It's a Planter Box! It's a Packing Crate! Noooo, it's "Rusty" the Spring Wagon!

For the first time in a little over two months, Rusty's seat is (temporarily) sitting on the box again!

But I can tell you, that even after the preliminary fit-up, the box went back together kicking and screaming!

Everything had to be kind of loosely reattached, then gradually tightened down all over.

The metal threshold and the tailgate hinges were a pure nightmare!  Now I realize why I had to originally take the tailgate off in pieces.  When it comes time to paint, the tailgate will once again come off in pieces!

So, I get to look at it happily for a little while, enjoying the fruits of my labor!

Then I need to take the seat back off to nail the floorboards down, then flip the box over to install screws and cut off long bolt threads.

Then it's back onto its running gear.  I will need to drill a couple of bolster holes in the new sill.  Did not trust the old sill for a pattern!

And back into the shed for the remainder of winter.  Warm weather means painting begins!

See you next spring!  Thank you for following along!

1/26 Update

  One more day's work remained, to drill new sill/sidewall screw holes, drive the screws, nail down the floorboards and cut long bolt threads.  (Some bolts remain long because they will be removed for painting.)

The wagon is now ready to be re-attached to the gear and moved to the shed for storage until warmer weather arrives and it's time to paint!

And finally...back on its gear and into storage until painting weather!

New Wood!

A few days ago, we got the call from Woodcrafters that our new pieces were ready to be picked up!

The inventory is, one new white oak sill...

...five new fir floorboards...

And one new white oak plank for the center of the seat.

Not until I began installing the sill and drilling critical holes did I realize the challenge I had presented Woodcrafters!

The old boards were so rustic, unevenly sawn and bowed, that the task of  milling something "matching" took a whole lot of intuition!  Especially in light of the fact that the lad who did the work had never been up close to a horsedrawn wagon, and was pretty much "flying blind" except for the old pieces I'd supplied as patterns.

Several bolt holes had to be drilled into the new sill, by drilling down through pre-existing holes in the old wood, through the new sill, then hitting a pre-existing hole in the crossbeams under the sill.

Somehow, I managed to hit the target holes in every case!

In this picture, I'm using a long "aviation" drill bit to bore through the existing rod hole in the side wall, down through the new sill, and into the crossbeam at the front of the wagon.

Floor boards trimmed to fit and carefully spaced.  The original boards varied in width!

Once I got the floorboards temporarily bolted down, I tried fitting up the tailgate, only to discover that the hinge pieces on the original threshold, bolted into their original holes, did NOT want to line up with the hinge pieces on the tailgate - ALSO bolted into the original wood and holes!

The problem I think, stems from the fact that the original bolts were slightly smaller than 1/4", and when I replaced them with 1/4" carriage bolts, I had to drill out the holes in the tailgate just a little.  Apparently, just enough to slightly misalign the hinges.  I did get them together, by loosening the nuts on the tailgate, but I'll deal with it more directly when I turn the box upside down.

This morning's tasks begin with bolting the new floorboards - which were coated with clear wood sealer last night - to the crossbeams.  After that, I had some fun checking fit on certain items (it was fun because everything fit!)

The dashboard fits!

Close up of the dashboard bolt going through the corner brace.

The bolts for the corner brace had to be bent like those on the left side, to thread them through all the layers of uneven holes.  Now the bolts can come out to have the heads "customized" to look more original.

The pivot for the brake handle bolts to the underside of the new sill.  I had a fair bit of room for error, drilling those bolt holes!

But the handle bolts on just fine.  The ratchet mounts in original holes on the side board.

One final dismantling of the right side, to surface and seal the new sill, then "final" reassembly can begin!

Preparing for Reassembly

The left hand vertical side wall has been repaired and surfaced.  The left ends of the cross beams have been repaired and surfaced.  The left sill is repaired, surfaced and temporarily re-installed.

While waiting for the new woodwork for the right hand side and floorboards, the left sidewall is pretty much ready to reattach.

