Why only four pounds?

[Dunesbury]

While you are trying to make a point about wheel weight, consider Bessler's coopered six or 8 inch axle made out of likely oak. It in itself would weigh a healthy sum.

I weigh leftover red oak floorboard, 3/4 x 2 1/4 x 72 inch is ~3 1/4 lbs.
~11 or 12 boards make 8 inch round axle weigh about 36 to 39 lbs.
6.5 wide x 6 inch deep plugs for pins weigh about ~ 10.2 lbs.
Pins weigh about 3.5 lbs. if about 16 inches long.
Iron hoops unknown amount, maybe 2 weigh 2.5 lbs.
~ 68 to 70 lbs., little more if plugs deeper and pins longer or more hoops.

[jim_mich]

Dunesbury,

Your estimate seems good. I would expect four or six iron hoops rather than just your two.

You used red oak flooring as a reference. Red oak is native to North America. I doubt Bessler would have used red oak from North America. It's weight is usually about 0.027 lbs/cu/inch.

European white oak is heavier than red oak. It is usually about 0.029 lb/cu/inch. Using white oak rather than red oak would add maybe 4 or 5 lbs more to the weight of the axle, which is insignificant compared to all that must be guessed at.

[Mark]

insignificant compared to all that must be guessed at

I think that's the smartest thing I've seen you write since I read "The solution is so simple, that once it's seen and understood, then there is no need to physically build it, except as proof to skeptics."
It's nice to see that you haven't totally lost it. :-)

And Jim, my recent comment about an "ascii thumbs-up" was not meant as a jab at you. It was just a very poor attempt at agreeing to a humorous remark made by someone else. I was just too lazy to hunt for a thumbs-up icon on the internet that I could use, so I just typed that.
I hope that you didn't find it offensive. If you did, I'm sorry.

Mark

edit -- I just now realized [after a search to confirm it] that your thumbs-up isn't an image, but actually text that I could have just copied and pasted. ASCII, duh! It amazes me what a dope I can be sometimes!!
:P

[johannesbender]

search for an image to ascii art converter on google or whatever search engine you prefer, and then you could paste to your hearts content .

jb

[Dunesbury]

Dunesbury,

Your estimate seems good. I would expect four or six iron hoops rather than just your two.

You used red oak flooring as a reference. Red oak is native to North America. I doubt Bessler would have used red oak from North America. It's weight is usually about 0.027 lbs/cu/inch.

European white oak is heavier than red oak. It is usually about 0.029 lb/cu/inch. Using white oak rather than red oak would add maybe 4 or 5 lbs more to the weight of the axle, which is insignificant compared to all that must be guessed at.

Stamper material on power output page listed as red oak. I used that as reference for calculation. Is hammer material white oak, or is it insignificant?

I estimate axle boards milled lengthwise for joining strength. Maybe V shaped profile, 2 hoops at end of plugs. I guess he did not dismantle axles but reused them unless they were part of prime mover.

Depending on how weight levers connected to wheel, material for these and crossbars could have been even smaller dimensions. If connected through axle and to 12 foot wide octagon shaped periphery,(for 8 weight configuration) to make math easy say 1 x 1 inch x 12 foot for crossbars. If needed, additional pieces could be attached midway of crossbars, forming 6 foot octagon.
These pieces for crossbars with additional 6 foot octagon for strength, and periphery, would be about 103 feet of 1 inch square (4.592 feet for each outer periphery piece, 2.296 feet for each inner octagon piece).
103 x 12 x .029 ~ 36 lbs.

Framework for linen or veneer was round.
Did he steam bend strips of wood for this? If so, these strips might have been 1/2 x1/2 inch. To make math easy, say 1x1 inch.
Circumference 37.7 feet.
2 sides = 75.4 feet
Width 18 inches
8 pieces to connect frame together ( and also connect to lever weight crossbars so all goes round together), 12 feet.
75.4 + 12 = 87.4 feet
87.4 x .029 x 12
~ 30.4 lbs.

8 boards weights landed gently on, unknown size, say 8 lbs total.

8 levers unknown length. Max length ~ 2.5 feet, 20 feet of 1x1 inch ~ 7 lbs.
Linen covering unknown weight.
Axle,levers, crossbars, periphery and linen frame total weight could have been ~
75 + 7 + 36 +30.4 + 8 = 156.4 lbs. plus linen.

If two way wheels had 8 four lb. weights , total weight ~ 188 lbs. plus linen, if my math is correct, using these dimensions for construction.

From page 3 of this thread

So, that means that just the 32 pounds of weights alone moving on the rim of the 12 foot diameter wheel rotating at 26 RPM would have enough kinetic energy to lift your 200 pound person about 8 inches into the air.

So, although the 32 pounds of mass on the rim would have enough kinetic energy to lift the 200 pound person about 8 inches into the air, the person would only be lifted about 1 inch by suddenly grabbing hold of the rim.

This, of course, was neglecting the mass of the wheel itself, which most likely would dominate when it comes to our person launching.

I'll spare you the details on this one, but using the moment of inertia equation for a solid disk, one in which there is a uniform mass distribution throughout the volume, I calculated the numbers for a 300 pound wheel of the same dimensions and speed as before.

A 300 pound, 12 foot diameter solid disk rotating at 26 RPM should, then, have enough kinetic energy to lift the 200 pound person 3 feet 1 inch into the air, but for the person grabbing onto the rim where we have to consider the conservation of momentum, the person would only be lifted 1 foot 1 inch.

These calculations, of course, don't take into account any extra drive force, but only the stored kinetic energy in the flywheel.

[jim_mich]

Stamper material on power output page listed as red oak. I used that as reference for calculation. Is hammer material white oak, or is it insignificant?

I admit I was the one that wrote the output page a number of years ago. Bessler wrote that the hammers were made of oak. I didn't know which type of oak. I had a list of weights of different woods, and it had three oaks: red oak, white oak, or live oak. I knew that live oak was native to North America, and that it was much heavier at 0.042 lbs per cubic inch.

At the time that I wrote the wheel output page of the Wiki, I did not know that red oak was also a native of North America, and that Bessler's "oak" was probably European white oak. For the Wiki, I simply picked red oak because I had to choose between red or white. So I chose the lighter of the two so as to error on the side of caution.

Knowing what I know now, I should have chosen white oak for calculating the weight of the stampers. I'm sorry for misleading you by choosing the wrong species of oak.

[Dunesbury]

So output was little more for that test for Meresburg and Kassel, stampers were just little bit heavier. But not more than watt or two, probably insignificant.
I don't feel mislead, just wanted to make you aware of reference I used.
And work through more logic to make case for light-weight wheel.