Thursday trivia

Re: Thursday trivia

I'm not sure I have a straight answer to that question.

Tom

sorta, but why

Why was it necessary and why did they do what made it necessary?

Re: Dan...

I need to side slope this question for awhile. Will get back to ya, : ' >. Thanks for the question

Re: Thursday trivia

Dan,

The dish shape for the wheels was to strengthen them in turns. Otherwise the sideways forces could collapse the wheel.

Re: Thursday trivia

There is another, even more fundamental reason for it.

Re: Thursday trivia

To protect the spokes from rock damage when they went through narrow passes?

Or to make it harder for attackers to disable the wagon by chopping the spokes?

Re: Thursday trivia

Not only were the wheels dished some axle shafts weren't completely horizontal.

When the wheels rotate the spoke that is in the 6 o'clock position ends up being vertical under the axle. The load is then supported totally in compression on the spoke.

By dishing the wheel less material can be used to construct the wheel. this saves weight.

I saw a Discovery channel show or maybe it was the old 'Connections' series where they talked about the evolution of the wheel. There's more there than meets the eye.

Maybe this isn't the answer that you're looking for though :)

Wag time

I'm guessing that dished wheels set on an angled axle allowed the side of the carriage or wagon to flair and thus carry a bigger load while maintaining the same gauge width. At least I think that is one more reason. Most if not all the wagons, that I have seen, that made it to Oregon had straight sided boxes and straight sides.

glc

No

Basically it. (answer)

The design of the old wagons was really quite ingenious. Think about it, today, we hold wheels on with big nuts and precision bearings. Take a look at old wagons and tell me how many nuts or timkin bearings you see on the hubs. (hint, none;-)). In order to keep the wheels from falling off or requiring fancy hold on mechanisms or precision spindles, the axles were tapered and angled slightly downward. The angle would tend to force the wheel farther onto the axle as weight was added (no nut required, just a pin to keep it from dropping off when the wagon was lifted or hit a bump) and the taper would take up any slack so that the wheel would not wobble and would be self adjusting with wear. The dish was to allow for the angle of the axle and as was mentioned, keep the bottom spokes in compression and perpendicular to the ground. The amount of dish would correspond to the axle angle.