Setting a wagon tire

the ring red

If I ever get my gatling finished and move on to the gun carriage, I'm planning to use the technique. I'm not putting a brass hoop on my wheels, I want iron, you don't have to polish that. ;)

Wes

I checked the resistance of a steel bar 1/8" x1" x 1' on this site:

It's way too low for an arc welder but a spot welder might be able to heat the rim if it can survive the long On time.

If you have to drive through NYC to reach PA are you near Mystic Seaport? There is a blacksmith there who I think makes wheels.

jsw

Be careful what you ask for, idiot.

Cassano's used to sell a 40" party pizza, but you had to order it three days before the party. The price was about $30, 25 years ago. I always wanted to see how much I could eat, in one try. When I was in my

20s, we used to have pizza eating contests. We had a half hour for lunch, which gave us 20 minutes to eat. I could put away one and a half 18" thick crust pizza and two large glasses of Pepsi. I weighted 175 pounds. The only one in the group who ever beat me weighed close to 400 pounds. :)

A lot of places use belt drive ovens these days. They look like early hot air reflow soldering machines.

nah, that's a pretty average one. mine will take a 21" round with about 1/2" to spare on the sides.

you might call around to some ceramic or glass artists, a ceramic supply store, or one of those paint on ceramics mall places, to 'borrow' some heat for a while. the charge for a firing would be only a few dollars.

regards, charlie

Why? It sounds like less labor, for a longer useful life.

I'm kidding, but the Amish have an unusual take on things. I guess rubber under the steel is OK, but rubber tires would be unholy. But whatever they're doing seems to be working for them. I wonder if they're still busy making those stoves...

It's not that rubber tires are "unholy"--their rule is no powered vehicles that can be driven on the highway and no rubber tires is a way to enforce it.

Much of the Amish attitude toward technology is pragmatic--it's not that it's "unholy", it's that they want to maintain a particular social structure of their community and they're perfectly happy to go with technologies that don't upset that social structure but they after due consideration forbid those that do upset it.

Don't know about stoves, but they're still doing some nice woodworking. We have a couple of rooms and will be adding more this year.

That makes more sense.

I'm not sure I follow - I've seen Amish wagons on the road, both with rubber wheels and without. What does that have to do with it being powered? None of the Amish wagons are powered.

Different sects of the Amish have different takes on the rubber. Some allow it, some don't. Least that's what I've read. And it's owning things that creates the problem. The Amish can take public transportation and they'll hire buses when necessary.

R

If you saw a buggy with rubber wheels it was NOT Amish. More likely Mennonite.

Basically there are different orders of plain folks. Old order Amish - These are the ones who shun pretty much all modern technology, no powered machinery on the farm and maybe a phone stuck on a pole out in the middle of a field for all the "local" Amish to use.

New order Amish - These allow some modern technology like generators and solar power as well as some powered machinery on the farm with maybe a steel wheeled tractor or crawler allowed. They allow a phone in the barn or greenhouse and some even have a drivers license even though they are not supposed to drive cars.

Mennonite - The closest to what we take for normal people. They allow tractors and rubber tires on the buggies, some even have cars. They do some stuff the old ways but also have cell phones and electricity in some places.

Yep, and they also hire out locals to take good to market sales and such. One of the locals has me drive him or his wife around quite a bit to different farmers markets. VERY nice folks. The neighbors are currently selling out their farm and I'm hoping that some friends of the Amish I know buy it.

I hang out on newsgroups - maybe too much - and I don't know if I know what a 'normal' person is anymore!

I hope the Amish buy this place:

I'd hate to be the one to make the decision to sell such a place.

R

Best auto mechanic I ever knew was Mennonite!

I understand that a surprising number of Amish have cell phones. The way I saw it explained by one who has one is that he went to the Bishop or the elders or whatever they have (I forget the details) with this new thing and asked if he could try it. He was told that he could, with the understanding that he might have to give it up later if if was decided that such things were not acceptable.

As to what makes a cell phone different from a wired phone, I suspect the wires have a good deal to do with it.

There are some Amish here in Southern Illinois that drive pickup trucks, John Deere tractors and such.

Mark

The Ohio Amish furniture company I bought my stuff from wasn't connected to the grid but had cell phones, an took plastic. To power the machinery they had a bank of three diesel generators. Other furniture stores in the area had gas lighting. Rather surprising to walk under a fixture in the middle of the summer.

Are you sure those aren't Mennonites?

John Deere tractors could be New Order Amish, but pickup trucks don't seem very likely unless there was some truly extraordinary situation.