WHEEL-MAKING MACHINES. The manufacture of wheels has received a great impulse in America by reason of the superiority of our native woods, and the severe demands made upon wheeled vehicles by our poor roads ; and in this line of manufacture our machine designers and builders have nobly met the call made upon them. There is scarcely any part of a wheel which is not now made by machinery, mostly automatic ; and among the and productive machines for making and assembling the parts may be reckoned the felly and rim sawing, rounding, planing, mortising. and polishing machines ; spoke lathes, tenonen, and throaters ; hub turning, boring, finishing, and boxing machines ; special machines for inserting and driving the spokes, trimming the ends of the tenons, driving screws into the felly, and cutting off their ends ; wheel presses. etc.
In one of the cutting-off, boring, and doweling machines made by the Bentel & Marge dant Co., the spoke tenon-boring device has a hollow mandrel, which rotates, but has no reciprocating motion, and a sliding mandrel inside this, which has lengthwise motion only, so that it may be brought forward to the work without in any way interfering with the truth of the journal and bearings of the outer rotating mandrel. Where work is brought up to the boring bed, such a precaution is not necessary.
In the Egan double spoke-Ulm:ttmg machine, the upright column has two housings or slides, and a mandrel fitted to each slide and carrying a cutter head, which has bits of the exact shape to hollow out the part of the stock which is to come against the hub. These cutter heads are placed at a certain distance apart. The spoke is placed on a rotating table, which has pins against which the spoke rests, and which carry the stock between the cutter heads. On the outer end of the rotating table there are two cams, which causes the small end of the spoke to work up and down, giving the desired shape to the throat of the spoke.
In some machines to accomplish this purpose, the cutter heads swing from a common center ; but on this one the stock is made to adjust up and down, and the cutter-heads are stationary.
In the manufacture of fellies there is usually employed a machine having two concave or dished saws on the same mandrel, at a distance apart governed by the desired thickness of the folly ; and the material, is clamped on a sector, the radius of which is of such a length, and the centre so placed, that when the stock is swung around to the action of the two saws, there will be cut a rim having concentric inner and outer edges. Different saws are
employed for Miles of different radii, It should be mentioned in this connection that the plane in which the sector bearing; the stock has its vibration is not parallel with any one in which the saw arbor lies ; thus, if the saw arbor is horizontal, the sector is inclined from the horizontal to a degree corresponding to the distance above the saw center at which the stock is presented.
Rune Planer.—A machine for planing wheel rims or fellies on all four sides at one operation, either straight or bevelled, is brought out by the Bentel & Margedant Co., and calls for a very different construction from that required in ordinary planing. The require ments are that it shall plane all the four sides of a felly or of the rim, of any desired diameter and thickness, with continuous feed and without or gouging the ends of the follies or rims. It consists of horizontal table, with a geared feed, which has such adjustment that the center line of the feed roll points to the center of gravity of any rim or Telly, no matter for what diameter of wheel. gripping the felly in the true radial line of its circle, and feeding it in that line—thus, of course, lessening the friction on the guides and giving greater immunity from stoppage. There are two horizontal mandrels, the cutters on which work the two sides of the folly or rim. Their housings are on a special bed plate, on which they can be set to any required angle or bevel of the felly. in accordance with a scale placed in the bed plate. The bed plate rises and lowers in a vertical line by a crank and screw. The housings thus arranged do not require resetting for bevel or angle, but retain the given angle for wide or narrow tellies, unless a change in the bevel is desired. The table back of the lower cutter head slides on the lower bracket, and can be raised and lowered to suit the desired depth of cut. The side or vertical emitter housings are so arranged that the outside cutter head, which planes the inner side of the felly, remains fixed, while the inside one, which planes the tread, can be adjusted for thickness.