{"id":15005,"date":"2016-11-22T07:13:26","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T14:13:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=15005"},"modified":"2016-11-22T11:32:35","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T18:32:35","slug":"joliet-coach-makers-latest-work-to-be-seen-by-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/11\/joliet-coach-makers-latest-work-to-be-seen-by-millions\/","title":{"rendered":"Joliet coach maker&#8217;s latest work to be seen by millions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t<div id=\"slides-15005\" class=\"navis-slideshow\">\n\t\t\t<p class=\"slide-nav\">\n\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"prev\"><\/a>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"#\" class=\"next\"><\/a>\n\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"slides_container\"><div id=\"15005-slide1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wheelsand-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wheelsand-1-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Calvin Roorda sands a spoke on a huge wheel while Dave Engel grinds a brake ratchet at the Engel Coach Shop in Joliet. Click on the arrow at top right for more photos.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Newengel1-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Newengel1-1-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Engel stokes a fire on his coal-powered forge.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide3\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wagon-box-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wagon-box-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Engel is building two borax-hauling wagons for the Death Valley Conservancy.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide4\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wheels-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-wheels-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Massive wheels will be attached to the wagons when they are done.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Calvin-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Calvin-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Roorda moves a wheel he's  doing some finishing work on.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide6\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Diane-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Diane-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Diane Engel, a retired nurse, stands in the shop in Joliet.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide7\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Hardware-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Hardware-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>This small portion of just one wagon might give you some idea how much forge work is required for this job.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide8\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Box-detail-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Box-detail-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Another borax wagon sits in the front of the shop.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide9\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Bolts-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Bolts-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>They've got bolts, all sizes of bolts.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide10\" data-src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Newengel2-1-771x514.jpg*771*514\" data-href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Newengel2-1.jpg\" \/><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>Engel hammers a red-hot piece of iron that will be part of the brake system.<\/p><\/div><div id=\"15005-slide11\"><a href=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Stove-1.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Stove-1-771x514.jpg\" \/><\/a><h6>Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News <a href=\"#\" class=\"slide-permalink\">permalink<\/a><\/h6><p>The shop is heated by an ancient Rudy stove. Where did they get it? \"I don't know,\" Diane Engel said. \"It mighta been here.\"<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><script>jQuery( document ).ready( function() { loadSlideshow( 15005, 'https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/11\/joliet-coach-makers-latest-work-to-be-seen-by-millions\/', 11 ) } );<\/script>\n<p>JOLIET \u2014 Dave Engel has been making and restoring wagons, coaches and other horse-drawn conveyances for almost 40 years, but the commissioned project he\u2019s working on now is likely to be seen by far more people than anything else he\u2019s done.<\/p>\n<p>Working out of <a href=\"http:\/\/engelscoachshop.com\/\">Engel\u2019s Coach Shop<\/a> on Joliet\u2019s Main Street, just off Highway 212, Engel and one employee have been laboring since last February to build replicas of two of the wagons once used to haul borax in California\u2019s Death Valley.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The massive wagons, made entirely of iron and wood, will be hauled by 20-mule teams in the Rose Parade preceding the Rose Bowl game\u2014among the best-known games in college football\u2014in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 2. The parade is televised around the world and watched by millions.<\/p>\n<p>And on Jan. 20, the mule train and wagons will be California\u2019s official entry in the Presidential Inaugural Parade in Washington, D.C., which will proceed from the Capitol to the White House after the swearing-in of the nation\u2019s 45th president\u2014whose name, in case you hadn\u2019t heard, is Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.deathvalleyfund.org\/\">Death Valley Conservancy<\/a>, a nonprofit organization that works to promote and support Death Valley National Park, commissioned Engel to build the wagons. The last time one of the famous wagons and 20-mule teams took part in an inaugural parade was 100 years ago, in 1917, when Woodrow Wilson was sworn in for his second term in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n<p>Engel\u2019s wife, Diane, said the conservancy originally wanted Engel to build the two borax wagons and the water wagon that traditionally brought up the rear, but the third piece will have to wait.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s only building two,\u201d she said. \u201cThey only gave him 10 months. He\u2019s been working double time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"well\"><div class=\"dfad dfad_pos_1 dfad_first\" id=\"_ad_652\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/mjhWkW\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/201703_capeair_variable.jpg\" alt=\"CapreAir_Variable\" width=\"510\" height=\"180\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-18069\" \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>And she\u2019s not exaggerating. Diane said her husband has been working from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, and then, after taking Saturdays off, generally works at least half a day on Sunday. His assistant, 38-year-old Calvin Roorda, has been working five 10-hour shifts a week.