip the paint.







STRIPPING PAINT WITH A HEAT GUN

Ever since I discovered stripping paint from antique carriages with heat, it's become my favorite choice, at least for wood.  You can use a small torch, or you can use a heat gun.  I like the heat gun because it's easier to control and doesn't scorch as easily.  This one has a 1,000 degree setting that blisters paint readily.

Stripping with heat takes just a little practice.  The heat is aimed at the area to be stripped, and when the paint blisters, it's scraped off with a putty knife or similar tool.  That's really all there is to it.  I've found that heat works great on the old paints, but may make modern paints sticky.

Old paints and fillers are loaded with lead, so one must remember to wear their favorite NIOSH approved Darth Vader mask.  No, I don't know what NIOSH stands for.  I don't know what 3M stands for either, but this is a 3M, NIOSH approved mask.

The stripped crossbar turned out to be hard as iron and apparently was painted black at some point.

Paint stripping, whether chemical or heat, is just a first step.  TONS of sanding and other surface preparation remain.  The nice part about heat stripping is there is no decontamination of the surface (neutralizing stripper) to do, and no icky goo hiding in cracks and screw holes, waiting to sabotage your paint job...

...and instead of a bunch of slimy, skin-scalding goo to clean up, you have a little pile of brittle, roasted paint flakes.









REMOVING FROZEN SCREWS FROM WOOD

After stripping the crossbar, I now have high confidence in the singletree, but before I can strip it, I have to remove the yoke - the metal reinforcements surrounding the king bolt.

Not unexpectedly, the two screws holding the yoke/caster to the underside of the singletree are frozen in place and will not budge.  To remove them, we will try pinpoint heat.

Numerous sources of heat can be used, as long as they can be controlled to a very small point.

This unit is an industrial, propane soldering iron.  We are going to heat it and apply the tip to a frozen screw head.

Look at those twin jets of flame!  It took quite a few minutes to heat the tip sufficiently to affect the screw.  In this photo, the tip is being held against one screw head for 60 seconds.

At the end of 60 seconds, the soldering iron was removed and a screwdriver that closely fit the slots was positioned.  The butt of the screwdriver handle was given one sharp rap with a hammer.

Then, with a fair bit of careful pressure, the screw yielded!

The soldering iron was applied to the second screw head and came out even easier, since the soldering iron was now really well heated up.

In this sequence the surrounding wood has the protection of the metal yoke casting.  Care will have to be used with screw heads that are in direct contact with wood.  This is why pinpoint control of the heat source is so necessary...you don't want to char the wood!

The buggy seat has seven stubbornly frozen screws holding it to the seat riser.  I hope this method will keep me from going to the nut house, trying to extract those screws without damaging the seat!

Shafts, Rotten Wood, Rusty Iron

 Note:  All pictures are high resolution.  Click on a photo to enlarge it.

One of the sub-assemblies of a carriage that represents nearly all the tasks involved in restoration is the shafts.  There is evaluation, disassembly, surface preparation, painting, and to a certain extent, upholstery.  Shafts are a good warm-up painting project because it is much easier to paint narrow surfaces than it is to paint broad panels, as on a carriage body.

Because I hope to drive this vehicle before I start full-scale restoration, I decided to tackle the shafts while the wheels are out for professional restoration.

The shafts that came with the buggy are toast.  This picture is of a very skillful repair; a broken shaft has been spliced with a neat metal plate.  

These are tubular metal repair sockets.  Both shafts have been broken at some time.

The singletree yoke is broken...

And the shaft eyes are excessively worn.

I can probably salvage the iron braces, including the shaft eyes, but I have another old set of shafts which have been rotting away outdoors for decades.  The ironwork is much more ornate, and less worn.  I'll give it a try.

I have ordered new wood from an Amish supplier*, and I do not know if any of the old ironwork will match the new wood.  New irons are not very ornamental, but if push comes to shove, I'll have to buy new.

