HEEDLESS CONSTRUCTION.
For this reason—that this “jammed in a corner” pattern of bearing requires the ball to perform a physical impossibility—it must be unsparingly condemned. Indeed, if there is one form of polite and parliamentary phrase more decisive than another, we wish to be understood as using such form in condemning this particular construction. It does not violate any statute law, but it does violate laws of mechanics and good sense. What the ball actually does under such conditions is to “get around” as best it can, rolling somewhat, sliding somewhat, and slipping and skewing between times. The balls rub a little on each other and their contacting surfaces are moving in opposite directions; hence it is not to be supposed that they invariably roll, under even the best conditions, the only certainty being that they always follow the line of least resistance. Here we might say that exhibitions of a transparent bearing on a large scale, such as were at the recent shows, amuse visitors but prove little, and yet a close scrutiny of them will show that the balls have an irregular action; moreover, such a device as the “dynagraph,” professing to show graphically on an indicator card the frictional resistance of bearings, is a waste of ingenuity and construction, because it cannot be worked under actual practical conditions as when the wheel is in use. The difficulty with bearings as generally made hitherto has been that notwithstanding much talk in catalogues about “tool steel” and smooth grinding the common way has been to press the cups into the hubs, screw cones on the axle, drop in balls, turn up to place, and let it go so. Even in 1898, many catalogues furnish no information, either by text or by cuts, as to construction of bearings, and when we have had no other means of knowledge it has been in not a few cases impossible to find out certainly even such a distinct and practical matter as whether the adjustment is “cup” or “cone,” in such a heedless way has this part of the bicycle been passed over. Makers have been too prone to count anything with balls and a cone as a ball bearing, and they have had a good degree of liberty allowed them to so consider by these two facts: the rider does not know and the repairman does not care, and if a bearing is not screwed up too hard and run entirely dry it will move with a fair degree of ease even though the balls can not roll much. And yet in all such cases the defect makes its own witness by the “flats” made on cone and balls and by the ball track cut into the cup.