IMPROVEMENTS IN WHEELS FOR CARRIAGES, VELOCIPEDES, AND OTHER VEHICLES FOR COMMON ROADS
Year: 1873

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Henry James Grout
at the Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition,
on the 8th February 1873.
I, WILLIAM HENRY JAMES GROUT, of Watson Street, Stoke Newington,
in the County of Middlesex, Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of
the said Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN WHEELS FOR CARRIAGES, VELOCIPEDES,
AND OTHER VEHICLES FOR COMMON ROADS," to be as follows, that is to say:-
-
In the Specification of former Letters Patent granted to me and dated
the First day of December 1870, Number 3152, I described the mode
of constructing wheels for velocipedes, carriages, and other vehicles.
Now the chief object of my present Invention is to make further
improvements in wheels for carriages such as broughams, landaus,
phatons, cabs, carts, and velocipedes as herein-after described. To
make the said wheels I employ steel, wrought iron, or other suitable
metal for the rims, or felloes rolled with a V or U shaped groove for the
purpose of receiving india-rubber therein to form the tyre of the wheel;
for wheels for carrying heavy loads the groove in the rim, felloe, or ring of
the wheel is made round, half round, flat, square, or of an oval shape.

page_text: The tyre is made of tubular
being alternately large and small at distances of about one inch or more
apart. The rubber is formed with a hole of about three-eighths of an
inch or three-fourths of an inch in diameter in its centre to admit of an
iron or steel rod to pass through it. One end of the rod is cut with a
left hand, and the other end with a right hand screw thread, a nut being
provided to screw up the ends of the rod which thus forms a band
through the rubber tyre, by this means it is held firmly in the groove of
the wheel.
In some carriage wheels the rubber tyre may be in one piece instead
of in sections, with a hole through the centre of the rubber to admit of
a larger sized iron or steel rod. The rim, felloe, or ring of the wheel is
provided with a number of metal nuts fitted into drilled and countersunk
holes, and rivetted over the said holes in the rim of the wheel so as to
admit of their being turned; these nuts form projections on the inner
circle of the felloe of the wheel, and have tapped holes to receive the
ends of the spokes which are also screw-threaded. The nave or stock of
the wheel I make of brass, iron, steel, or other metal in separate pieces
with decorative plates on the ends of the nave or stock; the parts when
fitted together form one complete nave or stock having a number of
semicircular pieces of metal cast on each end of the stock; at either side
of these semicircular pieces the spokes which are made of iron or steel
are passed through holes drilled in the flange of the stock; one end of the
spoke is put through the hole on the left, the other end of the spoke
through the hole on the right hand side of the semicircular piece so that
one steel or iron rod bent round the semicircular piece of metal in the
nave forms two spokes, the ends of which are screwed into the herein-
before described nuts in the ring or felloe of the wheel, by turning
which nuts the spokes may be drawn tightly round the semicircular piece,
by which means the wheel may be adjusted, tightened, and set true.
Wheels of small diameter only require eight spokes, those of larger
more to give the necessary strength to the
have twelve

page_text: In applying part of my Invention to wood carriage wheels already
made I first remove the old iron tyre, and I then fix on the wheel the
grooved ring or band which serves to hold the wood wheel in its true
position, the india-rubber tyre is then fixed in the groove in one piece or
in sections round the said ring, the iron or steel rod passing through the
centre of the rubber is then screwed up firmly.