Tools of the Trade: The Great Wheel Lathe

T

he great wheel lathe is arguably the most conspicuous tool in our pre-industrial wheelwright shop. A day seldom goes by without visitors immediately commenting on its ponderous presence, pointing hesitantly at the large flywheel, their faces twisted in doubt. And yes, in response, we cannot help but quip back: it does indeed take a wheel to make a wheel! But, all joking aside, the great wheel lathe is an indispensable tool for our wheel-making operation and truly deserves to be our inaugural Tools of the Trade featured tool. 

So, why do we need such a large lathe? What are the advantages of the great-wheel lathe over other lathe technology? Why not use animal power or water or wind power? These are some of the questions we are met with regularly. So, in this blog-post I aim to address each in turn as well as outline how our current lathe is constructed—just in case you might want to build one yourself! 

Anatomy of the Great Wheel Lathe

Before setting out, it will be useful to go over the basic anatomy of a great wheel lathe.

Figure 1 - Anatomy of the great wheel lathe

1. Mandrel - The mandrel is a sort of idler pulley connected to the drive center of the lathe. The mandrel's diameter is generally much smaller than that of the flywheel, which increases the effective RPM's the turner experiences at the work piece. The mandrel in and of itself was a later innovation, replacing the previous practice of wrapping the belt about the work piece itself. 

2. Belt/thong/cord - Typically made of leather, hemp, or cotton rope, the belt is what connects the flywheel to the mandrel. Depending on the desired direction of rotation (clockwise or counter clockwise relative to drive center), the belt will be arranged either as shown above, or twisted once over creating a figure eight shape between the flywheel and mandrel. As Moxon notes, before the introduction of the mandrel, the function of twisting the belt was also to help it better grip the work piece (see Figure 3 below).

3. Hand crank - The hand crank obviously is the means by which the flywheel is set and kept in motion. Depending on the lathe and needs of the turner, the flywheel may be equipped with a second handle on the other side of the flywheel to enable a second person to assist in the cranking. 

4. Flywheel - The flywheel is, of course, the eponymous "great wheel." It functions as the main drive pulley for the lathe. Assuming a fixed mandrel diameter, the greater the diameter of the flywheel, the lower the effective gear ratio.

5. Lathe bed -  The lathe bed generally refers to entirety of the framework that holds the puppets. It basically consists of a main frame with a large channel along which the puppets are shifted, which is in turn mounted on legs to raise the work piece up so the turner can stand and work at the piece. 

6. Puppets  - On a lathe bed there is generally two puppets, one which holds the mandrel and drive center, and another which holds a dead center. The puppets can be shifted up and down the channel in the lathe bed so as to accommodate work pieces of different lengths. They are secured in place by means of a wedged tenon at the foot of each puppet. 

History & Advantages of the Great Wheel Lathe

One of the earliest depictions of the great wheel lathe is from Das Ständebuch (The Book of Trades) published in 1568 with woodcuts by Jost Amman. In the woodcut print below, you see a portrayal of a Kandelgeisser (pewterer) turning a pewter vessel by way of the great wheel lathe. 

Figure 2 - Woodcut from Das Ständebuch of pewterer using great wheel lathe to turn pewter vessel

It's hard to say whether the great wheel lathe was being used by woodworkers as well as pewterers in the 16th century, but it's difficult to imagine a woodworker in that period not being struck by the utility of such an innovation.  We know certainly by the early 18th century using the great wheel lathe to turn wood was a commonplace practice. Nor was it regarded by that time as some great innovation, for indeed in 1703 Joseph Moxon remarks "This [great] Wheel [lathe] is so commonly known, that I shall need give you no other Description of it than the Figure it self, which you may see in Plate 14. a"  (178).

Figure 3 - Plate 14.a from Mechanick Exercises or the Doctine of Handy-Work by Joseph Moxon, published in 1703

Moxon goes on to outline the advantages the great wheel lathe has over the spring pole and treadle lathes: 

But when Turners work heavy Work, such as the Pole and Tread will not Command, they use the Great Wheel.  [...]  Besides the commanding heavy Work about, the Wheel rids Work faster off than the Pole can do; because the springing up of the Pole makes an intermission in the running about of the Work, but with the Wheel the Work runs always the same way; so that the Tool need never be off it, unless it be to examine the work as it is doing. (Moxon 178-179). 

So in brief, the advantages of the great wheel lathe are that:

 (1) Turning heavier or larger pieces is made easier thanks both to the mechanical advantage provided by the low gear ratio between the fly-wheel and mandrel as well as the momentum provided by the large heavy flywheel. 

and,

(2) In contrast to the spring pole lathe specifically, the great wheel lathe provides a continuous rotation as opposed to a reciprocating rotation. The work piece turns continuously in the same direction, allowing the turner to "rid work faster." 

Figure 4 - A depiction of a great wheel lathe from Diderot's L'Encyclopedie published in the mid 18th century.

