A practical treatise on coach-building historical and descriptive : $b Containing full information of the various trades and processes involved, with hints on the proper keeping of carriages, &c.Burgess, James W.
History
A practical treatise on coach-building historical and descriptive : $b Containing full information of the various trades and processes involved, with hints on the proper keeping of carriages, &c.
Burgess, James W.
Carriage and wagon making; Carriages and carts
There is another fashion prevalent in this country which is certainly
a fallacy, viz. the supposed necessity for the driver to sit
nearly upright, which necessitates a deep boot and a clumsy, thick
coachman’s cushion. In America, Russia, and parts of Germany, the
driver sits low, but places his foot against a bar in front of the
footboard; this in their carriages is longer than in ours. Four
horses can be driven very well and easily in a low landau, and very
powerful-pulling and fast-trotting horses held in with apparent
ease. Our coachmen are often in danger of being pulled over by their
horses, and certainly when an accident happens in a collision they
are easily thrown from the boxes. They do not have the purchase and
security that the Russian drivers seem to possess.
One of the greatest novelties introduced by the Americans into the
United States is the “buggy,” a name first given in England a hundred
years ago to a light two-wheeled cart, carrying one person only, and
which we now call a “sulky.”
The Americans have lavished all their ingenuity upon these buggies,
and they have arrived at a marvellous perfection of lightness. They
are hung upon two elliptical springs. The axles and carriage timber
have been reduced to mere thin sticks. The four wheels are made so
slender as to resemble a spider’s web. Instead of the circumference
of the wheel being composed of a number of felloes, they consist of
only two of oak or hickory wood, bent to the shape by steam. The
ironwork is very slender and yet composed of many pieces, and in
order to reduce the cost these pieces are mostly cast, not forged,
of a sort of iron less brittle than our cast iron. The bodies are of
light work like what we call cabinet work. The weight of the whole
vehicle is so small that one man can easily lift it upon its wheels
again if it should be accidentally upset, and two persons of ordinary
strength can raise it easily from the ground. The four wheels are
of nearly the same height, and the body is suspended centrally
between them. There are no futchells; the pole or shafts are attached
to the front axletree bed, and the front of the pole is carried by
the horses in just the same way that they carry the shafts. The
splinter-bar and whipple-trees are attracted to the pole on swivels.
Some are made with hoods and some without. The hoods are made so that
the leather of the sides can be taken off and rolled up, and the back
leather rolled, removed, or fixed at the bottom, a few inches away
from the back, the roof remaining as a sun-shade. The leather-work is
very thin and of beautifully supple enamelled leather.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account