—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, October 27,1979
144
Cin-Ron Carriage Shop
is not Horsin 9 around
This
shop
puts
cart
before
horse
BY SHEILA MILLER
CENTREPORT - This
weekend hundreds of
carriage enthusiasts flocked
to Lancaster County to try to
find buys at the Martin’s
October Carriage Auction.
At this fall’s sale, over 100
old vehicles were put on the
block. Carriages, with
names like Brewster and Co.
landau, coupe rockaway,
brougham, surreys,
phaetons, runabouts, top
buggies, brought back
memories of the days when
horse-drawn vehicles were
the mode of transportation.
The vehicles that passed
before the auctioneer’s
gavel, ranged in the state of
disrepair from barely
recognizable to totally
restored. For those people
who purchased one of the
rougher carriages, much
work lies ahead. Although it
is fairly easy to find a body
mechanic to fix up an old
car, it is much harder to find
someone to restore an old
carriage.
Not very £ar away, nestled
in the rolling hills of Berks
County, lies a little five acre
farm. This is the residence of
Ronald and Cindy Kunkel,
and is the location of the Cin-
Ron Carriage Shop.
Although the farm is in a
rural part of the county, just
north of the tiny village of
Centreport, the shop is
known to many carriage
collectors throughout
Pennsylvania and in a
number of other states.
According to Cindy
Kunkel, their shop
specializes in restoring the
dashes and fenders of the old
vehicles, and re
upholstering the trim. Cindy
does the restoration work on
the dashes and fenders by
hand, and uses patent
leather to cover the metal
frames.
Inorder to have a quality
product, Cindy takes a lot of
care to measure and lay out
the dash before she begins to
cut the material that will
eventually cover it.
After the pattern is made
and the material cut, she
punches each of the
thousands of little boles
needed to stitch the material
onto the frame.
Then with an awl, she
precisely stitches the back
and front of the dash around
the metal frame. The patent
leather draws tightly around
the frame and reflects
Cindy’s work like a mirror.
The Cin-Ron Carriage
Shop actually came into
existence in 1975, but Ron
and Cindy have been in the
buggy business since 1971.
Since then their enterprise
has grown until today they
receive work from fourteen
states, including New
Hampshire, New Jersey,
Ohio, Ontario, Canada, New
York, Massachuesetts,
Connecticut, Texas,
Georgia, Maine, Maryland,
Delaware and Virginia.
The Kunkels got started in
the business after trading a
couple hundred horses for a
cart and an old top buggy.
This might seem like a lot to
trade, but the horses were in
the engine of an old truck
that the Kunkel’s neighbor,
Earl Mengel, wanted. Since
cash was short, the trade
was agreeable to both
parties.
Earl, by the way, taught
Ron the art of shoeing
horses, which was a big help
and savings to the Kunkels.
Whenever a horse threw a
shoe, Ron could reset it
himself rather than call a
farrier.
After Ron and Cindy
brought their buggy home,
Cindy set out to find someone
who would help Ijer to fix it
up. She described the top as
being in such bad shape that
if you sat under it, you would
have to hold it up in order to
peek out from under it.
Cindy took the dash to a
local shoe repair shop to see
if she could get new leather
put on the frame. The cob
bler thought she was a bit
crazy to even ask him to use
his stitching machine to sew
the dash. So, Cindy decided
if she wanted to restore the
dash, she would have to do it
herself.
She explained the craft
training she received as an
art student at Kutztown
State College helped her to
get the dash work started.
An excellent seamstress
naturally, Cindy also studied
dashes and fenders from old
carriages so she knew what
they should look like after
being restored. Today, her
hand-stiched work is sought
out by many people, in
cluding some quite famous
ones.
The Kunkels recently
restored a dash for a
carriage that Senator Ted
Kennedy was going to be
using in a Memorial Day
parade.
They also restored a
Brewster brougham for a
friend of Governor Wallace
of Alabama. That carriage’s
trim required over 500
buttons to be sewn on by
Cindy.
In order to see how their
restoration work compared
to other shops, Hon and
Cindy participated in the
Reading Symphony Or
chestra Carriage Show, held
in Stirling on September 8.
They entered an Albany
cutter which they had totally
restored, and placed first in
the sleigh division.
(Turn to Page 145)
Cindy carefully wipes
the dash of their prize
winning Albany cutter.
The sleigh placed first in
its division at a recent
carriage show in Stirling.
The Kunkel’s totally restored this old cutter,
including the ornate pin-striping and the delicate
cameos.
Cindy Kunkel, of the
Cin-Ron Carriage Shop.
R.l Mohrsville, applies
her artistic talent to
restoring dashes, fen
ders, and trim of old
carriages. She recently
completed the patent
leather work on ~a Vis-a
vis sleigh fender which
she said was the most
difficult job she’s tackled.