There’s a particular pleasure in watching someone who knows what they’re doing doing it well. This is pretty much the leitmotif of the “Of their Hands” series.
Dave Engels lives in Joliet, Montana. He’s made it his life’s work to preserve the wheelright and wainright skills of yesteryear.
I can do no better than to quote some of the introduction on his YouTube channel:
“This YouTube video library is designed to preserve the wheelwright trade so it is not forgotten. Having over 40 plus years in the wheelwright trade, I have witnessed number of changes brought from the changing of generations passing on. Some are fortunate to pass their skills and knowledge on to younger folks, while others take their knowledge and wisdom to the grave with them. This is my attempt to pass some things forward.
“This channel has been dedicated to preserving what I can in regard to the wheelwright trade. Having covered a broad spectrum of the fundamentals of a wheelwright, my change in purpose will now be to focus on the wainwright trade aspect of carriage- and coach-building.“
Back in the day there was no assembly-line production—each wagon was custom-built, with wood and iron. So anyone wanting to repair and restore them has to have the full range of woodworking and metalworking skills.
Dave sure is an expert woodworker; with forge and anvil he can (re)create irons of any type and shape; making wagon wheels and hubs of all sizes from scratch is no problem; he shows us custom-moulding of coach panels, restoring the broken to good-as-new, and upholstering to perfection.
Maybe best of all, his calm and assured voice explains as he goes along—we learn a lot. And to cap it all, the videos themselves are very well filmed and edited, with even the occasional stop-motion surprise.
So much richness . . .
Difficult to encompass this immense range in just one short video, so once you’ve had a look at this intro overview, do go on over to Dave’s channel: Engels Coach Shop.