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I Forge Iron

Forging for a Borax Wagon.


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12 hours ago, Frosty said:

Gee THANKS Vaughn! I watched the horn and bumper welding video and a bunch more Borax wagon videos show up. Now I'm stuck watching a whole slew of Engels Coach Shop videos! There goes MY day, curse you. :lol:

Great link, thank you.

Frosty The Lucky.

Glad I could help, Frosty. :D  If it makes you feel better, you're not alone.  I watched the horn and bumper video and couldn't stop myself from watching the rest.  It's amazing to see all that heavy wood and iron come together to make the front end of a wagon.  That's some very stout construction!

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BOL! (Braying Out Loud) As drag racers and street racers will tell you, HP sells cars, Torque wins races. Mules are a lot torqueier than horses.  I said something without remembering what Dad read to me last time we were at Furnace Creek, Death Valley rock hounding so I exercised my Yahoo fu. on the terms 20 mule team wagons and hit a pretty informative site. https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/historyculture/twenty-mule-teams.htm

Says each wagon hauled 40 tons and weighed around 7,800lbs dry one rear wheel weighed in at 1,000lbs. 18 mules and 2 horses per hitch. The horses were the lead animals in the team, horses are more cooperative than mules. Probably because mules are smarter.

Oh, each hitch hauled TWO of these monster wagons 165 miles from Furnace creek to the rail head near Mojave in 10 days.

Darned Vaughn now I'm stuck reading sites that make my jaw ache from hanging open in awe.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Looks like he just uploaded another video.  With all that huge iron, I don't doubt the wagons weighed close to 4 tons empty - even the brake arm is built stout!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOVc7Pbc8vo

 

As for HP v. DP v. HP/DP, you can't forget to take into account slippage where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.  All the power and torque in the world doesn't amount to a hill of beans if you can't get traction.  Has anyone done a study on the various coefficients of grabbiness of different shoe styles and materials?  Aluminum would obviously provide plenty of traction due to its deform around rocks and the like, but wear rates would be abysmal.  Wrought iron would have been commonplace at the time, but did they prefer gnarly wrought like knife makers of today, or did the better teams opt for triple-refined wrought? 

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wow, look at that belt sander! I tip my hat to the people that did this way back then....

                                                                                                                                      Littleblacksmith  

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14 minutes ago, VaughnT said:

Aluminum would obviously provide plenty of traction due to its deform around rocks and the like, but wear rates would be abysmal.  

Well, the mule teams ran from 1883-1889. Before Charles Martin Hall and Albert Hunt founded the Reduction Company of Pittsburgh (later ALCOA) in 1888, aluminum was as expensive as silver; aluminum seems unlikely. 

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As "horse power" was based on the "pit poney" used in British coal mining (Shetland poney) and a team ( pair) of compitition pulling horses can generate between 20-25 horse power at the swingle tree...

despite being half ass, I would imagine that 350hp plus wouldn't be an unreasonable number. Honestly have any of you seen a Belgian mule, much less tried to shoe one of those beasts?

as a side note, modern horse power (for sales advertising) is measured  at the fly wheel, not the wheels. So 350hp at flywheel is a lot less than 350hp at the swingle tree

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5 hours ago, Charles R. Stevens said:

..

despite being half ass, I would imagine that 350hp plus wouldn't be an unreasonable number. Honestly have any of you seen a Belgian mule, much less tried to shoe one of those beasts?

 

Yessir, Love them. Heavy Horses too.

3 hours ago, aessinus said:

Charles, I worked them when I lived in PA.  Lovely animals, and the power is amazing.  I'm a mule-man myself....

I'm still there. Gotta agree. They're a great animal.

George

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I like them all. We raised saddle horses when I was a kid but I get along with mules really well. They just don't cooperate unless you treat them with respect, if they like you they'll do things just to make you happy. Horses and donkeys are the same just not as stubborn if they don't like you. Stubborn as a mule is a true thing and a sure sign of a poor handler or danger close.

Frosty The Lucky.

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