<\/p>\n<p>Engel, 62, and Roorda, are building every component by hand in a 5,000-square-foot shop crammed with antiquated machines, hand tools and materials. Sometimes Engel uses a propane torch to heat the iron for shaping, but for the big jobs he has a forge fired by blacksmith\u2019s coal from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, which burns hotter and cleaner than typical coal.<\/p>\n<p>When complete, each of the wagons will weigh about 8,000 pounds and will be able to haul 10 tons of borax, a mineral used in detergents, cosmetics and other products. Much of the weight is in the wheels, which is what Roorda has mostly been working on.<\/p>\n<p>The two front wheels on each wagon stand a little under 5 feet high and weigh 750 pounds each. The two rear wheels are\u00a06\u00bd\u00a0feet tall and weigh 1,050 pounds each. The wagons are made of poplar and ash, while the wheels are made of red oak, with white oak on the hubs.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15017\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-15017 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Davedetail-1.jpg\" alt=\"Flames\" width=\"336\" height=\"256\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Engel keeps a close eye on his work, his face illuminated by the forge&#8217;s flames<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The original borax wagons became famous in the late 1900s, when the Pacific Coast Borax Co. began selling various products under the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.20muleteamlaundry.com\/\">20 Mule Team Borax<\/a> trademark. The wagons were used to haul borax from the mine in Death Valley to the nearest rail spur 165 miles away.<\/p>\n<p>The brand, which still adorns products sold by the Dial Corp., became even more famous with the advent of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=yOtbjldK8Dg\">Death Valley Days<\/a>\u201d television series, which ran from 1952 to 1975, and which was hosted by Ronald Reagan in 1964-65. The show was sponsored by 20 Mule Team Borax and each episode began with a film clip of the 20-mule team and wagons, followed by a testimonial for borax products.<\/p>\n<p>Diane Engel said the Death Valley Conservancy found the Joliet shop through its long association with Idaho muleteer Bobby Tanner, who knew Engel and his work. The conservancy flew the Engels down to Death Valley two years, but the project didn\u2019t get the final go-ahead until last Feb. 1, which is why Engel and Roorda have been working overtime ever since.<\/p>\n<p>Engel got into making and repairing coaches through his brother-in-law, Rick Bischoff, who had taken a wheelwright class and opened a shop in Joliet in 1979. They both worked out of a small space in the back of what is now Engel\u2019s Coach Shop, until the front, then used for storage, came up for sale.<\/p>\n<p>Engel didn\u2019t have any experience as a wheelwright or coach maker as such, but he enjoyed metal and woodworking classes during high school in Bozeman, and he grew up around horses and wagons. His parents were Mennonites, he said, and they always had horses on their property outside Bozeman.<\/p>\n<p>He remembers his father letting him drive a two-wheel racing sulky, or cart, when he was barely 10, and later he drove a wagon known as a Democrat, a two-wheel, four-passenger spring wagon.<\/p>\n<p>The big break for Engel and his brother-in-law came when they were hired to restore an eight-passenger coach similar to the ones used in Yellowstone National Park, and then to build a replica of the same coach. Engel would later make several more coaches for the concessionaire in Yellowstone Park. (Coincidentally, Diane&#8217;s grandfather drove the Yellowstone coaches for a time in the late 1800s or early 1900s.)<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15018\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignright\" style=\"max-width: 336px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"addboard wp-image-15018 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/Engel-Tools-1.jpg\" alt=\"Tools\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Here are just some of the hand tools in the Engel Coach Shop.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Engel started running the shop by himself in 1982, when Bischoff opened his own specialty business in Joliet\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.luminaryshoppe.com\/\">the Luminary Shoppe<\/a>, which now bills itself as the only full-time carriage lamp shop in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Engel, who said he basically learned everything he knows on the job, admits that some of his early work was not up to his current standards.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to one of those Yellowstone coaches, he said, \u201cI had an opportunity to fix the original one 25 years later and I was embarrassed\u201d\u2014so embarrassed that he ended up rebuilding the whole thing.<\/p>\n<p>And he has had to learn not only woodworking and forge work. He also does all the detailed painting himself, as well as the sewing on the upholstery and the carriage tops, including collapsible folding tops.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way, Engel has had a few brushes with Hollywood, doing wagon work for the movies \u201cFar and Away\u201d and \u201c3:10 to Yuma.\u201d Working on \u201cFar and Away,\u201d the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman movie filmed partly in Billings, was particularly intense, because on more than one occasion the moviemakers would wreck a wagon one day and need it repaired and ready for shooting again the next morning.<\/p>\n<p>Engel has never lacked for work, mostly doing restorations and building everything on custom order, and at one time he had several employees. He had visions of growing ever larger and becoming a big success, but he eventually had a change of heart.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI found out that\u2019s not for me,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t like managing people. I like doing the work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JOLIET \u2014 Dave Engel has been making and restoring wagons, coaches and other horse-drawn conveyances for almost 40 years, but the commissioned project he\u2019s working on now is likely to be seen by far more people than anything else he\u2019s done. Working out of Engel\u2019s Coach Shop on Joliet\u2019s Main Street, just off Highway 212, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[5200,5197,5195,5199,5196,2853,5194,5198,5201],"class_list":["post-15005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversions","category-montana","tag-20-mule-team-borax","tag-calvin-roorda","tag-dave-engel","tag-death-valley-conservancy","tag-diane-engel","tag-donald-trump","tag-engel-coach-shop","tag-rick-bischoff","tag-rose-bowl","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}