We've heard that saying you can't see the forest for the trees. Well sometimes we spend
so much time on detail that we forget to see just what the whole project looks like.
Well I'm going to wind up this chuckwagon undercarriage that we started from the Spear-O Ranch.
And that's kind of the problem here, we spent so much time showing all the individual steps that
we forget just what the whole project looks like. So I'm going to do the whole project.
I'm going to kind of show you more of the forest of this project as I wind up this undercarriage.
Well as I introduced this project this, is an old running gear that came off the Spear-O Ranch and
is now part of the Johnson family memorabilia. Well this is an opportunity to show just what
all is involved when you take an old, rotted down running gear and bring it back to new. I'm going
to save all the old iron, repair what I need to, I'm going to put all new wood in this, so this is kind
of the bird's eye view of all the processes that it took to put this undercarriage back together.
Well have been asked a number of times for the process of what is involved on
replacing the wood axles that have these old thimble skein ends that accommodate the wheels.
Well I'm going to demonstrate two different approaches. How to do that
most commonly will be just with a draw knife and a file.
The second method that I'm going to use on this axle is a little more
automated. It is off of a homemade duplicator machine that I have.
It does help speed it up, but there's still always the fine tuning in the end.
Well there's three sets of hounds in our wagon undercarriage;
the front axle hounds, the rear axle reach hounds, and then the hounds that go on the tongue.
I'm going to do the front axle hounds and the reach hounds next.
Well in completing the front axle, we have the rear stabilizer bars
that attach to the back end of the reach hounds, and then we have what is common in
a buggy. called a head block. Well this is oftentimes called a sandboard.
And then eventually we have our bolsters that will complete the front axle.
Well the front axle can be a little more complicated, so oftentimes I'll
tackle that one first, but now I need to catch the rear axle up.
Well now that we have the front bolster and the rear bolster, which actually will carry
the box on this undercarriage, the last step is to build the wheels for this undercarriage.
Now the desire of the owner is that I would make a tongue
short enough to pull this around with a four-wheeler, so I'm going to do that,
assemble the brakes, and then finally put some oil on this undercarriage.
Well hopefully this gives you a more of a bird's-eye view of the whole process of what
it takes to take an old rotted down undercarriage and put it back to where it's usable again.
Once again, thanks for watching!