Also check out my Links page. This is a list of all the other wagons I've found on the net. Some are other SCAdians, but there are a number of interesting sites. There are restorers, builders, wagons and plans for sale, and some odds and ends that I thought were useful. Great ideas abound--don't miss them.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

Can I get copies of the blueprints?
Afraid not this time, either. I designed the new wagon with Daphne and although I showed a lot of the building process on the site, I would never sell her designs or methods without her express permission. I absolutely recommend working with her, though. She and I had a great time, and her wagon schools are open to the public. You can contact her through her website.

How long did it take?
I spent a total of two weeks in Canada. The frame had already been made so we didn't have to do that. The first week I spent doing the painting. Once we started the actual assembly, it took just about a week. We were pushing it, though. This was a particularly complicated design, so maybe another week for the popup style would have been good.

What do you tow it with?
We use a Dodge Durango.

How does the winch lifting mechanism work?
I'm a bit vague on some of the details, but basically there's a winch that pulls a main cable. This cable is connected to four corner cables. Each of these goes over a pulley at each corner, up inside the corner post, over another pulley, and attaches to the bottom of the upper wall. When the winch is turned, the walls lift. There are numerous pulleys and connectors that I can't see well enough to describe, but that's the basic gist of things.

We have also added gas springs to assist with lifting the weight of the wagon roof, so that the winch system doesn't take all of the strain.

I thought you swore you'd never do another one of these...
Yeah. So did I. Not entirely sure what happened there. We wanted to see if we could make it a one person setup. Although a second person is still helpful, I can now put the top up by myself. It's also a bit lighter, which was a bonus. The real answer is probably that I'm an obsessive creative person, and I, and people like me, just DO things like this occasionally. It can't really be explained...