The Great Wheel Lathe & Wheelwrighting

At what point did wheelwrights discover and subsequently introduce the great wheel lathe to their operation? There's no telling for sure, but by the 19th century it appears synonymous with the craft. Before motorization, there simply wouldn't have been a better means for turning out the large elm hubs for cart and waggon wheels.  The Gye lathe, originally from a wheelwright shop in Market Lavington and now housed at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, is a superb 19th century example—it may even have been originally built in the 18th century.

Figure 5 - Tom Gye standing next to the "great wheel"

Figure 6 - The Gye lathe all set up. There even appears to be a hub blank up ready to turn

The massive timbers used for the lathe bed suggest the Gye lathe was indeed used for turning very large, heavy pieces such as wheel hubs (see Figure 6). 

So what about in the 18th century? What evidence is there to suggest that wheelwrights practicing in the 1700's would have recourse to such technology? One of the best pieces of evidence comes from George Sturt's modern classic The Wheelwright's Shop, published in 1923. Therein, Sturt recounts how his grandfather, a wheelwright in the 18th century, built the first great wheel lathe to be used in their family shop:

More interesting —but I was never man enough to use it—was a lathe, for turning the hubs of waggon and cart wheels. I suspect it was too clumsy for smaller work. Whenever I think of this, shame flushes over me that I did not treasure up this ancient thing, when at last it was removed. My grandfather had made it—so I was told. Before his time the hubs or stocks of wheels had been merely rounded up with an axe in that shop, because there was no lathe there, or man who could use one. But my grandfather had introduced this improvement when he came to the shop as foreman; and there the lathe remained until my day. I had seen my father covered with the tiny chips from it (the floor of the "lathe-house" it stood in was a foot deep in such chips), and too late I realized that it was a curiosity in its way.  (Sturt 56-57)

Figure 7 - Picture of the Sturt and Goatcher Coach and Motor Works, a 19th century incarnation of the Sturt family shop in Farnham, Surrey

  The scenario in the Sturt family shop—a small shop in rural Farnham—was probably a common one for the era; it is also likely that more metropolitan shops would have adopted the great wheel lathe even sooner than their provincial cousins. We know that Sturt's grandfather had previously practiced in London before moving to Farnham. Once there, he started a new job as foreman in a wheelwright shop owned by William Grover.  Grover had purchased the property in 1795 for his wheelwright business. He eventually sold the property and business to Sturt's grandfather in 1810. Based on details from Grover's indorsement of conveyance, Sturt surmises the lathe and its accompanying "lathe-house" had already been built. So at some point within that 15 years time Sturt's grandfather managed to build both the lathe and the workshop that housed it .We can thus envision Sturt's grandfather arriving at his new job in Farnham, only to discover that the shop was sorely behind the times; they did not have a proper lathe! And so he soon convinced the boss to grant him permission to build a brand-spanking new great wheel lathe, ultimately—or so we can imagine—as a way to modernize the operation.

  

Construction of Our Great Wheel Lathe

Here I would like to go over the construction details of the great wheel lathe we use in our shop. It is built out of white oak (Quercus alba), and all the iron components were forged by the Anderson Blacksmith shop here at Colonial Williamsburg.

The Great Wheel & Its Frame

First, I want focus on the great wheel itself and its frame or base. Interestingly, Sturt provides a fairly detailed description of the great wheel lathe built by his grandfather. Numerous construction details are consistent with how ours is built. For instance, Sturt writes,

 On a stout post from floor to ceiling was swung a large wheel—the hind wheel for a waggon—to serve for pulley. All round the rim of this slats were nailed, or perhaps screwed on. They stood up on both sides of the felloes so as to form a run or channel for the leather belting that was carried over the pulley-wheel, across to the stock to be turned. 

Figure 8 - Lookin at the great wheel head on, you can see the channel for the drive belt

Figure 9 - Detail of belt-channel: if you look closely, you can see how the cleats that make the walls of the channel are kerfed to help them make the bend around the radius of the great wheel

Just as Sturt describes, we made a channel for the belt to run along by nailing small pieces of oak to the felloes of the great wheel. It is difficult to see in the picture, but the strips of oak were kerfed at regular intervals so as to help the oak pieces make the bend around the wheel. The joint where two pieces meet is a scarf joint.

Where our design differs from that described by Sturt is that our wheel is certainly nothing like the "hind wheel of a waggon." Our wheel comprises four felloes, each with half-lap joints cut in both ends. There are no true spokes (since there is no hub to our wheel), but instead of spokes there are two substantial cross pieces of oak which cross each other at the middle of the wheel with a half-lap joint fusing them together. Each of these cross pieces have tenons cut at each end—each tenon destined for a matching mortise cut into the middle of each felloe.

Figure 10 - Cross-piece ("spoke") joins the felloe section of great wheel by way of a square mortise-and-tenon

The felloes are attached together at each of their ends by way of half-lap joint. The joint is draw-bored together with a couple of wooden pins, and given additional strength by a recessed plate riveted across the joint.

Figure 11 - Adjacent felloes are joined, first, by two wooden pins that are draw-bored through a half-lap joint between the felloes, and secondly reinforced by a sort of mending plate held by rivets that bridges the joint

Figure 12 - The two cross-pieces that are half-lapped together, forming the "spokes" of the great wheel. In this figure you can see the long reinforcing plate with the square punch out for the drive axle. You can also see the large bolt heads for other plate that mounted on the other face of the wheel.

