A practical treatise on coach-building historical and descriptive

by James W. Burgess

Oak is used for the spokes of wheels. The best kinds are made from the timbers of saplings, which are not sawn but cleft, in order that the grain may be not cut across and render the spoke unfit to resist the strains it will be subject to. Spokes are also made from the limbs of large trees.

Mahogany is largely used for panels, as when painted it shows a very even surface. There are two kinds, the “Spanish” and the “Honduras.” The former is unfit for the purposes of the carriage-builder. It is heavy and very difficult to work, requiring special tools for this purpose, as the edges of ordinary tools are rapidly destroyed by it. The Honduras is very much lighter and cheaper than Spanish, and the grain and colour more even. It takes the sweeps and curves required for body-work very easily. It can be procured up to 4 feet in width, straight-grained, and free from knots and blemishes.

A coarse-grained species of cedar is brought from the same district as Honduras mahogany, and is sometimes used for panels which have to be covered with leather, &c. Its extreme porosity renders it unfit for the application of paint.

Deal is largely used for the flooring of carriages, and for covered panels, and for any rough work that is not exposed to great wear and tear.

The wide American pine is chiefly used in very thin boards to form the covered panels and roofing of carriages.

Lancewood is a straight-grained, elastic wood, but very brittle when its limit of elasticity is reached. It comes from the West Indies in taper poles about 20 feet long and 6 or 8 inches diameter at the largest end. It was formerly much used for shafts, but since curved forms have been fashionable it has fallen into disuse. It can be bent by boiling, but is a very unsafe material to trust to such an important office as the shafts.

American birch is a very valuable wood for flat boarding, as it can be procured up to 3 feet in width. It is of a perfectly homogeneous substance, free from rents, and with scarcely a perceptible pore. It works easily with the plane and yields a very smooth surface, and the grain does not show through the most delicate coat of paint. Its chief disadvantage is its brittleness, which will not permit of its being used for any but plane surfaces, and some care is required in nailing and screwing it.

Hides are used chiefly for coverings, but also in some parts strips are used for the purposes of suspension. The hides are those of horses and neat cattle. For covering they are converted into leather by the action of oak and other bark. They are afterwards smoothed and levelled by the currier, and sometimes split into two equal thicknesses by machinery. They are then rendered pliable by the action of oil and tallow, and finished to a clear black or brown colour as may be required. This is called dressed leather. For some purposes the hides are merely levelled, put on wet to the object they are intended to cover, and left to shrink and dry. Others are covered with a coat of elastic japan, which gives them a highly glazed surface, impermeable to water; in this state they are called patent leather. In a more perfectly elastic mode of japanning, which will permit folding without cracking the surface, they are called enamelled leather. They are generally black, but any colour desired may be given to them. All this japanned leather has the japan annealed, somewhat in the same mode as glass. The hides are laid between blankets, and are subjected to the heat of an oven raised to the proper temperature during several hours.

The skins used are those of the sheep and goat. The former are converted into leather by the action of oak bark. In one form of dressing them they are known as basil leather, which is of a light brown colour and very soft. Sometimes they are blacked, and occasionally japanned like the hides. In all these forms sheep skins are only used for inferior purposes, as mere coverings, where no strength is required.

Goat skins are used in the preparation of the leather known as “Spanish” and “Morocco.” They are not tanned in oak bark like other leather, but very slightly in the bark of the sumach-tree. They pass through many processes previous to that of dyeing, for which purpose they are sewn up with the grain outwards and blown out like a bladder. This is to prevent the dye from getting access to the flesh side. This beautiful leather was originally manufactured by the Moors, who afterwards introduced the process into Spain, by which means it came to be known under two names. The English have greatly improved on the manufacture, so much so that few others can vie with it. These skins are used for the inside linings of carriages.