In preparing to build these boxes for the borax wagons we assembled about a
thousand feet of inch-and-a-half yellow poplar.
And also the main beams that will hold the main part of the box together.
We also took ash and made the framework that will go underneath the box
that all the iron will attach to
and the frames that will go up the sides that will actually give strength to the side boards
So these beams are four inch wide, five inch thick, sixteen feet long.
and you see they're not quite straight,
so in getting ready to put the floorboards on the framework here,
I'm going to take and make sure that we have our framing square to begin with.
So I've cut some spaces for the front and the back.
That's going to give us the width that we need when it sits on the gear.
And we have a little bow in the center of the 16 foot long and beams, so we're also
going to put a spacer in the center and pull these beams where they need to be so they are straight.
And these beams are going to be what holds the floor,
so in order to make sure that this wagon box is going to be square,
I'm first going to take and measure kitty-corner, from corner to corner,
and make sure that our framework is square so we can start to fasten the floorboards onto the framework.
So we're gonna begin at one end, this happens to be the front end of the wagon,
and I have all my floorboards cut to width and planed to width.
And we're going to begin to assemble the floorboards.
So even between the front clamp in the middle clamp I'm gonna put another clamp and just make
sure everything is straight as we go down.
Now it might seem kind of odd, but we want all the nails
to be symmetrically spaced, so I take the time to mark them out.
And being hardwood, I'm actually going
to pre-drill everything so that when we
nail these boards on that don't end up splitting out the ends of the boards
These old original wagons were nailed on. They weren't fastened with screws.
And so we're using a nailer here to put in a round head nail that they will have the finish head
just like the original ones. The only advantage is here, I'm using an air nailer instead of putting
everyone in by hand. But as we progress down the bed of the body we're going to continue to make
sure that we are straight and everything is in the right position.
This will be the second to the last floorboard
and this will be the last one that I'll put on at this time. I'm going to leave
I'm going to leave the very last one off until we get to side boards on and the tailgate on.
Then the width of that board will be determined at that point.
So now, with our floorboards on, we're beginning to assemble the side boards.
We're going to take the yellow poplar and attach it to the main frame. and we have it
And we have it marked out to spacing where all the upright
2x4 ash framework needs to go
So initially here I'm going to clamp the framework in their correct positions.
Each of these are bolted to the side panels themselves.
This all gets bolted together with half-inch carriage bolts and square nuts.
One through the board and then we're also going to put a half inch bolt through the main frame.
This is going to give us the correct spacing
of the framework and this is what actually gives strength tot he side boards
when the weight of the borax is fully loaded upon these wagons.
And when our spacing of our framework is there, then it's just a matter of
continuing to build our sides up
and attach them to the framework as we go up.
So this is just the step by step
process of building the sides
of the boxes themselves. Getting them in position,
getting them bolted to the two-by-four ash frame.
And it's just a matter of a lot of holes, a lot of drilling,
and attaching them to the framework of the box themselves.
Everything is clamped into place all our joints are tight
and everything of course is double checked for square and straight as we go up the sides
The top board is only going to be about nine inches in width,
where the side boards, predominantly they are all 11 inch wide.
Now before we have assembled these we actually go through and do some some sanding on them too and
this is Mark Smith that ruins a cabinet shop here in town he stopped by
and helped run the orbital sander.
And you can see, as he sanding in the process of building both wagon boxes,
trying to keep them going at the same time.
So inside these 2x4 frame work there is a significant
amount of iron work that goes up. These are 1/2 inch thick, or I guess either 3/8 thick, 2 inch wide.
And they all have to be drilled, so you can see the only one in the shop here that has any color.
This is my wife Diane. She set up and drilled hole after hole after hole in these side irons.
And we put them in and drilled them out for half inch bolts.
And then the first ones we're gonna put on
are the irons for the front of the box.
Now there's a cleat inside on the end of the boxes
and one goes on the inside of this cleat and the other iron goes on the outside,
and so these are sandwiched between these two.
So here the first one goes on the inside and then the outside one
is actually attached and bent over so it is bolted to the inside iron
and then that is fastened there
and these ends. both front and back. are actually sandwiched together with half inch bolts.
