IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF WHEELS SUITABLE FOR USE ON COMMON ROADS
Year: 1883

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by James Burbridge and Thomas Oakley
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 9th March 1883.
JAMES BURBRIDGE of the firm of Mess" W. Warne & Co of the India Rubber
Works, Tottenham, in the County of Middlesex, and THOMAS OAKLEY, Engineer,
also of Tottenham "IMPROVEMENTS IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF WHEELS SUITABLE
FOR USE ON COMMON ROADS."
These improvements relate more particularly to the construction of wheels for
velocipedes, perambulators, invalid chairs, and similar light vehicles, but they are
also applicable to wheels for the lighter kinds of road carriages.
The felloes of velocipede wheels are usually made of metal and the tyres of
rubber as is well known. The metal felloes are formed of all kinds of sections, and
the elastic tyres made to corresponding sections are sprung into them. In order
to keep the tyres in position, they are sometimes made of somewhat smaller diameter
than the felloes, and are stretched when applied so that they will bind round the
felloe. This is a great disadvantage, for it is well known that a stretched or
distended rubber tyre is more liable to cut on coming into contact with sharp stones
in the road than when in its normal collapsed state. The rubber is also, owing to
its stretched condition liable to gape and tear when cut, and thus the tyre has
continually to be renewed.
Or, the rubber tyre is made of a diameter to fit the felloe without stretching, and
is cemented into the felloe, which is a troublesome and unsatisfactory mode of
securing the tyre.
Other modes of securing the rubber tyres in the felloes have been proposed but
with little success hitherto.
Now the object of the present invention is so to construct wheels for velocipedes
and other light vehicles that the disadvantages pointed out above will be avoided,
and a wheel of equal if not greater strength than those ordinarily used, will be
obtained.
In carrying out our invention the nave and spokes of our wheel (which is
preferably of the form known as the spider wheel) are of the ordinary construction.
The felloe we form in two parts, which we bolt together and which grip between
them the rubber tyre. This tyre may be of any desired sectional form, but
preferably oval.

page_text: The two parts of the felloe are formed from strips of suitable metal which are
This section will be such that there
stamped or rolled to the required section.
will be a flat portion and a bulged portion so that when the flat portions of two
strips are placed together, the bulged portions will form a cavity to receive the
rubber tyre.
•
The strips thus shaped are bent round so that the flat portions are inside and
their ends are welded together to form rings and two of these rings are placed with
their flat portions together and are secured by bolts and nuts.
Before tightening up the nuts the rubber tyre, which is of the exact diameter
required, is placed in position between the bulged portions of the two rings and as
the tightening up is effected, the rings are caused to firmly grip the tyre by, say, the
centre of its depth.
The spokes are screwed into or otherwise secured to the bolt heads the bolts being
inserted alternately from opposite sides of the felloe.
By the above described mode of constructing the felloes of wheels we obtain a
strong and rigid wheel due to the internal rib or flange, while the chance of the tyre
being wrenched out is owing to the firm grip obtained, entirely avoided.
The rubber tyre is moreover retained in its normal collapsed condition, and will
therefore last longer than the stretched tyre. When of an oval section, and it
becomes worn on one edge, the tyre can by loosening the bolts be readily removed,
reversed, and replaced again so as to present a fresh running surface.
For ordinary road carriages, the wheels may be constructed as above described,
or they may be made with wooden spokes and nave; the spokes being bolted to the
felloe in any convenient manner.