The Walls are Up (almost)

I started this project just over a year ago. Finally the front and back wall are up and cut to shape. I had about six strips of wood left over.  I mentioned earlier that this wood was Douglas fir, but it is spruce. The curve was cut using a plunge router mounted to a pivot, simple in theory, but tricky. Key to making this device work well was using bronze bushings and drilling the pivot hole absolutely dead on perpendicular.

Long Summer Hiatus and Revisions

 
After a long break, and time to think, I have decided to abandon the idea of the fold-down design. Its just too complicated and I have many concerns about how watertight it will be. So I tore down the back wall and have begun rebuilding it on a rigid frame. I'm also roughing in some of the interior features and figuring out how the potbelly stove will fit..

This shows one of the benches. It is wide enough for two people of modest girth and the bench doubles as storage. The curved back is made from African mahogany. The square hole to the left of the bench will house a cabinet with drawers.

Wagons I have known, part 1

Progress has pretty much ground to a halt due to the pesky business of actually having to work for a living,  tending 2500 square feet of vegetable garden/deer fodder, raising kids, chickens, and the duties that come with five acres of rapidly growing woodland. I have, however, managed to acquire a few items for the wagon. These include a Primus stove, neat old folding table, and potbelly stove, along with some cool brass hardware which I purchased during a recent trip to England.  I grew up there, and visited the site of a vardo that we used to play in as kids. It was one of those old green box-types and the memory of it has always stuck with me. I mentioned this to my mom and she recalled a photograph of that wagon in the family shoe-box. Here it is:

This picture was taken in the late 1940s. The site is located near the village of Stoford, Somerset. That's my aunt. When we inherited the vardo as a playground it had begun to seriously weather and deteriorate. It was probably used by vagrants for many years, but still had beds, a table and an enamel stove, yellow I think. In 1972 I took some photos as part of a art school photo essay. All that was left at that time where the wheels and chassis.

The Back Wall

I've been working intermittently this month, with a break for Wintercount. The Paleotool wagon was there, looking great and inspiring others. Next year should see at least two more wagons.

The upper right image shows the floor; a great find at the Salvage Store. This material is 3/8th birdseye maple. It was in very bad shape but cleaned up amazingly well with a few passes through the planer. 

The upper right image shows the beginnings of the back wall. Because this wall folds in half it is easier to support the wall with a door blank during construction to ensure proper alignment. This door blank also supports the compass used to create the round, or "barrel top," profile. The framing is made of 3/4" X 3" oak, which is salvage from the previous owner of my shop. The wall material is recycled Douglas fir; another great find at the Salvage Store. This material, I was told, came from a home in Portland built in the 1940's by a lumber baron. The wood is some very good quality stuff. It came in a variety of widths as 3/4" tongue-and groove. I planed it down to 1/2" to reduce the weight, and milled it into 2" wide tongue-and-groove. It has a warm beautiful natural color and tight grain. It adds greatly to the feel of the interior, plus there are a few old nail holes that hint at its former life. The curved door lintel is my first real foray into steam bending. It worked well, but.....I was glad I started with the lintel first so that I could make the door fit the lintel instead of the other way around.

Steamer in action

More plans

I started building the back wall and quickly decided that I need to figure out how the top was going to fold. This aspect of the design has considerable potential for problems. To this end I constructed a 1/10th scale model. With some jiggling and finagling I was able to come up with a plan that I'm pretty sure will work. My goal here is to keep the set-up and take-down as simple as possible. Ideally, the canvas cover will be fixed in place and will simply pop up as the front and back are pulled out. Once up, the cover will be supported by a snap-together frame. There are still some things that need to be resolved, but in my mind it works (ha!). A second advantage to making the scale model is that I could figure out where the smoke stack would go (roughly), and where the awning will be attached. This point of attachment needs to be 7 feet off the ground while still leaving enough room for the stack jack. The point of attachment is marked with a Sharpie line in the upper drawing. Looks like it will work out.

The Box

With the exception of some caulking the box is finished. I've used 1/2" birch plywood and given the outside three coats of latex enamel. I had to do some complex routering to get the plywood panels to fit flush with the metal trailer sides....time consuming but well worth it for a tight, flush, fit that will be easy to keep watertight. The ledge supports are made of 1 1/2" thick vintage Douglas fir. Though covered in chicken crap when I bought it, it cleaned up nicely in the planer. The wood is free of heart center and has no splits. It was a shame to cover the wood with paint, but I want the side boxes to be of natural wood and want them to have something to be contrasted against.  We'll have to see if this gamble works.

More plans

I have been working on the plans some more. I'm departing from the more traditional vardo design. The door will be at the back, and some of the features (such as the external storage boxes) will have the look of a western camp wagon. Also, most of the wood will have a natural finish and the canvas top will also be natural. I own a Baker's lean-to, and I just love the feel and warmth of natural canvas and wood. I'm not as fond of ornate decoration (painting and carving), though I certainly appreciate and admire the workmanship of traditional vardo styles (see, for example, the amazing work of Jim Tolpin).

I'm thinking that the top will fold down (it will be canvas on a bent-wood frame). I had originally began with this idea a couple of years ago before considering hard tops. I am now settling this design as it will fix two big problems: 1) The wagon will be a lot safer to tow and 2), it will easily store in the garage. I'm not sure exactly how the mechanics will work yet, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. I just can't be too much of a pain to assemble.

Meanwhile, I have a pretty good idea now of how I want to set up the interior, and how the external storage boxes will work. Some of these boxes will house a fold-out kitchen. The kitchen area will have an awning that is attached to the trailer. There's a small sketch of this at the bottom of my drawing. Some of the Baker's lean-to design creeping in to this feature. The interior will be finished with reclaimed wood, including Douglas fir, mahogany, and quilted maple.

Decking

the basement

split-level deck

The deck is 1/2 inch OSB  supported by hemlock. The split-level allows me to extend the lower bunk over the frame (more on this later), giving my two daughters an extra 10 inches of leg room which they're going to need in a couple of years.

I will coat the underside with roofing cement before bolting it to the frame, and also run some tubing for the wiring . Should be good and watertight when I get done ( I got the idea of using roofing cement from this useful site).

Finishing the frame

Gave the frame a coat of machine enamel and attached the rear stabilizer jacks--I got these from Scamp Trailers