So underneath of the box there's a number of cross framings
and the irons that go up the side are also attached to these cross frames.
So we're gonna position all these in their proper place and with
and with the use of a floor jack
we're gonna position those into the right place
and the we're going to fasten the iron to the side boards.
And there's a couple of bolts that go through each board.
Make sure these are all evenly spaced.
And then the bolt that goes through the framework has a nut on the bottom of each one.
This framework here is a little longer.
This is the two frameworks that carries the water barrels on each side.
But each one of these cross frame members has an iron strap that goes through them
and is bolted to the side board so actually the weight that is carried on these cross
frames is transferred to the upright boards. And that's what gives these boxes their real strength.
Now you've noticed all these nuts and bolts and everything we put in there.
Well there's a process that they all go through and there's about a thousand of these that went into these boxes,
Well, in the 1880s the style of carriage bolt heads were different than they were than they are today,
so we went through with every single one of these carriage heads and ground them off
to make them look like the 1880s style bolts.
They come down right to the edge. They don't have any markings
and when you put them up against the modern carriage bolt today, you know
the modern bolt has kind of a rounded flat end and they have these little stamped marks on the heads.
Well every one of these bolts was run past the sander
and we ground and down to an edge and took off all the casting marks.
And then they needed to be all cut to the proper length, so we've made a little jig
to go in the chop saw and we can just cut them off to the proper length that they need to be.
Well, when these are cut off from the chop saw and ground off, they have bright shiny ends,
so in order to get rid of that shiny new look we took the torch and we bring the iron
of the bolt to a bright red.
That kind of melts all these grinding marks together. And then we dip them in used motor oil.
In the process of doing that, the steel takes on this flat black look.
So we do that to the thread end, which you saw I just did,
and then we're going to take the head of the bolts
that was just ground off and take them up to a bright almost a white color,
and this is what actually gets rid of some of those grinding marks.
Well we can't quench them in the oil when they're
that bright red hot or they would ignite in the oil,
so about every third bolt
we go back to the first one and it's finally cooled down enough that it can be quenched in oil.
so will quench it,
polish it with a steel wire brush
and then we have this flat black old style bolt.
This has to be done to every bolt, has to be done to every washer, has to be done to every nut.
Everything is taken up to red, let it cool down and then quenched in oil.
So the front panel of each of these wagons has some
framework to it and this is the picture of an old one,
and so these panels have to be situated
in order to place these upright panels.
These panels are removable.
The top one especially oftentimes is removed.
But we're going to make sure everything is square and in this case the
front side boards were not quite square, so you see I'm putting clamps on at an angle.
I'm going to pull this top over to the left
and square up the side boards so that they set square against the front panel.
And when that is all square, then I can go ahead and put all these bolts together
and that's what helps hold this front panel square and eventually these get chains put across
side to side on the front and that's what helps hold this whole box square.
These end up having two separate panels.
The bottom one now down then the top panel has to be put in.
So I'm just kind of pre fitting everything here to make sure the widths are right.
And we'll take and put a clamp across the top
and make sure everything fits accordingly first.
Well then we're gonna actually going to take these all out
and we'll assemble these on a flat panel now that I know that they're gonna fit.
We're gonna take the upright pieces and I'm going to mark all them out.
We're gonna drill all the holes.
So here's our template where the bolts need to be.
So once they're actually back on the box I'm going to use
those holes as our template to drill into the top panel.
And again all these get 1/2 inch bolts that have been quenches and blackened.
It's just a lot of bolts to put each of these boxes together.
So here we have the front panels, the side frames, the irons.
So inside this front panel is also another
cleat that's going to hold it in position.
And this also gets bolted in with half inch bolts.
You'll notice, we take the time to make sure every every square nut is actually square with the body.
So this is the inside, what it looks like when it's been finished.
All the bolt heads.
This is the outside.
All the framework is together.
Obviously we're building two wagons at once. so we have to do
everything to the second wagon.
This shows both wagons that are finished to this point.
Then we're going to take and spray everything with linseed oil,
the same as we did the running gear.
This is what it looks like when there are oiled.
And we'll go into part two next time.
Thank you for watching!