The primary fasteners of sidewall-to-sill are long rods with countersunk heads that pass edgewise through the sidewall into the sill in five places.  Because there were no washers used on the nuts under the sill, I had to destroy the nuts, and hence the rods, to get the rods out.  I ended up making new rods out of "all thread" or running thread, after having not such a good experience trying to hand-thread 1/4 inch rod!  I used a little permanent Loctite between a hex nut and one end of each rod (there are twelve rods total) to create a "head" for each of these long bolts.  The hex nuts fit right down flush in the holes on the upper edge of the side walls.  (I have to do just a little grinding to make them fit perfectly).  The heads will be covered over with a strip of metal.  I'll use square nuts and washers on the bottoms.

Update 1/11/17...

Before reassembly of the left side, pretty much all of the crossbeams had end split repairs done.  These photos of repaired/resurfaced boards look pretty rustic, but hours have gone into preparing these boards to receive paint this coming spring, then it will look NOTHING like it does now!

The reassembly was fun and interesting, and the new rods went perfectly into place with plenty of thread to spin the bolts onto.  In order to finish up, there are screws that go up through the sill from underneath and into the panel, but that is for later, when I can turn the box over.  But I can tell you, that is one sturdy panel!

All the ironwork has been cleaned and de-rusted, and all the rust pitting has been filled.  These pretty braces are only installed temporarily, and will have to come off for painting, but in the meantime, there's no better place to store them than on the wagon itself!

The ends of the bolts look ugly, and surely they must be turned the wrong way?!  But in fact, the threads of the bolts face outward, so there are no sharp edges to snag feed sacks and such in the wagon bed!  All these fasteners are random, just to hold things together temporarily.  When the final reassembly takes place, the threads will be cut flush with the nuts.

This is the inside, left front corner.  Rather than traditional iron-reinforced wood framing, the corner is reinforced with this casting.  At the top of the casting, you can see a projection with a hole through it.  This receives the bolt for the dashboard!

Again, the fasteners are random for now, as the front panel has to come off in order to install the new floorboards (that are on order).

This is the outside view of the above corner.  The corner is covered with a sheet metal plate which thankfully, was little damaged by rust.

The hand bored holes through the wood are a nightmare of twists and turns, as the hardware holes do not match up perfectly.  It will be a bit o' fun to try bending bolts so that the heads will lay flat against the sheet metal!

The new wood for the right hand sill and all new floorboards is on order (custom milling).  It WOULD be here soon, but the local world has come to a standstill due to rather extreme (for us) winter weather.

While waiting for the new wood, it's time to focus on cleanup and repair (split ends!) on the right side.

Rusty Bolts Fear Me!

On Thursday, 12/29/16, We took the bugshot right hand sill of the wagon box to Woodcrafters in Portland, to have it, and the five floorboards, duplicated.

I could not help but think that even though I had thoroughly stabbed the left hand sill, looking for bug damage, I had missed something.

And I had.  I was able to chip some wood away on the edge of the sill, adjacent to the floorboard.

I was concerned enough that I called Woodcrafters to leave a message asking for a mirror image of the right sill.

But my chisel wasn't going in very far and I wondered...which prioritized the removal of the left sidewall, and then the sill.  The picture above is all that remains of my wagon box!  A few floorboards, and some crossbeams!

After really digging and prodding, all I came up with was some very shallow excavation in a confined area.  I'm going to repair it and re-use the board.

In the meantime, I have removed the last of the nuts and screws and all the hardware.  Most of the remaining repair work is cosmetic, until the new floorboards and right sill arrive!  This is the edge of the sill that faces inward toward the floorboards.  The larger area is the upper surface (where your feet would rest), and the deepest part goes in about 1/4".





Update 1/2/2017...

I carried through with my decisioin to salvage the left sill, and here it is, reinstalled.

This is the area where the main edge damage occurred. The end of the board is the front of the wagon.

Prior to re-installation of the sill, it was necessary to clean up and do some end-grain crack repairs to these pretty crossbeam ends.  A pretty iron brace goes from this piece to the side wall on the exterior of the wagon...

This is the center one on the same side.  It was pretty much perfect.  I will have similar repairs on the right side.

The front vertical panel has been relieved of end splits and minor blemishes...

(The ends of this panel are covered by sheet metal plates.)

And finally!  The left side vertical panel has come in for end split repairs and blemish removal.

All that's left now is to finish up some of the metal work while awaiting the new wood!