Driving me buggy!

"I have wheels, Houston, and I have running gear. What do I do next, over?" Houston obligingly answered, "bodywork, dummy! Out". Much obliged, Houston, you're quite right. So it's time to make a buggy body. The dimensions are no sweat. We have the cardboard model, remember? But the wood is another matter. We could cut rear end out of solid wood, but however we look at it we are going to need thin sheets about two mm thick. So we saw them out, and then plane them. This was actually the most time-consuming activity of bodyworking. I did not buy so much as a toothpick for this model.
Above, the rear end is being glued up in my homemade clamp. Woodworkers, regardless of scale, will all agree that you can never, never, have enough clamps. The one above is a bit large, but perfect for its purpose. Next we glue and pin on the front end. For pins I use thin wire, #22 I think, and drill the holes with a jeweler's drill.
There are quite a few clamps in operation. The toolmaker's clamp, along with the jeweler's drill and bits to suit, are available from Lee Valley, my favorite tool place.

Now comes the wheeling, so we put the wheels on the running gear.
I have dowel axle pins put in. There are also wire pegs sticking up. These are to match the springs. Amazingly, the buggy is attached to the running gear only by springs. So I had to make the springs. These were made out of an old bandsaw blade, annealed, teeth ground off, formed around a block, and wired together. For this wire, I use the kind of wire that holds lettuce together at the supermarket. Free with my salad. Strip off the paper and there you are. You can just see the springs in the next picture.
The springs, "elliptical" they are called, are being held in place by even smaller toolmaker's clamps. This whole business is all about clamps. I could not deliver the buggy that way! So I made a nut out of a piece of very thick wire, courtesy of Mat-Su Electrical co-op; they left about a foot of cable lying around after wiring up somebody; I pounced on it, cut off a little section, and laboriously drilled a Morse #70 hole through it; then I forced it on to the wire, and it acts as a nut. So then we attach the wheels permanently, with pins (they can turn); we carve out a seat, put on the rear deck, and ta-da (music, please, Houston! Thanks):
The Doctor Buggy is complete. Much remains to be done on this tableau. We need a horse, for instance, to draw the buggy. And the harness, and the shafts. We need a doctor to drive the buggy! We need a nurse and at least one patient. But this is a long-tem project. Making models is fun. I still have a lot to learn about wheels, for instance. But for the moment it will do very well. I wanted to put steel tires on the wheels, but had no suitable steel on hand.

ChalupyLeaks: The Doctor Tableau

The recipient of the secret project is now aware of my intentions, so all can be leaked. The project (which will take a long time, spring is here) is a tableau for my doctor. I am transposing (translating?) her practice back to the year 1910 or so. Now, the first thing a doctor would need in 1910, in rural practice, is a Doctor Buggy. In those days the doctor went to the patient, not vice-versa. I did my homework and learned a lot about carriages. There are all sorts of styles. There are phaetons, victorias, sulkies, dogcarts, landaus, coaches... the list is almost infinite. But the favorite vehicle of the rural doctor was a Doctor Buggy. Much to my surprise, you can still buy these things, in full size. Some restored, and some new. Some people are still building buggies! Of course, you need a horse to go with it, but provided you can feed Dobbin in the winter you are immune to gas prices. Here is the prototype:
I shamelessly stole this image off the 'net. Handsome, isn't it? If you google on "doctor buggy" you will be overwhelmed with images. Note that the front wheels are definitely smaller than the rears; why this may be I wot not. It caused headaches.

So now the question is how to build this thing. In everything I read, not one dimension was mentioned. Scale drawings not possible. So I went about this another way. I built a cardboard prototype, with barbecue skewers for the wooden parts. Here is version 0.0:
Now you know what the wheels are for! My next step was to unearth the Amazing Skeletor. I have mentioned him before. He is a barbecue skewer-and-wire mannequin, to a scale that all my tableaux follow. It is about 30:1 -- 1 unit tableau = 30 units full size. Why? I dunno. I feel comfortable at that scale. It is very small by model-builder's standards, who like 20:1 or 24:1, or 12:1. When I put Skeletor in the driver's seat, it was obvious that the ramp between seat and front was much too large. Nice thing about cardboard, you cut it with scissors and paste it up. After some experimenting, we came up with v1.0:
Ahhh. Sleletor looks quite comfortable. By george, we've got it! The next step was to build the chassis, or "running gear" might be the proper term.
Compared to the wheels, this was the proverbial piece of cake. But the front axle swivels, just as in the prototype. Note the piece of wire sticking out of the front axle. This is where the spring fits in. (It is also the swivel for the front wheels.) If you look at the prototype, you will see that the body is attached to the springs and the springs to the running gear. It is a suspension, in fact, with no shock absorbers.

Making this buggy was a two-month job. So I will split the posts on it. The wheels took by far the lion's share of this odyssey. The bodywork was much easier, and I'll post it later. And I'll tell you about the springs, which were much harder than I had anticipated. This is because proto-buggy, v1.0, has springs bent out of beer can material. Very easy to bend. Lots of flex. Not so steel! So stay tuned for Doctor Buggy, episode II, on this channel.