Wagon wheel

“ The ancient wagon, the primitive spinning wheel, and the rude weaving loom, all testify stronger than words, the slow advance from purely hand work to that of the hand made machine, taking the place of the hands. ”

“ Glue the upper end of the brake to the chauffeur's hand and the lower end to the side of the wagon.
Paint the Wagon with water colors, making the sides, end, and roof olive green, the steering-wheel, brake, and spokes of wheels black, and the lamps yellow or the color of brass. In painting the sides show the battery compartments upon them below what would properly be the bottom of the wagon (see illustration) . Leave the cardboard white below this box, as it represents no portion of the machine, but is necessarily brought down so far to conceal the wooden frame. ”

“ If you haven't a compass with which to describe the circles, you can mark out the wheels with cups or glass tumblers. Cut the wooden axles as shown in Fig. 286, making the front axle—for the smaller wheels—deeper than the rear one, then fasten them to the wagon and nail the wheels to their ends. Drive a tack into the front of the wagon-box and tie a cord to it, or, if you have a small toy horse to hitch to the wagon, fasten a pair of shafts to the under side of the box as is shown upon the two-wheel cart. ”

“ The wheelers were always the heavyweights, old and trained, and able to hold back the load or their unruly teammates until the whackers could throw on a brake or "rough lock," the last named a log chain fastened at one end to the wagon, thrown through the wheel spokes in such a way as to be between the ground and the wheel on the "near rear hind wheel" of the lead wagon. ”

“ The wagon should be relieved as much as practicable of its loading, as the pole dragging upon the ground will cause it to run heavily. When a front wheel breaks down, the expedient just mentioned can not be applied to the front axle, but the two rear wheels may be taken off and placed upon this axle (they will always fit) , while the sound front wheel can be substituted upon one side of the rear axle, after which the pole may be applied as before described. ”

“ The upper part or body of the vehicle is likewise taken to pieces and packed in sections. One man will sometimes be a month in carrying a wagon-wheel from Honda to the plain. His method is to carry it some fifty or a hundred paces and then rest, making sometimes less than two miles a day.
SABANA OF BOGOTA.
“When the vehicle finally reaches the plain, the pieces are collected and put together by some smithy who may have learned the art from an American or English mechanic. ”

“ There should be a joint in the pole where it enters the hounds, and the coupling pole should be movable; the joint will often prevent the breaking of the hounds, and the movable perch enables a part of the wagon to be converted into a cart, when a broken wheel or axle prevents the further use of the entire vehicle. Every wagon should have strong bows and a double cover of thick osnaburg to protect the contents from the rain and dew. ”

“ The lock-chain ground out the wagon tire in one spot. The brake saves that; and it also saves the animal's neck from that bruising and chafing incident to the dead strain that was required when dragging the locked wheel.
There is another difficulty that has been overcome by the wagon-brake. In stopping to lock wheels on the top of a hill, your train get into disorder. In most cases, when trains are moving on the road, there is a space of ten or fifteen feet between the wagons. Each team, then, will naturally close up that space as it comes to the place for halting to lock. ”

“ The Wheels of an automobile wagon contain fourteen spokes, but as you have the pattern for the touring-car wheels of twelve spokes, you can just as well use it in making the wagon wheels. They should be mounted upon the sides of the wagon, a trifle above the bottoms of the spool wheels, as shown in the illustration, so they will not touch the carpet when the machine is operated. ”

“ I dreamed night after night that every one in the world was dead excepting myself, and that upon me rested the responsibility of making a wagon wheel. ”

“ When a rear wheel breaks down upon a march, the best method I know of for taking the vehicle to a place where it can be repaired is to take off the damaged wheel, and place a stout pole of three or four inches in diameter under the end of the axle, outside the wagon-bed, and extending forward above the front wheel, where it is firmly lashed with ropes, while the other end of the pole runs six or eight feet to the rear, and drags upon the ground. ”

