With so many individual elements
comprising a vintage wagon wheel, the design is considerably different than
most modern day vehicle wheels. Without
proper maintenance, the passage of time as well as the sheer number of separate
parts in a wagon wheel can wreak havoc on the soundness of the piece.
Binding a wooden wheel with a steel tire
has proven to be a good way to keep the entire structure solid. Clearly, as long as the wood doesn’t move too
much, it works extremely well. However,
whether it’s through temperature or moisture variances or forced displacement,
the challenge is that wood does move.
For wheel and wagon makers of old, the chore of keeping steel tires on
wooden wheels was a never-ending job.
Holding the tires on the wooden rims or
felloes (pronounced as ‘fell-ohs’) was approached from a number of
directions. From tire bolts and rivets
to nails, wedges, pins, oil, water, rawhide, and a host of other remedies,
there was no shortage of ideas to help solve the short and long-term
problem. Even arguments over whether
hot-setting or cold-setting tires was best were continually shared in business
correspondence and industry news. (I’ll
cover more on these technologies in a future blog)
Not long ago, while doing research on a
regional wagon maker in Iowa, I ran across yet another method of securing a
tire to a wheel. In 1895, William
O’Brien submitted his idea to the U.S. Patent Office. Unlike many hopeful patentees, O’Brien’s
notion apparently did make it off the drawing board and into production. While it’s not currently known how long the
innovation was used, period reports seem to indicate the idea was successful
for a number of years.
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This 1895 patent illustration shows the unique way O’Brien wagon tires were secured to the wooden wheels. |
As shown by the illustration above,
O’Brien’s concept involved the creation of a continuous rib or bead along the
tread surface of the felloes. This
raised bead was fitted into a matching concave groove in the underside of the
tire effectively ‘locking’ the tire onto the felloes. During the hot-setting process, the tire was
heated sufficiently to expand over the bead.
Once it cooled, the tire shrank to fit the beaded felloe, effectively
securing itself to the wheel. As long as
the hub, spokes and felloes remained reasonably tight and unitized, the tire
groove would stay seated on the rib encircling the wheel.
Ultimately, this discovery is one more
feature that may prove helpful in the identification of some O’Brien brand
wagons. I say ‘some’ because there was
more than one O’Brien wagon brand and, even survivors of the correct make may
not have been produced during the timeframe of the patent.
Just like the bone-jarring hardships
suffered by countless wooden wheels, it seems the ordeals of identification are
always there; shifting, shaking, and testing our resolve to hold onto our past
and keep it all together.
