A Wagon's Front Axle 5th Wheel Bolster Rebuild | Engels Coach Shop

Welcome back one again, back to the wagon shop here in Joliet, Montana. I got some time back in on this wagon running gear that we are trying to preserve Now this wagon has not only a fair number of pieces are just rotten beyond repair, there are also some that are just plain missing. One of those is the reach I've got to replace the reach. The reach that was there, was not there anymore. This really is a pretty common occurrence. Sometimes these reaches are just like an old saddle back horse that's got about 20 - 25 years on 'em. and they're so sway-backed they aren't worth saving anyway. But this one, it was just, it was just plumb gone. Well along with the reach that was missing, this wagon gear had no front bolster which is incorporated in to the 5th wheel steering mechanism on this front axle. So I sorted through some old piles of of stuff that I have around, I like to keep these old original irons just for projects like this. I had some standard irons with some cast rings that I sorted through. One of them had been through a fire. You can kind of see the difference in the style of rust. The other is just aged and old. They weren't really quite what I wanted, so I went to another pile and I had a couple of old front bolsters that I was able to pick through and I'm gonna have to kinda combine the two. One front bolster is just right on the standard irons, But it's only a 38 inch where as the bolsters on this wagon I'm trying to match is a 42" But I have another one here that the standard irons are not correct, but the bolster is a 42 inch. Now the reason why I'm going to combine these two is because I want the 5th wheel plate off of the 42" bolster, but I want the standard irons off of the 38" So I'm gonna take the time and strip these irons, kind of combine parts of both of them and come up with the bolster that I really need to match this wagon. Well, I'm kind of liking how this old iron, and this new wood, made to look old, is kind of blending together. So next week I think I'm gonna get in to making the little stub tongue. We don't need to hook horses to this. He wants to be able move it around with a 4-wheeler. So it'll be a short, six foot tongue, but the back hounds and the angled mortises and tenons they're just tough as the real full sized ones, so hopefully we'll get in to that next week. Thanks for following along. Thanks for watching!

Channel: EngelsCoachShop

Views: 157,862

Rating: 4.9711914 out of 5

Keywords: wheelwright, blacksmithing, horse wagons, steam bending, wood working, engels coach, 5th wheel, wagon bolster, preserving, restoring, preserve, antiques, preserving pieces of an original wagon, engles coach, dave engel, dave engle, joliet mt

Id: pG9zjPLJdmU

Length: 25min 6sec (1506 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020