“ And some are fifth wheels like myself—neither old nor self-effacing, neither middle-aged nor useful, but simply expensive to keep painted, and very hungry for the road. It may be only a matter of time, however, when I shall be middle-aged and useful, and later old and self-effacing; when I shall stay and take care of the children, and go upstairs early when the young people are having a party.
A young technical college graduate told me once, to comfort me, I suppose, that a fifth wheel is considered by a carriage-maker a very important part of a wagon. ”

“ If carriages had always to move along perfectly smooth roads, such as a tramway of wood, iron, or stone, the use of wheels in overcoming friction would be their sole utility, and the height of the wheels would be of small consequence. But as carriages are drawn along roads with loose stones and uneven surfaces, wheels are further useful in mounting over these obstacles, and it is plain that a high wheel does this more easily than a low one. ”

“ A one-horse wagon—for nothing was buggy then, but neglected bedsteads—artistically bilious, and striped like a beetle, with a paneled box high before and behind, like an inverted chapeau, and a seat with a baluster back, softened and graced with a buffalo robe, warm in winter—and in summer also—was one of the wheeled wonders of my boyhood. No sitting in that wagon like a right-angled triangle—room in front for any possible length of leg, and a foot-stove withal—room behind for two or three handfuls of children, and a little hair-trunk with a bit of brass-nail alphabet on the cover. ”

“ A gentleman of Wheeling interested in the transportation business at one time, conceived the idea of constructing a wagon that would make so wide a track as to be allowed to pass over the road for a very low rate of toll, if not entirely exempt. His model was a wagon with the rear axle four inches shorter than the front one, so that a track was made of eight inches in width. ”

“ The spaces between the sleepers were filled in with ashes or small stones, to protect the feet of the horses. The waggons were in the form of a hopper, being much broader and longer at the top than at the bottom. At first all four wheels of the waggon were made either of one entire piece of wood or of two or three pieces of wood fastened together, the rim, in either case, being so shaped as to have on one side a projection, or flange, which would keep the wheel on the rails. ”

“ The old stage wagons succeeding to the pack-horses, which carried goods and occasionally passengers stowed away, were a curiosity. A long-bodied wagon, with loose canvas tilt, wheels of great breadth, so as to be independent of ruts, except the very broadest; with a series of four or five iron tires or hoops round the feloes, and the whole drawn by eight or ten horses, two abreast with a driver riding on a pony with a long whip, which gave him command of the whole team! Average pace about 1 1/2 to 2 miles an hour, including stoppages, as taken from old time tallies, for their journeys! ”

“ Wagons were made wholly of wood. The wheels were without hub, spoke, or felloe; they were simply short sections of large trees, three or four feet in diameter, sawed off and holes made in the center for the axles. This wagon was called a truck, a very clumsy affair, which without a load, a small yoke of oxen could not draw with ease even on level ground. The friction on the spindles in the wheels, though they were well tarred, was such that, even with a load of rails requiring three yoke of oxen to draw them, the truck did not need any brake going down a steep hill. ”

“ I have no doubt, save four out of five, if not nine out of ten stones that are crushed at present, and reduce the road expences in the same proportion; but while the fancy of having carriage-wheels out of upright with crooked axles is continued, wide wheels would be a serious objection; the inside and outside of the wheel being of different diameters, and going different speeds, must cause an increase of load to the horses, because their rubbing on the road and tendency to twist move the stones out of their bed in the road, and, instead of bedding them firmly, has the contrary effect ”

“ The darting flash of wagons, brittle and uproarious of wheel over the asphalt’s crevices or the weave of tracks. The heavier trucks, plunging along with perched, gesticulating drivers, that gave forth their rumble like a flood of undertone shot through with lighter notes. The dull-rhythmed matrix—the crowd’s shuffle—wherein the metallic urge of cars, the tangent flurries of light wheels, the impress of thick masses glowed and hummed and pounded while the air swung response. And through it all, catching it up, knitting it together, the web—the web whereof now Quincy grew aware. ”