*Witmer Coach Shop, 1070 E. Main St., New Holland, PA, 17757 ph.717-656-3411

DISMANTLING THE OLD SHAFTS

The extra pair of old shafts has been dismantled.  Because the nuts and bolts are rusted together and the wood is rotted, the old bolts simply want to spin in the wood.  There are a number of ways I can approach the problem:

• Take as many photos and notes of everything as you can, so that you will have instructions on how to put everything back together!  This is actually the primary reason for my blog; to photo-document and comment on every detail of the process, so I can go back and remember what I did.
• First decide if the fasteners HAVE to be saved.  Sometimes nuts and bolts specifically fit ONLY ONE HOLE in the carriage wood.  These must be saved if at all possible and their position on the assembly mapped.
• The nuts and bolts on these shafts are expendable; it is even desirable to replace them because the old ones are weakened.  Enough rust will eat away at the threads, causing a loose fit in the future.
• HEAT applied to the nuts was sufficient to unscrew them from the bolts.  A soldering iron or fine tipped torch applied to the nut can be used to loosen it.
• If you must tap the end of the bolt to loosen it from the wood, run the nut back onto the threads far enough to act as a surface for the hammer to strike, thereby avoiding damage to the threads.

 There is no salvaging the old wood in this case.  So we'll concentrate on cleaning up the iron work.  As you can see, it is exceedingly rusty.

METAL CLEANING

Despite the fact that these shafts sat out in the weather for decades, an examination of the metal suggests that all parts are sound and re-usable.  But they are filthy and covered with rust.  Again, there are different ways of handling the cleaning of the parts.

Probably the first method that comes to mind is sand blasting.  We don't have a sand blaster, and have determined that buying a small one is not cost effective.  In addition, I'm very wary of sending out parts to a commercial shop, partly for fear of losing pieces, and partly because my experience of relying on others has not always been rewarding.

Furthermore, sand blasted parts rust quickly and you must deal with them right away.  If you have a large pile of sand blasted parts, many will start to rust again before you can get to them.

You can also lose track of what goes where if you send a whole bunch of ironwork out for blasting all at once!

I could wire brush the parts on the bench grinder.  This is pretty practical for smaller parts such as these, but can be difficult to get into tight spaces and has limitations when we get into larger pieces.

Fortunately, there is an extremely inexpensive, easy and effective alternative to sand blasting, called electrolytic derusting.

I was first introduced to this method on my last restoration project and ended up derusting about four hundred pounds of hand forged ironwork with it.

I found details of the process here:  http://www.stovebolt.com/techtips/rust/electrolytic_derusting.htm

Basically, the process involves immersing the metal parts in a solution of one tablespoon caustic soda (such as 20-Mule-Team Super Washing Soda) to one gallon of water, attaching a battery charger to the metal parts and to a "sacrifice" piece of iron or steel called an electrode, and letting "electrolysis" perform the chemistry of turning rust back into iron.

Take the time to read the above excellent article before doing this yourself.  What I am about to write is only an account of what I did; it's not a how-to explanation of how to do it..   I will use this process to clean all detachable pieces of metalwork on the carriage, including the axles and extremely long side springs as restoration proceeds.

Electrolytic derusting does not remove paint or dirt like sand blasting does.  It's best to strip old paint and clean off dirt first.  Polish a small area on the old metal with a wire wheel or sandpaper to provide good contact.  Then if you are going to entirely immerse the parts in the solution (as for small parts; longer parts such as axles will probably stick out of the solution), you must attach a wire (electric fence wire here) to the parts that will stick up out of the solution.  Here, I've wired several parts together, but I think it might have been better to attach an individual wire to each piece and then join  the wires together to attach to the battery lead.

Here the rusty parts have been placed in a 12 gallon PLASTIC tub.  Emphasize plastic.  Don't use metal.  The wire is hanging over the side of the tub.

The parts have been immersed in the soda solution.  A piece of "sacrifice" steel can be seen sticking out of the water in the upper left corner.  Do NOT let the sacrifice electrode touch the parts to be cleaned.  The tub is placed outside.  The process emits a bit of hydrogen, but is otherwise harmless.  A common battery charger is seen to the left of the tub.

The POSITIVE lead (red) of the battery charger has been attached to the sacrifice electrode, which will be eaten away during the process.

The NEGATIVE lead (black) of the battery charger is attached to the wires which are connected to the parts being cleaned.

IF YOU REVERSE THE POLARITY, THE PROCESS WILL DESTROY YOUR PARTS.

Plug in the battery charger and walk away.  You cannot over-clean the parts with this process.  I left the parts in solution for about 24 hours.

The parts being cleaned will start to fizz.

The solution becomes very disgusting!

While the parts come out looking nice and black.  One part didn't clean up very well, so it went back in solution overnight.

The parts are still rather dirty to handle and will require further cleaning.  They will also begin to rust again immediately.

1/24/15 IMPORTANT UPDATE!

When you take your parts out of the solution, wipe them down with a dry rag, then IMMEDIATELY wash them off with acetone.  Acetone drives the moisture off the surface of the parts and seems to greatly delay flash rusting!

