Useful Tips for Carriage and Wagon Restorers

Definitely! And obviously whenever anyone walks past me with brush in hand they'll tell me I've spelt it wrong even if I haven't, just to frighten me...

 

Here is a photo of a roof hoop made up of 4 lengths of ash wood and a short piece at the cant rail end. The ash was steamed and then clamped to shape until cold when at a later date the four hoop sections were glued together and the end section added.

 

How do you steam your timber? I've heard of people rigging up a wallpaper stripper so the steam flows through a pipe with the timber inside. I guess that must be safer than trying to improvise a pressure vessel.

 

You mean like this one where you can just see the box on the right hand side where the steamed timber is been taken out of which is heated with a wallpaper stripper. The photo I have just posted is made up from some of the hoops made by this steam box.

 

I have done this using a wallpaper steamer for making a Yurt. The ash has to be 'wet'....non seasoned or it will not bend. They do not always go according to plan. The ash can split easily. Let the steaming process take its time....and remember that the timber will be bl**dy hot when it is removed.....

 

I think if that was me with those laminations I would be tempted to screw through them from the top and bottom to hold the laminations together, not just rely on the glue alone, or you could use say threaded rod instead.

 

When we did the ash "cane" bend around the Sentinel's cab roof, we used a wall-paper stripper feeding into an insulated tube (piece of plastic drain, actually) ... and everybody acted PDQ to get it bent around and fastened in place.


SSW - cane bend fitted par StoneRoad2013, on Ipernity

I should have an image of laminating roof sticks, somewhere, but I think it is on the dead hard drive ...

 

When we use plywood for either floors or exterior surfaces, we first fill any goods in the edges with marine epoxy with added microbeads, then apply 2 coats of marine epoxy. You need to protect the edges of each face withth masking tape and sand lightly between coats. It requires a bit of effort but is very effective at sealing the edges and protecting against delamination. One of our number is also a boat restored, so if it's good enough for boats, it should do for the coach.

 

I once painted "Emergency Ligting Point" on the solebar of a Mark 1 and was halfway through the last word before being interrupted by the roars of laughter behind from my most sympathetic of colleagues! It was that day that I discovered how easy it was to let the most obvious errors through the net if you have your face pressed up against it, you stop looking at the words and only look at the individual letters!

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Sorry for reminding you of that! I'm sure there are plenty of others who have done the same thing.

 

I came across this guide to various species of timber, the characteristics and uses, on an American boatyard's website, which may be of use to C&W restorers:

https://sandypointboatworks.com/boat-building-articles-journals/118-wood-types-and-uses

Some of the species may not be available in Britain, but I think it contains a lot of useful info - such as the need to pre-drill fixing holes in Cedar to prevent splitting.

 

But surely that would put a string of weak spots in the timbers, and might result in a slight kink where each screw hole was, rather than having a smooth curve? I remember seeing photos of tests on Cascamite glue when I built a plywood canoe some years ago, and they showed that if a joint made with that glue was pushed to breaking point, it was the wood that failed, not the glue. In fact, Cascamite is still advertised with that promise.

 

Remember as the wood is being bent, it may still exert quite a lot of pressure to try and pull itself back towards straight again. You could use also thickish panel pins instead of screws. I can't say about the Cascamite glue as I have never tried it, plus remember dampness etc might affect it over time. Not sure what glue they used. Originally they weren't laminated at all but made in one piece although they must have needed a lot of pressure to force it into shape, although the drawing shows a sawcut at the tightest part. The original drawing of them is below, although the dimensions might be different :-

 

We did s similar test with the then fairly new foamy stuff, as getting hold of decent cascamite in economical quantities was proving difficult.
http://www.ipernity.com/doc/312383/album/406353
Again, it was the wood that failed, not the glue at the joint.
We still glue and screw structural timber.

Some years subsequently, we were told by a supplier that some brands had a definite "shelf life" and whilst usable past that date, as they still appear to "work" structural joints are not a good idea.

 

With regard to relying on glue alone, it really depends on how much trust you have in the adhesive you use.

Twenty years ago I used Cascamite glue quite a lot, except for teak which it didn't stick to because of it's waxy nature. I then progressed on to polyurethane adhesive and some use of Extraphen.

This changed after we recruited a retired boat builder to the team at Pickering a few years ago. Now I'm always open to new ideas and the exchange of techniques and during a discussion on glue, Mike sold me on the West System epoxy resin wood glue. LNERCA and myself now use this extensively. The resin is mixed with fibres, which also makes it very forgiving, if the fit between your jointing surfaces is not absolutely perfect. For me the defining moment came after making a repair to the cant rail on ECJS 189 using epoxy and no screws, I found I needed to coach screw a carline down on to the cant rail and the centre of the screw fell directly on the glue joint. Even with a pilot hole a coach screw exerts a lot of pressure and it felt totally solid as it was being screwed into solid timber.

Another area where the West System has succeeded, where other adhesives have failed is in glueing together the foot of
a pillar, which is sound except for where knee iron bolts have corroded and split it. In the past I have tried to repair these using all the other adhesives mentioned but the only that has worked is the epoxy, which has held several of these repairs without needing any screws.

Sawdust.

 

No; once it's cured, Cascamite isn't affected by water, even in the long term. That's why the canoe kit makers strongly advised that we used it. The canoes were in use by the youth club for years, and came in for some very rough handling,but none of the glued joints gave any trouble at all.