Continuing work on the mail wagon. With the front and rear axle assemblies and wheels made, I can start to build the cabin. I’ve pretty much been researching mail wagons since I started down this path, and there was no standard type of wagon over the years. RFD was such a novel thing, though horse wagons were not, it really was each man for himself. So, I get a lot of room to play.
There were sliding doors and front windows that could be lowered into the front wall.
There were hinged doors.
There were hinged windows and mail slots.
If you look at the original wagons from the postcard, there was no room in front – just the window wall.
There were built in heaters and portable heaters.
One great source is Horse Drawn Mail Vehicles by James H. Bruns (as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases).
Look at this tiny thing that’s barely a box built around a chair and a heater! Where did the mail fit? I’m also pretty sure only one horse was needed. :]
I set up my wheels and axles with Jebediah and one of my artist models. I can probably back Jebediah to the wagon a bit more, but this total span is 17 inches from his nose to the back of the wheels.
The span from the axle centers is 5.5 inches. Having a very narrow space between the wheels for the mail carrier to enter the wagon was not uncommon.
I won’t be using the Rondel kit, but here is that cabin in dry fit for size comparison (obviously not this tall).
This should be a good gauge for overall size, though.
I’ll need to make the cabin as light as possible since the axles are fairly delicate, but I can layer thin wood to get good detailing without adding a lot of weight.
