Sunday, January 23, 2011

Repairing Hinges and Drilling Large Holes



I have filled the last of the hinges. Earlier we had repaired the hinge-pins. I then filled the backs of the wrought-iron where they had been badly corroded in contact with the original oak planks. This hinge was the worst corroded of them all and I had to put a second layer of filler on it to bring the back out so that it would press flush up against the planks. I have only to sand this back now before we can paint it.



The holes in the headstocks for the buffers are 3" diameter, and those in the cross-beams for the draw-bars are 2½" diameter. We don't have any auger bits of those diameters and the only machine capable of turning a bit of that diameter is in the shed seventy five yards away. So we used hole cutting saws, or tank-cutters as I know them and hand held power drills.



I started the holes by drilling a pilot hole first to guide the cutter's drill-bit. I used a small, portable drill-press to make sure I started the holes perpendicular to the timber face then went on to drill the hole with the drill hand held.



Ollie and Roger joined in. Ollie wielding the drill



and Roger using the chisel to hack out the timber from the hole so that Ollie could continue cutting.



Next week I shall cut out the rectangular holes for the draw-bars to pass through the headstocks.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A Good Day's Work

On Saturday 15th January Ollie, Roger and I set about drilling the headstocks.

I marked them out from the drawings I'd done earlier, Ollie and Roger handled the drill.

By the end of the day we'd all but finished one of the headstocks and today, Sunday, I went along to find that they had nearly finished the other.


I had a little more work to do to mark the positions of some more bolt holes, and that's what this photo is about.


Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera along yesterday, so I have no pictures of the work in progress.

We need some hole saws (which I know as tank saws because they used to be used to cut holes in tanks) to finish of the headstocks and to cut the holes in the cross-beams to let the draw-bar pass through. I hope to have the hole saws next weekend and finish that job off. Soon we will begin to assemble the frame, but first we have to drill the location holes for the spring-hangers in the bottom edges of the sole-bars.




Further to an earlier post of a photo of Ollie and Roger working on a brake handle. Ollie has taken exception to my description of him as hanging around like a spare part. Apparently he was not hanging around but was 'thoughtful'. It looked like hanging around to me.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Frame Building


When the timbers arrived at Bitton the first thing I did was to check the dimensions.

We've begun drilling the frames for the axle- horn- guides ('W' irons), why do I know three names for these pieces and is one of them the correct name?

I marked the lengthways centre-line half-way between the central cross-members. It turned out that this was a wise move because when I then measured the distance from the centre-line to the headstocks I found that one end is slightly longer than the other, and there is a difference of an eighth-of-an inch between one side and the other. If I had measured the centre-line from the ends I'd have ended up with the cross-members forming a trapezoid with angles out of square. As it is the central section is square and the disparity of length is at one end rather than distributed throughout the frame and so making it all out of square.

Having got the centre-lines in place I then measured four-and-a-half feet towards each end from the centre-line to get the centre-lines for the wheel-centres. It's a nine foot wheel-base wagon. To locate the axle-guides correctly I decided that the top central bolt-hole should first be drilled, then the axle-guide located on it and squared up with the sole-bar before marking the positions of the other six bolt holes. So that's what we did, measuring from the centre of the horn-guide strap to lines marked equidistantly from the centre-line of the axle-guide on the top edge of the sole-bar. Once the diagonals were equal I marked the positions for the bolt holes using the drill-bit that we would use to drill the holes - so the centres were placed dead right.



Drilling the holes was a slow process and I think we may destroy the drill, which is only an ordinary domestic quality machine. The photograph shows how we set up the drill using an old drill press to get it vertical to the timber surface.

It was a productive day, though at this time of year it was a short day, and it was shortened too by the previous night's New Year celebrations.





Roger wire-brushes a brake lever while Ollie stands round like a spare part.