Had a "I wonder ..." moment and am curious as to how historic (pre metal
bearing) coaches and carriages fixed axles to rotate ? Wood-on-wood would
surely scorch or burn, and leather would wear away ?
googling seems a tad underwhelming - probably because I'm using the wrong
terms ...
If you look at many old carts you will still find metal parts. Not terribly
sophisticated, but good enough for the purpose.
We have been giving horses shoes for a very long time, so blacksmiths have
fashioned metal that long.
Brian
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This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
You patently need to go back a long way for pre-metal civilisations.
Try early* Egyptian. IIRC wood on wood sometimes with leather bushes
packed with tallow to lubricate. Deep hub to spread load and reduce wobble.
*later they used metal sleeving
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Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid
I can assure you that wooden axles are not unknown even today in some
parts of the world...
First wheel/axles is 6000 BCE - well before the bronze age.
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There’s a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons
that sound good.
was in wiki.
.....
"The Halaf culture of 6500–5100 BCE has been credited with the earliest
depiction of a wheeled vehicle.[3]
One of the first applications of the wheel to appear was the potter's
wheel, used by prehistoric cultures to fabricate clay pots. The earliest
type, known as "tournettes" or "slow wheels", were known in the Middle
East by the 5th millennium BCE (one of the earliest examples was
discovered at Tepe Pardis, Iran, and dated to 5200–4700 BCE). These were
made of stone or clay and secured to the ground with a peg in the
center, but required effort to turn. True (freely-spinning) wheels were
apparently in use in Mesopotamia by 3500 BCE and possibly as early as
4000 BCE,[4] and the oldest surviving example, which was found in Ur
(modern day Iraq), dates to approximately 3100 BCE.
Evidence of wheeled vehicles appears in the second half of the 4th
millennium BCE, near-simultaneously in Mesopotamia (Sumerian
civilization), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe
(Cucuteni-Trypillian culture).
An early well-dated depiction of a wheeled vehicle (a wagon—four wheels,
two axles) is on the Bronocice pot, a ca. 3635–3370 BCE ceramic vase,
excavated in a Funnelbeaker culture settlement in southern Poland.[5]
The oldest known example of a wooden wheel and its axle was found in
2002 at the Ljubljana Marshes some 20 km south of Ljubljana, the capital
of Slovenia. According to radiocarbon dating, it is between 5,100 and
5,350 years old. The wheel was made of ash and oak and had a radius of
70 cm and the axle was 120 cm long and made of oak.[6]
In Roman Egypt, Hero of Alexandria identified the wheel and axle as one
of the simple machines used to lift weights.[7] This is thought to have
been in the form of the windlass which consists of a crank or pulley
connected to a cylindrical barrel that provides mechanical advantage to
wind up a rope and lift a load such as a bucket from the well.[8]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_and_axle
Anyway wooden axles were the norm for centuries.
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"In our post-modern world, climate science is not powerful because it is
true: it is true because it is powerful."
On 27/12/2017 11:16, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Thanks. Confirms my recollection: wheels for transport started c.3500
BC. (As Wikipedia goes on to say about the Halaf: "sometimes credited
with the earliest depiction of a wheeled vehicle, but this is doubtful
as there is no evidence of Halafians using either wheeled vehicles or
even pottery wheels.")
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Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid
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