Making the Carriage Parts
Pix to come soon
Original carrriages were made from elm to resist splitting but elm is not common in normal commerce so this carriage is made
from white oak. Do not use red oak for a carriage; even though it is visually the same as white oak, it is much more prone to splitting
which will cause real heartburn if it happens after you have spent a lot of time making a nice carriage. The cheeks should be one inch
thick. That's one inch, not the so-called "four quarters" of the lumber industry which is three quarters thick to us ordinary folk. You may have to buy
your wood from a mail order saw mill or an eBay seller to get it a true inch thick; alternatively, you could buy 8/4 (1.75") wood and saw it
yourself but that would be wasteful of expensive wood.
Cutting the parts is straightforward wood working; if you use a router to round the corners of the cheeks on the rear steps, be sure to clamp a
backup piece at each corner to prevent splitting the back side edge. The grooves for the trunnions need to be cut at a small angle because
the cheeks are not parallel but are wider in the back than the front by about a half inch. This means the grooves will require some manual
fitting after cutting unless they are cut with a spacer and a shim to keep them on center. The grooves will cut truer if enough wood to contain
the whole hole is left before drilling and the excess removed after drilling.
The transom and the bumper between the cheeks above and in front of the front axle should be inletted slightly into each cheek; this was not apparent
on the first set of plans I used so mine are blind doweled to prevent the transom and bumper from rotating about the cross bolt.
The original axles were all wood but I decided to make the wheel supporting part from one inch steel tubing for greater strength. I put them
in my Bridgeport and milled the channel with a 1" ball nose end mill. I plugged the ends of the tubing with oak plugs epoxied in place; this
was easy for the first one but trapped air made for some difficulty with the second. The way around this is to drill a small hole in the center
of the tube to let the air out; it can be hidden by placing it in the channel facing inward or filled with a dab of epoxy and sanded smooth.
The wheels are laminated from two pieces with the grain at 90° to each other. After rough shaping on the band saw, I chucked them
in my metal lathe and turned the outsides to a true diameter and then bored the axle holes while chucking the outsides, so my wheels (trucks) are
pretty round. And then I cleaned the wood shavings from my metal lathe even though I had used a shop vac while turning.
The quoin is a thick piece that also will require lamination. It requires a small handle which I made from stainless for rust resistance
and epoxied in place. There is a tongue on the bottom that matches a groove in the tray to keep the quoin centered.
Painting and assembling the carriage.
Back to the start.