SOME DISTINCTIVE 1898 FEATURES.
The Crescent has a new mode of adjusting the bearings at the crank bracket. A loose collar, with a projection which fits in a slot in the edge of the adjusting bush and has its own inner edge finely scalloped goes over the bracket; the lock-nut having been loosened, this bush is free to turn to the right point, when the sliding collar is simply slid back until one of its scallops catches on a pin set on the bracket, and then turning up the lock-nut makes all fast. On the wheel axles, a separate nut is added to lock the adjustment cones, so that this can be done with the wheel either in or out of the frame, and tightening up the fork nuts cannot affect the adjustments. Felt washers and ball retainers are used throughout.
The Magnet Bicycle Company of Chicago, makers of materials and fittings, offer in the Magnet hub a novelty in a combination of a concave and convex lock-nut and washers, which, when the parts are screwed home, avoids one of the defects of a cone adjustment, namely, the liability of the axle cone to tilt or tip on its thread under a not parallel approach of the fork end: the adjustment is also not affected by handling the hub.
COMMON THREE-POINT
BEARING.
The Shirk shows several peculiarities. Not only are all bearings of the cup adjustment pattern, but the axle cones (which are on a sleeve) are two-faced and reversible, so that each hub has two reserve cones or cone faces; moreover, as the axle is independent and serves only as a support it can be pulled entirely through and out, after removing the outside nuts, so that the front fork does not have to be spread to put in or remove the wheel, and the rear wheel can be dropped out of the frame without disturbing the chain.
It is quite the way to make the crank-hanger only a shell or a support for the working parts within, without having them directly fastened to it. The Phœnix follows this fashion by inclosing the bearings in a separate sleeve, splitting the bracket itself on the under side, and providing it with projecting lugs and screw bolts, so that it can be pinched up to grip the bearing shell and hold it in position. But the peculiarity goes further, for the opening underneath is so wide that by turning these bolts out of the way and bringing the left crank opposite the opening the cranks and axle with sprocket on—indeed, the entire contents—can be slid to the right clear out of the hanger.
The Relay has a dust cap at the crank axle bearing, with a portion of it consisting of translucent celluloid, and claims the makers’ catch phrase “you see the balls.”
BALL CONTACT IN “TWO-POINT” BEARING.
Besides using the cup adjustment, as already noted, the Howard—made by the E. Howard Watch and Clock Company—has a peculiarity in that the adjusting cone slides on the axle without being threaded. On the crank axle is a nut working on a thread at the axle centre and bearing against the end of the short sliding sleeve which constitutes the acting cone. A set screw in this central nut is loosened by inserting a wire or a nail through a hole in the bracket; the nut is held fast by putting this wire or nail into a slot therein; then a slight turn of the crank forward or back tightens or loosens the bearings at both ends simultaneously by causing the nut, thus held from turning, to move the axle to right or left instead; then the set screw is again fastened. A similar nut is on the wheel hubs, and the wheel is turned back or forth a little to adjust the bearings, the single nut at the left side of the frame then locking the adjustment. On behalf of this peculiar device it is claimed, with evident justice, that the operation is both quick and sure, and that as the coned sleeve slides on the axle instead of being threaded the bearings are bound to be true and in line. We ought to add that although we have classed this form as a cup adjustment, it is not literally quite so, the sole difference being that it belongs in the class of bearings which face cones and cups in the way proper to that form, but screw the cup into place once for all and adjust by “backing out” the cone. Last year the Humber wheel bearings were of this type, and so are the Lyndhurst now, although that make we have also classed with the cup adjustment type, the difference being so small.
The Lyndhurst makers, by the way, while using the cup adjustment strictly at the crank bracket, with an admirably made sleeve having the cones slipped thereon, lay great stress—as relating to accuracy of fit—upon making bearing parts “from the centre” in the old-fashioned screw lathe, as against the monitor or automatic lathe; they aver that the special hardness of tool steel forbids working it on the automatic lathe, and that “there are not over six makes of bicycles in the United States with centred axles, cones and shells turned from tool steel.” Especial significance here attaches to the word “centred;” and every cone is separately ground in a lathe upon its own axle.
The makers of the National of Bay City, Mich., have all bearings on their best models, removable by sliding out intact, using also a peculiar form of cup adjustment.
