HD Smith Wagon parts 1893 pdf

[johnsironsanctuary]

This catalog shows all of the wagon parts that HD Smith, the Perfect Handles makers, forged for wagon and buggy makers. First, I was blown away by the complexity of the forgings. Second, the variety that they sold so that wagon makers had product differentiation. The variety of buggy and wagon steps! It looks like things with threads came with nuts. This was before SAE standards for threads.
http://www.wkfinetools.com/hUS-mechTools/HDSmith&Co/pubs/1893-CatalogOfTheH.D.SmithCo/1893-Catalogue_of_the_H_D_Smith_Co.pdf

I found this when i read Scottg's article on bluing at wk fine tools. Thanks Scott.
http://www.wkfinetools.com/index.asp

[Papaw]

Wonder how many of those parts might still be around?

[lazyassforge]

That is a really neat catalog! Thanks for posting it!

Bill Davis

[johnsironsanctuary]

Lazyassforge, You are welcome. Your hammer rebuild has had me spellbound for hours. Thank you.

Some of the parts in this HD Smith catalog exceeded my modest knowledge of blacksmith work. How on earth in an 1893 shop, did you make parts like this on a production basis. Can you explain how it was done?

[Stoney]

Thanks for posting.  I've already downloaded to my files.

Some of the parts in this HD Smith catalog exceeded my modest knowledge of blacksmith work. How on earth in an 1893 shop, did you make parts like this on a production basis. Can you explain how it was done?

Johnsironsanctuary most of those parts are machine forged or cast and hand worked.

Wonder how many of those parts might still be around?

Papaw I would think quite a few.  I know that there are a lot of wagon parts around because people part them out when they let the wagons rot down, or let the wheels dish from letting them sit in one position.  Papaw, I think the problem would be to identify the maker from the parts number.  Now that's possible thanks to Johnsironsanctuary. 

[Branson]

"Wonder how many of those parts might still be around?"

Probably all of them -- all of the patterns, not every one manufactured.  Like Stoney said, there are wagons all over the place rotting away.  When I was in my mid-teens, I found a blacksmith shop way in the back country.  It had just rotted away to the ground.  No hammers or tongs that I could see, but the remains of two bellows were there.  A few yards away, a light farm wagon had disintegrated and was lying flat on the ground with all its metal parts still there.  Somebody had just walked away from it a long time before WWII.  We had been hunting a mountain lion for a couple of days, following a pack of hounds -- I could never find my way back to that little valley in the mountains. 

[Branson]

Some of the parts in this HD Smith catalog exceeded my modest knowledge of blacksmith work. How on earth in an 1893 shop, did you make parts like this on a production basis. Can you explain how it was done?

I need to search out more information, but mass production of iron and steel products was well established before the Civil War.  By 1859, and probably some time before, light artillery artificers were supplied with a constant 300 pounds of mass produced horseshoes in three different sizes.  Warwood was making blacksmith tools that were issued, and mattocks and so forth.  They carried mass produced hub bands for artillery wheels, and spare felloes and spokes, too.  All of the cannon carriage parts were mass produced and perfectly interchangeable.

That this sort of production existed 45 years later is to be expected.

[johnsironsanctuary]

Thanks Branson.

Simple parts like hub bands, horseshoes and tires are easy to understand. What I was trying to wrap my head around was the sequence of the pg 84 part, for instance. First I would forge two pieces of square bar to form the two legs on the left.  Two heats each? One to round and bend the bar and another heat to make the upset and hot punch the hole if you work fast. Those can be made to a simple guage. Second is making the Y on the right. Two lengths of rectangular stock forge welded together and the split to form the Y.  Forge welding the two legs to the Y is the hard part for me to understand. One leg at a time on a power hammer? Then file to finish. Align to a sample? Could you do all that in a couple of hours? How many total heats?
It could be forged in one piece from a steel casting, but a very expensive forge die.

[Branson]

I imagine it can be explained by a combination of drop forging and open die forging, though I can't be certain.  I don't find the illustration on page 84 that you mention, so it's hard to get specific for that part.  If you think of the complex and interchangeable parts that made up the various firearms used in the Civil War it doesn't look quite so amazing, though it is really impressive.  The industrial companies were developing new inventions with incredible speed.   I can see on the lunette that attaches the forge wagon to the hook on the limber the marks from being struck with a trip hammer -- forge welded there.  A lot of the objects seen in the catalog are found on the freight wagons used back then.  And the ambulances, too.

These guys had a lot of time to figure out how to make thousands of a single part in the shortest possible time, a lot of machine time.

Looks like the manufacturing techniques of the last quarter of the 19th Century would be a good thing to investigate!

[rusty]

>It could be forged in one piece from a steel casting, but a very expensive forge die

But cheaper than a days labor per part if that was what you were replacing.

Remember, by 1893, people were building compound cylinder steam locomotives with hundreds of precice parts, wagon forgings were easy.  Also, as an aside, keep in mind you can split and cut things with a drop hammer fairly easily , squashing, splitting, bending, and rough forming can be done in the same heat if you are fast...and if you are close enough, grind the rest ...

[m_fumich]

Downloading the catalog now.

On a related topic......

Where might someone find plans for a freight wagon, stage coach, or buggy? There's gotta be forum's for that stuff but my web access on the road is only through my phone which makes searching tedious.

[Branson]

Where might someone find plans for a freight wagon, stage coach, or buggy? There's gotta be forum's for that stuff but my web access on the road is only through my phone which makes searching tedious.

I think Hansen's ( http://www.hansenwheel.com/ ) has plans available.  Let me see what else I can find.  There are plans from period measured drawings for most if not all of the military rolling stock of the Civil War era. 

Is there a particular vehicle you're interested in?  I've done a fair amount of repair and restoration of wagons, carriages and such -- including several army escort wagons.  I have pictures of the freight wagons of the Civil War period that show some interesting details.  I started with working on an omnibus about 30 years ago. 

As for stage coach, mostly we're familiar with the Concord coach, but the commonly used coach was the "mud wagon."  Not quite as stylish, but durable over what passed for roads in the day.

[m_fumich]

Nothing in particular at the moment. I've always thought I'd like to build one from scratch. The stage coach would not be my first choice. That would require more skills than I have. Probably a regular freight wagon. I'm a trucker so freight is what I do.

I'd probably develop my skills as a wheel wright. Right now those skills are zilch so there's no place to go but up.

[johnsironsanctuary]

http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Wheelwright_s_Shop.html?id=lCmn0m0XSbgC

This is a book that was written in 1930 about wheelmaking as a trade. The man inherited the shop from his father and ran it. The book is hard to find, but worth the hunt.

[dowdstools]

I wonder what "Norway Iron" was. Did it come from Norway, or was that a generic term like "German Silver"?