Building an English Wheel

[RockHillWill]

" A bad ewheel is hard to use, hard to master, and produces work slowly."

I agree with this statement. What parameters determine what is or isn't a 'bad' ewheel?

I would humbly submit that while rectangular tubing is better than I-beam construction, any form of tubing that has parallel walls and the same thickness walls is subject to 'lozenging' where the load deflection occurs in both vertical and horizontal directions at the same time, but at different rates. Frames made in segments will react to a load by deflecting at different rates, starting with the longest segment, then to the next in length, etc. Welding accuracy is a concern as well. I have built several fabricated wheels using a heavy steel 'fixture' to hold the upper and lower wheel mounts in alignment while welding, and they would still end up with some sort of mis-alignment from weld distortion. I was always able to correct that alignment by running a weld bead to have the heat distort the metal to make the wheel mount come into alignment. This indicated to me that any type of non uniform welding would result in non-uniform load deflection. I am under the impression that any form of annealing or heat treating of the finished assembly would warp the entire frame out of alignment and only make matters worse. Bolted joints transfer load at a different rate than welded joints.

" A bad ewheel is hard to use, hard to master, and produces work slowly" is as true a statement that I have seen on this site. It is clear that a LOT of gentlemen have made a HUGE number of number of quality parts over the years with fabricated wheels, but is my contention that 'produces work slowly' is the most accurate part of the above statement. I personally struggled with the 'hard to master' portion of that statement.

I hope that you consider all your options and if you choose to build your own wheeling machine, that you do so with as much accuracy as you can. Building your own equipment has always been exciting and gives you something to be proud of. Best wishes.

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