At the 1897 cycle shows, the Indiana Bicycle Company, makers of the Waverley bicycles, exhibited their bicycles with cones sliding on the axles instead of threading and screwing the cones or cups for adjustment in the usual way. They used this system during the past year upon many thousand Waverley bicycles, and the results have demonstrated that this method is one by which absolutely true bearings can be obtained; the cones and cups remaining always in the precise relative positions in which they were ground, the cones in adjustment sliding to or from the cups. In this season’s construction they have made a slight change, however, and which may be regarded as a good step toward the long sought for interchangeability in construction. The change consists in having universal cones fitting either side of the front or rear wheel hubs and having a double face with two ball races they can be put on the axles in eight different places or ways, thus making it impossible to assemble the bearings incorrectly. The construction is also such that the bearings are as nearly dust proof as it is possible to make them without binding friction. A bicycle adjusting cone or cup that is threaded, no matter whether the thread be fine or coarse, must necessarily have some sort of a spiral twist to it which prevents the cone or cup from setting perfectly true as ground. The sliding method, however, obviates this difficulty.
It is worth noting—especially as being a step toward simplicity and uniformity in construction—that the Humber is now made with the bearing cups of the rear wheel interchangeable with those of the crank hanger.
Another novelty in its way is the insertion of ball retainers in pedals made by the American Watch Tool Co. The Sartus pedal, made by the Warwick & Stockton Co., also uses a somewhat peculiar retainer.
CHAPTER X.
CRANKS, PEDALS AND AXLES.
Second only in importance to the bearings, sprockets and chain of the modern bicycle, as affecting the smooth running qualities of the machine, are the axles, cranks and pedals. Many have been the changes and rapid the march of improvement in these points within the past three years, until, with the advent of the season of 1898, there seems little that is desirable left for attainment in this direction.
“The hub is composed of two parts, viz., the axle and the collars or flanges. The former is a stout bar of iron or steel, forming the true centre of the wheel. It varies from ½ inch to 1 inch in thickness, and should not be less than 10 inches in length. The collars are circular plates of metal, varying in thickness from 3⁄16 to ½ inch at the edges and from ¾ inch to 2 inches in the centre. These are firmly secured to the axle by different methods. In some makes both collars and axle are one solid piece; but most are constructed separately, and are firmly united by brazing, increased facilities being thereby obtained for case-hardening the axle. For nutted spokes the collars are generally of steel or iron, wide at the edges in order to take the width of the nipple; out when direct-action spokes are used they are usually of gun-metal or brass (some few use steel), thin at the edges and gradually spreading out inward until they reach the axle. This is in order to give a large surface against the axle, as, unless a firm hold is obtained and the brazing well done, they are apt to work loose. These gun-metal flanges have, or ought to have, the exterior lower portion recessed to the depth of about ¼ inch, the indentations extending some 1½ inches around the axle, and the holes for the spokes drilled right through. By this a little weight is saved, and the spokes may easily be tapped out in case of breakage on the worm and a portion remaining in the hub. The pedals are thus brought closer together without decreasing the distance between the flanges, which should never, unless on very small wheels, be less than six inches apart, as, with a less amount of ‘dish,’ as it is called, the wheel is liable to buckle. The hubs for the back wheel are usually constructed solid, of either steel, iron or gun-metal, but occasionally they are complex. They are hollow, simply having a hole drilled longitudinally through them for the reception of the back wheel pin. If composed of gun-metal or brass, they should have a steel core to receive the friction, or they will soon wear out.”
This extract is given complete because it so well describes the regular construction at wheel centres twenty years ago. The gun-metal flange, ordinarily written in English catalogues as “gum hubs,” long ago disappeared; the back wheel, and the non-driven hub of early “safeties” were gum, with the bearing cups pressed into the ends, much as in the present fashion. The driven hub was fastened to the steel axle by “sweating,” aided by a key driven in flush between. In this country the G M hub did not prevail. The Columbia front hub, for example, comes up before the mental eye—a great spool of excessive strength and weight, both threaded and pinned on, so that parting from the axle was not to be thought of. In the present type the driving axle is a third, independent of the wheels, and the wheel hubs are either turned from the solid steel bar or drop-forged from steel, or formed from steel tube, the “bike metal” casting being kept very quiet in this as in other portions, or else reserved for the people who suggest that the cheapest way to procure a bicycle is to buy ready made parts and “build” one’s own.