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.