by Reinder van Tijen - Sat Dec 07 (2002)
Wheels to ease a peasants life
(image/pjpeg)
Working on The Wheel
Today, the 1st of August, Hans Baarslag and I worked on the problem how to make a stable wheelhub for a wheel made out of sticks.
We tried to realize the following specifications :
1 Interconnection of sticks with rubber strips cut from the side wall of a
car tire. In strips or smaller rectangular pieces, round holes are punched.
2 The size of the hole is a it smaller that the diameter of the stick, to
ger a firm fit.
3 At the center, the place where the tangential sticks should touch the
wooden axle, these sticks should indeed be positioned to touch AND be
tangential.
The assembly of sticks around the axle (call it het hub), has to be in a
stable position re. the rest of the wheel, i.e. not be able to turn
slightly.
The way to achieve this stabilisation has to clear, simple and
effective
Look at the pictures:
? A former experiment used a wooden block to which the rubber hub strips
were attached. This block was not easy to make and its making would be hard
to explain. However the stabilizer itself functioned well. The rubber
strips could sag out of line, then the sticks could slip further through,
making the hub less stable.
A detail of the stabilization block. It is attached with 2 ropes to the
wooden axle. The block can rotate around the axle, but remains firmly in an
axial position.
To realize the above specifications, we have made rubber hub strips with
holes for the tangential sticks. Extra are added now similar holes for
short sticks that are mounted paralel to the axle. The photo shows how one
of thes sticks is inserted in both rings.
by Hans Baarslag - Sat Dec 06 (2003)
wheels
Reinder ,I think you have now a very good way of making light,stable big
wheels. Among others to be used as driving wheel for rope pumps using the
smal piping. It is now a question of pictures and a good explanation to
explain this to others.
Remains a question: Is bamboo or a replacement
readily available in africa? And how can we spread the good news?
by Reinder / Demotech - Fri Oct 31 (2003)
Re: wheels
Indeed, the method of making large diameter wheel seems satisfying, but has
to be properly tested on a testbed. In our new Maastricht workshop, this
has still to be set up. It will take at least a few months before its
value can be regarded proven. So as yet, no good news to spread!
Bamboo could in principle replace the plastic pipe. However I expect the
plastic pipe to be cheap enough to make a low quality solution
superfluous.
by reinder / Demotech - Sat Dec 02 (2006)
Re: wheels
For making the wheel it is not important that the stick are as straight as
bamboo. Only the length and the place where the little interconnection
holes are punctured do matter. So more or less straight wooden sticks can
be used as well.
Not easy to make this construction idea popular. I'll introduce it in a
field trial first, when people like it, I may shout out a little louder!
by Hans Baarslag - Sun Dec 04 (2005)
wheels
Wheels to ease a pesants burden is too long and too general. What about wheels
from sticks or sticky wheels. Or foldable wheels. Donckey drive wheels.
Hans
by Reinder / Demotech - Fri Oct 31 (2003)
Re: wheels
The name is OK. This design issue is indeed about to make the peasant's
burden lighter by offering engineering elements, that be made locally with
little effort and little or no cost. Wheels, whatever they are made off,
are such elements. It took plenty effort to work out a proper way to made
a larger size, to make the small wheels also was difficult enough. In
their present state of development, they should be described here as
well.
What has to be added as well are the fittings for ball bearings as well as
many other engineering elements Demotech has some experience with.
Given time or given assistance with web publishing, all this will become
available here!
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