“ Carriage Making.—Many of the carriages, especially those technically called "waggons," are made of an exceedingly light construction, and are intended generally to carry two and sometimes four persons.
Their wheels are frequently made with only two felloes, which are bent round by the operation of steaming, and are strengthened at the joining with iron clamps. The wheel of a carriage constructed to carry four persons had felloes only 11⁄2 inches square. They are generally made of white oak, and the spokes are obtained ready shaped from shops where their manufacture forms a special trade. ”

“ The gears provide for two ratios of reduction from engine to road wheels; the higher one is for all ordinary running, and the lower one is for steep hills or for very bad roads. The outer ends of the differential shafts are fitted with chain sprockets, from which the drive is taken to the back wheels by means of chains.
The third type (fig. 9) of steam wagon is particularly businesslike in appearance, and sound in construction and design. It is the outcome of many years’ experience in the design of road locomotives, on the lines of which it is constructed. ”

“ The car is a short caboose, fashioned like a small, ill-shaped back kitchen, and it has no more wheels than a one-horse wagon, which gives it an uneasy and suggestive way on the track. A brakeman sits with his head swung out at a window. The conductor sits with his watch in his hand. Nobody has any business there at all. The engineer is doing his best to make a distant station, and get upon the side-track before the Express wants the road. ”

“ Yoking and stringing out the oxen is the next operation, and a short one in a well regulated outfit. Twenty minutes, usually, from the time the bulls are driven in, the lead team is moving, and when the "outfit," as every train is called, is well under way, the lead wagon is perhaps a half mile from the last one, which is the mess wagon, containing the provisions, cooking utensils, levers for raising a load of four or five tons, the iron jacks, extra tires, coils of rope, pulleys, wheels, extra spokes, bars of iron, and almost always a small forge—a regular wrecking outfit. ”

“ It has been stated by a previous Witness, that a Carriage of the weight of two tons propelled by Steam drew after it another Carriage weighing nine tons; what should, from your experience, be the breadth of the tire of the wheel of the propelling Carriage and the Carriage drawn?—Looking solely to the welfare of the road. I should prefer a wheel of four inches and a half, flat on the tire, to any other class of wheel that can be made, being of opinion that a greater breadth of wheel cannot at one time touch the surface of a well-formed turnpike road. ”

“ On the one hand you had coachbuilders and others filling the newspapers and publishing tracts, some very serious, some extraordinarily mathematical, others merely facetious, to prove that the roads could be preserved only by using very broad wheels—some,179 indeed, advocated rollers, which, as we shall see, were actually tried—and on the other hand you had people filling more columns, and very dull columns some of them were, to show that a low broad wheel was the one thing which no really satisfactory vehicle could possibly possess. ”

“ At the height of the season, when travel was heavy and roads dry, the Standard Concord Coach was employed. At other times, a vehicle commonly termed a “mud wagon” was put to use. During this era of horse-drawn vehicles, the trains of pack mules were, of course, replaced by great freight wagons. Today, in driving over the old wagon roads, one is led to wonder how passenger vehicles succeeded in passing the great freight outfits. ”

“ In America the commonest four-wheeled carriage is the light wagon or buggy, a name given in England to a light two-wheeled, single-seated cart (also called a sulky63) towards the end of the eighteenth century. The buggy has one seat fixed on to a long, shallow tray; the wagon is similar, but has two or more seats.
“These American waggons,” says Thrupp, “were modelled from the old German waggon, but they have been so much improved as to be scarcely recognised. ”

“ Every time the big wagon jolted over a stone—and it was jolt over stones all the time—it seemed as if it must topple over the side and roll to the bottom; and then the way the driver talked to the mules to keep them straight, and the creaking and scraping of the wagons, was enough to frighten the most courageous. ”