URL Krueger on wed 13 jul 05
This is mostly for Phil but others may wish to chime in.
I've always wondered if the beautiful S shaped spokes of
vintage wheels, sheaves, etc were made that way for just
their beauty or was their an engineering reason behind it?
Or, was this just an old time marketing ploy to imply
greater strength?
--
Earl K...
Bothell WA, USA
pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on wed 13 jul 05
Hi Earl,
As the Fly Wheels of almost every old Offset Printing Press...the "S" shaped
spokes lent something lively to the design and the dynamic motions at play
of the Press itself, whether running or not in one's occasions of seeing it.
Look at any modern printing press, and the contempt it embodies for anything
but the meanest clumsry imposition of something that can 'function', itself
is no better than a ugly book which technically can be 'read'.
The sense it makes to me, was the intuitive and aesthetic manner (respect
for more than one fatuous dimension of what something 'is', I suppose, )
which had
guided so much truely good and balanced and pleasant design decisions of the
Industrial Revolution untill in various ways, other less sophisticated and
more abstractly, disonnectedly 'educated' and mean-spirited, unbalanced,
accountant-driven,
penurous, non-aesthetic, job-mentality, non-ergonomic,
technically pedestrian and banal criteria won out.
Which former quality of interest or 'reason' or respect or care or
affection...as for the "S" Shaped Spokes as one abstract detail of larger
wholes, puts the
'root' of each end of each spoke, at the hub or at the rim, into something
of a tension or compression
mode of force being met or dealt with, depending for each respective end or
root, on whether the Wheel were being turned one way or the other...while, a
'straight' spoke, has it more as a shearing or bending moment matter getting
distributed.
In Cast Iron, so long as the sections are sufficient for either, I doubt
whether in practice, the "S" or the 'straight' spoke Hand Wheel or Pully
Wheel or Fly Wheel or other would matter as for their point of failure from
over-stressing.
But if I had to wager in a friendly bet, I'd have to say the "S" would be
the same strength for slightly less section , or would be a little stronger
in the same sections used, and hence less material for the in-effect, same
rated item. But I think this is merely acedemic...really.
The "S" spoke was universal in the West anyway, and was retained in a
diminishing gamut of applications untill world war two anyway, while the
post war world had nothing anylonger ( in it's view ) to 'celebrate' in
mechanical
design aesthetics, oit had lost it's "Heart", so, cheap and badly sculpted
plain spoke, or banality of indifference to aesthetics anyway, for the most
part, slowly in some cases even, faster in others, took the
lead...
...and the "S" had been no ploy on anyone's part...it was just an unspoken
universal convention borne from a universal mood of reason and sense and
celebratory viruosity in design and progress and moods of presences of
things, and visual and aesthetic-engineering sense.
The straight spoke when done well is a very pleasing design...tapering,
elegent even, and was used in all the same places the "S" shaped ones were
when they were...and was used for many things all along also.
While the "S" was maybe more often used for those things one saw, or turned
by hand to see it. The "S" made something celebratory, a quality in
Machinery which no one now feels worth putting there. While a well done
Straight spoke Cast Iron Pulley or Hand Wheel or other drive or Driven Wheel
and the likes, had it's own mood which was more staid and restrained and
formal.
When things were designed by individuals, who were doing so 'positively'
with no glowering boss leaning over them, the results tend to have an
integrity which is harder to arrive at when designed by committee or in
job-contexts of hour wage and bosses and accountants and other schmucks
messing it all up...cross purposes, conflicts...
It is a language-of-form thing, more than per-se an engineering or economic
consideration, far as I know, even if the "S" might be ( I think) slightly
stronger for all else being equal, that was not the reason of it's use
entirely.
Which (having something to say, and the will to say it, in the
language-of-form, in these orders of 'poems' really, ) in Machinery,
now-a-days...has passed from the cultural
horizon.
Makers should either set examples of what intrinsicly is worth doing and
doing well, or else do the World a favor, and go choke on a bone.
Consumers should be wary of any maker of anything wishing merely to
patronize what is lacking in the discernment of their market...and thus,
consumers should not enable makers or suppliers to become decedant and
fatuous and
crude and banal in their offerings by rewarding them for it.
Most Machinery now a days is just plain ugly and cheap looking, no matter
the price, and the 'price' really, is of course something much more
interesting and curious than the dollars, merely...
So...
"Just say no..."
Guess I wandered a little...sorry...
...same old schpiel...!
Lol...
Love,
Phil
el ve
----- Original Message -----
From: "URL Krueger"
>
> This is mostly for Phil but others may wish to chime in.
>
> I've always wondered if the beautiful S shaped spokes of
> vintage wheels, sheaves, etc were made that way for just
> their beauty or was their an engineering reason behind it?
> Or, was this just an old time marketing ploy to imply
> greater strength?
> --
> Earl K...
> Bothell WA, USA
Vince Pitelka on wed 13 jul 05
> I've always wondered if the beautiful S shaped spokes of
> vintage wheels, sheaves, etc were made that way for just
> their beauty or was their an engineering reason behind it?
> Or, was this just an old time marketing ploy to imply
> greater strength?
Earl -
Having been a serious student of antiquated technology for most of my life,
and having an extensive library of old technical volumes, I can answer that.
Initially the S-spoke was a purely practical innovation. In early
Industrial Revolution iron casting technology, differential shrinkage in
large flat disks caused serious problems with cracks, and a wheel with
straight spokes is just a large flat disk with a lot of the unnecessary mass
removed. When cast with primitive technology, it is still subject to the
same shrinkage problems. Before steel and refined maleable iron, S-spokes
could absorb differential shrinkage and shock while straight spokes could
not.
That said, it is certainly true that machinery designers and builders almost
immediately developed an aesthetic appreciation of curved spokes on
flywheels and handwheels, and they became far more than a purely practical
feature. There's a tremendous variation in design of curved spokes. In
some cases, they are each just a single arc, while in other cases they are
each S-curve, and in some cases the S-curve can be pretty dramatic.
Handwheels for operating machinery often featured very beautiful, graceful
S-spokes.
When I lived in California I was a serious machinery collector, and among my
various collections were several dozen old curved-spoke flywheels and
handwheels - I just had them hanging on a wall of my shop, and they were
beautiful objects. When Linda and I left California to go to grad school in
1985 we got rid of 90% of everything we owned, including many tons of
collectible iron - post drills, pump jacks, flat belt machinery, old
single-cylinder gas engines, vises, anvils, etc. I will never regret that,
but I do miss some of those objects and machines. I kept a collection of
old brass steam whistles and gauges, and I also still own a 1905 DeLaval
Dairy Supply 2 HP horizontal single-cylinder gas engine with water hopper,
twin flywheels, and make-and-break ignition. It weighs 750 lbs., but those
were honest horsepower.
But I digress.
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Craft, Tennessee Technological University
Smithville TN 37166, 615/597-6801 x111
vpitelka@dtccom.net, wpitelka@tntech.edu
http://iweb.tntech.edu/wpitelka/
http://www.tntech.edu/craftcenter/
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