This is the sacrifice electrode.  It has been considerably eaten away.

The parts need to be dried immediately, with heat if necessary.  This piece has been further cleaned with a wire wheel on a grinder.  Remarkable condition after decades outdoors!

As part develops a light layer of rust, I coat it with a liquid "rust converter" to prevent further oxidation until I am ready to do something with it.  I use SEM Rust-Mort, an automotive product.

Since I don't know if the new wood and the old iron will fit together until the new wood arrives, I'll set these parts aside for now.

Hmm, is there something wrong with my planning and work flow here?  It's possible I could have saved myself a lot of bother by waiting to de-rust these parts until the wood arrived! My writing muse, however, said it would be fun to do something NOW so there would be blog-fodder.

LATER, SAME DAY...

New wood has arrived.

Maybe with...

A little wood trimming....

...and a little metal heating and re-shaping...

Yeah, I think we'll be okay!

Let the Fun Begin!

A horse drawn carriage is an assembly of many, many individual sub-assemblies.  For this reason, I believe that every single piece of a carriage represents a separate restoration.  Detail is the devil of restoration.  It is easier if you set aside arbitrary goals, and concentrate not on the whole carriage, but on the piece that requires your undivided attention today.

Some sub-assemblies of the carriage are wonderful examples of highly developed technology; wheels for instance, and springs.  Some of these technologies are lost to our knowledge forever.  Wheels are of the utmost importance to the safety and usability of a horse drawn vehicle and few untrained persons possess the technological skill to assess the soundness of old carriage wheels, much less repair those wheels.  If this includes you, send the wheels to a qualified wheelwright for evaluation and repair or replacement.

It may take a long time to get your wheels back, so I like to send them away as soon as I start on a restoration project.  There's plenty to do in the meantime!

I can't believe my great good fortune!  Our wheelwright has put us in touch with a local party who is driving their own wheels to his doorstep TOMORROW!  (7/9/14)  These good folk agreed to toss our wheels in with their load and take them along.  So we spent the morning scrambling to get the wheels loaded and make the one hour trip to their farm.  We have contributed to the gas and are saved a tremendous amount of bother!  I should know shortly the state of the wheels, but I think it will mostly be favorable.

New shafts and assorted other delights are on order and should be here in a couple of weeks.  My plan is to assemble the shafts temporarily and, when the refurbished wheels arrive, go for a mad dash around the neighborhood in the buggy!

After that, serious work can begin.

Meanwhile, I amused myself this evening by commencing restoration of the whip socket.  After my drive, I'll be removing the dashboard, painting the frame and sending it out for recovering, so the whip socket had to come off anyway.

These whip sockets are available new quite readily, but this one is in such good shape, and has such dandy mounting hardware, that I decided to "dip my toe in the water" with it.  These whip sockets were available from the 1906 Sears, Roebuck catalog for nine cents apiece.  They're probably $15-20 new now.

The whip socket represents one of those sub-assemblies mentioned above, as well as a snapshot of what will be involved in refinishing the rest of the carriage.  It's a small thing, and a great way to restore something straightaway, to get a feel for the rest of the project.  The work will proceed over the course of several days.

Anyway, I decided to try out hubby's heat gun to strip the paint off.  I think the whole thing was originally assembled and simply dipped in black paint.

Set at the 1,000 degree setting, the heat gun worked a treat after a little trial and error with a scraper.  A little steel wool, picking and sandpapering yielded the above object.  Rinsed in solvent and set aside.

While cleaning the wooden socket, the mounting straps and their nifty little buckles were soaked in paint remover.  As you can see, rust is only beginning to damage the business-card-thin metal straps.  After soaking for 15 minutes, they were wiped off and sludge blown off with compressed air, then neutralized with paint thinner.  When dry, "Rust Mort", a rust converter was applied.

Then I tackled the only real damage to the wooden socket, a chip knocked out of the lip.  It was an easy matter to scrape away a wee bit of old wood with a utility knife to get down to a clean surface for glueing.  The groove under the lip retained a rubber ring to prevent the whip from rattling.  I'll replace it with a suitable O-ring.

A wee scrap of wood, about a quarter inch square, was carved to fit the damaged area and glued and clamped to the damaged area.

Everything was left to dry overnight.  The wood chip will be carved to follow the curve of the lip once the glue is dried.






NEXT DAY...

The glue has been allowed to dry and a small file was used to shape the wood chip, then sandpaper - first 100 grit, then 150 grit - was used to blend it into the surrounding surfaces.

Some shallow irregularities , as well as some fine cracks remained.  These were filled with 3M Acryl-Green Spot Putty and allowed to dry.  When fully dry, the spot putty was sanded back with 150 grit sandpaper, as 100 was too coarse for the job.

One more tiny crack at the bottom of the whip socket was filled with Acryl-Green and sanded flush with the surrounding surface.  Now the entire object is sanded with 220 grit dry sandpaper.

Now there is a decision to make...whether to prepare the surface further by filling the grain for a mirror smooth base, or accepting a less-than-optimal final paint job.

Since I believe in something called "over-restoration", I have decided to forgo filling grain on a nine-cent whip socket.  I have also decided to forgo dirtying spray equipment, and this whip socket will be painted with Rustoleum rattle can paint.  Do not smirk.  I have superb results with Rustoleum on small parts.

The wooden body has been wiped with a clean rag and paint thinner and allowed to dry.

The next step will be to brush-paint the wooden body of the whip socket with clear wood sealer.

At this point it's not a bad idea to avoid handling your project with bare hands.  Consider using latex gloves, to avoid transfering contaminants to the surface.  If you must handle the project, consider wiping it with a product designed to clean oils, etc. from automotive surfaces which are being prepared for paint.

The repaired whip socket body has been brushed with a single coat of Pettit's Clear Wood Sealer and left to dry overnight.

I like to use wood sealer because it makes for effective sanding, it seals grain to keep substrate layers from soaking into the wood, and I believe it helps stabilize moisture content in the wood.  I have never had an adhesion failure as the result of using clear wood sealer.

After sanding with a bit of 220 grit dry sandpaper to remove the wee bit of roughness from spots of rust and improve adhesion, the mounting straps have each received a light spray of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer and left to dry for 48 hours according to instructions on the rattle can.

The mounting straps have received a couple of coats of Rustoleum gloss black...

And the repaired whip socket body has been lightly sanded with dry 220 grit sandpaper, wiped with a tack cloth* and is receiving a couple of fast, light coats of dark gray Rustoleum sandable primer.

Because of the nature of Rustoleum spray paint, the primed whip socket can be top coated as soon as dry, about 30 minutes.  The top coat itself can be sprayed on, then sprayed again within an hour, or after two days. 

*A tack cloth is a piece of cheesecloth which is coated with a special non-drying varnish.  It is used to remove bits of dust from a surface which is about to be painted.  It is used gently, so as not to transfer any of the varnish to the prepared surface.

Why wait?  The whip socket has received two coats of Rustoleum gloss black.

That's pretty much it, a reasonable result with the minimum of preparation.  The parts will HANG to let the paint harden until I'm ready to reassemble them.

Soft new enamels will take an imprint of any material they are laid upon.

I once imprinted an important object with the weave of cotton socks that I had used to protect the object soon after the paint had dried.



Now that I'm "limbered up," I'm ready to start the really dirty work.

TIPS:

• Antique paint can be removed from wood effectively with heat.  A heat gun seems to be effective without scorching as readily as a torch.  Alternatively, a small propane torch can be used.  Practice heating, blistering and scraping the paint with a metal scraper.  Some people use a piece of broken glass to scrape.  Be aware that antique paints are loaded with lead, so take precautionary measures to avoid exposure.
• Never touch your project at any time with a rag that has fabric softener, or especially silicone on it.
• Compressed air blown on a part may be contaminated with oil and/or water, so it's best to filter the air.
• Automotive spot putty can be used to fill extremely shallow defects in the surface, or fill wood grain.  In this case I have used 3M Acryl-Green spot putty, which can be used between paint coats to fill very small voids.  My favorite spot putty for filling grain is Transtar Buff Spot Putty, an automotive product.  Spot putties and glazing putties are for VERY SHALLOW REPAIRS.
• Decide on a line of paint and preparation products and try to stay with it, as many paints are not compatible and mixing them may ruin your project.  Some product lines that seem to be compatible, and which I use regularly are Rustoleum, Pettit's Marine paints (clear wood sealer, Easypoxy top coat) and paints from the Schwartz Mfg. LLC line of buggy paints.
• Never buy inferior sandpaper!  Sanding is Job One in carriage refinishing, and high quality sandpapers will save tremendous amounts of time and disappointment.
• When sanding, start with the coarsest sandpaper that seems appropriate for the job, and work down through the various "grits" to the finest grit that you intend to use.  The whip socket project starts with fairly coarse 100 grit, then finer 150 grit, and will finish with 220 grit.  Starting with 220 grit would take too much time and waste too much sandpaper.
• 220 grit is a good grit to end up with when preparing the surface for paint, or sanding primers and between layers of paint. 
• Glues, fillers, etc. may shrink as they cure.  It is best to do any gluing of wooden parts as early in the project as possible.
• OBSERVE DRYING TIMES for paints and glues.  Many problems may arise in the finish of the paint if solvents etc. are not allowed to escape through drying before applying additional coats of paint. 
• Wherever possible, when glueing wood pieces in, do not be afraid to scrape old surfaces away to reveal a clean surface for correct adhesion.  Gluing a new piece against an old one that is covered with a century of dirt and filth is a recipe for disappointment.  Yes, the void will be a little wider.  But the likelihood of closing it permanently will increase exponentially by paying attention to this detail. 
• Try to avoid handling the object with bare hands once the object is ready for painting, to prevent transferring contaminants to the surface which may spoil the paint.
• Use an automotive wax/grease/oil remover if surface contamination is suspected.
• Use a tack rag to pick up stray dust, etc. before applying coatings. 
• Fresh, soft paint will take an imprint of anything that it is laid upon, such as a rag or towel.  

PRODUCTS USED IN THIS PHASE:

• Paint stripper for small metal parts
• SEM Rust Mort to stop corrosion on metal parts
• Elmer's Wood Glue Max (carpenter's glue) for gluing small chip of wood.
• 3M Acryl-Green Spot Putty for filling shallow imperfections
• Pettit's Clear Wood Sealer for sealing pores of wood in preparation for building paint layers
• Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer on metal parts
• Rustoleum Industrial Quality sandable primer on reassembled whip socket
• Rustoleum Industrial Quality gloss black paint for top coat. 
• Wipeout Automotive finish wax and grease remover.
• Tack cloth, to remove dust from surfaces which are about to be painted.

June 17, 2014

Okay!  Okay!  I admit it!  I have a problem!  I know, one is too many because five isn't enough, right?

This little confection came to us via Craigslist.  Just about the time I started driving my 14.1 hand Morgan mare again, I got to thinking how I wished I had a lightweight four-wheeler for her.  Beware what you wish for.

The carriage appeared around Memorial weekend and I was unsuccessful in my attempts to contact the owners.  Then it disappeared.  Good.  Then it reappeared.  And again I had trouble contacting the owners.

Until we were half packed to go on a two week vacation, and rain was coming down in buckets.  Three hours later, protective tarp shredded by the wind in what was probably one of the stubbornest downpours I've ever witnessed, the little buggy was sheltered under a carport until after we got home from vacation...which was a few days ago.

The little creature has been stored in a concrete block garage for some 45 years.  With the exception of horizontal shrinkage splits in the seat risers (one each side), there is virtually no significant body damage.  The wheels all appear sound, except for one, but of course all require a "cut and shut" and new rubber tires.  After this little photo shoot, the carriage was placed up on blocks, in anticipation of shipping the wheels off to a qualified wheelwright for necessary repairs.
I took this pic to emphasize the slight curvature of the body.  It is not a trick of the camera.  While I can't specifically identify the vehicle, I think the style of the body and the side spring suspension qualify it as a type of "Concord Wagon".

Though not ostentatious, it seems that every detail of the little vehicle has received special care to create a fine finish overall.

This seat panel appears to be made of fir, which is a surprise.  That would suggest that it was made locally, as poplar probably wasn't too plentiful.  The grain is very tight and should be fairly easy to fill.

The seat is all of 27 inches wide.  Generous for one bum, a pretty tight squeeze for two.

The carriage weighs right about 300 pounds.

Dashboard will go to Woodlyn Coach Shop for re-covering.  I'll do the upholstery.

New shafts are needed, as the originals have been heavily repaired.  The left front wheel has lost its steel channel and is tied together to prevent disintegration.

Color wise, a protected area of the body suggests that the original body color was almost identical to the "Brewster Green" of its big sister, Vicky, the Swedish Viktoriatrilla.  The gear was an extremely vibrant shade of red, running ever so slightly to orange.  Body striping of a straw color, and black striping on the wheels.  Nothing fancy except the pretty designs on the sides of the body.



The plan is to ship the wheels off to the wheelwright hopefully this week, and obtain a new set of shafts.  Once those items are renewed and re-installed, I'd like to take it for a spin around the block, then commence to break it down for restoration.  Owing to its lovely state of preservation, I hope the job will go fairly easily.  These old vehicles always have surprises in store for the unwary!