Figure 13 - Looking at the great wheel head on, you can see the half-lap joint peaking through the belt-cleats

Piggybacking again off of Sturt's description of their great wheel lathe, we have: 

A big handle, which years of use had polished smooth and shiny, stood out from the spokes of this wheel, just within the rim. Gripping this handle two men (but it took two) could put the wheel round fast enough for the turned with his gouge. They supplied the needful "power." Thanks to them a fourteen-inch stock could be kept spinning in the lathe.

Figure 14 - The handle to our lathe, "polished smooth and shiny"

The crank assembly is fairly straight forward. The main drive axle (to which the crank arm is attached) is made from square steel stock. In two places, one on either side of the wheel, you see the bar has been turned down to a small cylindrical section. Those cylindrical sections rest in two cradles that are bolted to the great wheel's frame, the cradles serving as half sleeve bearings for the axle to rotate within. As the main bearing surface, these cradles are of course liberally greased with a mixture of rendered sheep fat and pine tar.

    You will also notice two long plates riveted to the cross pieces of the wheel—one is mounted to one of the cross pieces on the front and the other plate is mounted to the other cross piece of the back. The plate has a square punch out which the drive axle runs through. In conjunction with a square mortise chiselled through the half-lap joint that fuses the cross pieces, the plates help to both reinforce the half-lap joint as well as strengthen the connection between the drive axle and the great wheel.

Figure 15 - Here you can see the entirety of the drive axle along with the two bearing cradles

Figure 16 - Close-up of the drive axle and cradle

The frame for the great wheel is made out of very stout timbers. Four legs are attached at a slight splay. The legs support two horizontal beams which are in turn held a prescribed distance apart by two spacer blocks (one at each end) that is tenoned through the two horizontal beams. The space produced by the spacer blocks accommodates the great wheel. 

Figure 17 - You make out all the key components of the wheel frame: the horizontal beams, the splayed leg, the dovetailed widthwise stringer, the long lengthwise stringer, and the spacer block.

 

Figure 18 - Close up of the bolted joint between the leg and horizontal beam

Figure 19 - Close up of the spacer block joining the two horizontal beams by mortise-and-tenon joint

Finally, the legs are reinforced with stringers attached at the bottom of the wheel frame, running the length and width. While the lengthwise stringers are just nailed into place, the widthwise stringers are endowed with dovetails that are nailed into shallow dovetail-shaped recesses chiseled into the sides of the legs. The dovetails provide against the weight of the great wheel forcing the legs of the base to splay out further. 

Figure 20 - close up of the dovetailed widthwise stringer which fits into a shallow dovetail-shaped recess and is nailed in place

As a final detail, you can see that the back side of the widthwise stringer is chamfered to reduce friction between the belt and stringer. 

Figure 21 - The chamfer on the top inside edge of widthwise stringer to ease the wear of the belt

The Lathe Bed

Now we turn our attention to the lathe bed itself.  Our design is slightly different than any of those depicted so far. Namely in that there is an intermediate puppet between the mandrel and drive center. This serves to further rigidify the mechanism,

Figure 22 - The three puppets, mandrel,  and lathe bed. Elm hub blank is loaded up.

Figure 23 - Close up of the intermediary puppet between mandrel and drive center

Figure 24 - The mandrel

The puppets, once positioned, are held in place by wedged tenons:

Figure 25 - The puppets are secured to the lathe bed by a wedged tenon

Again, all the ironwork was done by the blacksmith shop here in town. They forged up a beautiful tool rest and banjo which are secured to the lathe bed by a large wing nut:

Figure 26 - The banjo and tool rest forged by the blacksmith shop at Colonial Williamsburg

Figure 27 - The banjo is secured to the lathe bed by a wing nut

The last feature are the legs and feet. The legs are made from very stout slabs of white oak. At the top, are cut two notches separated by a kind of tenon which serves as a spacer for the two beams that make up the lathe bed. Two large bolts, passing through the tenon, tie together the legs and horizontal beams. 

Figure 28 - close up of the bolted joint between the horizontal beams and leg of lathe bed

Figure 29 - Another shot of the full leg assembly

At the bottom, the legs are joined by mortise and tenon to two broad feet. 

Figure 30 - one of the large feet to the lathe bed

Conclusion

By 1923, when Sturt sat down to write The Wheelwright's Shop, he already regarded the great wheel lathe as a curious relic, one whose rapid and sure death he had watched unfold first hand. He wrote "too late I realized [the great wheel lathe] was a curiosity in its way." (56). Nevertheless, he understood how important and revolutionary it had been for his shop, writing:  

And had I but realized it in time, near at hand was a most interesting proof of the advantages of this implement. For the stock of the waggon wheel—that very wheel now used for the turning other stocks—had not itself been turned. It had only been rounded up very neatly with an axe, in the old-fashioned way. It puzzles me now how they could ever have built a wheel at all on so inexact a foundation. (56-57)

Without a shadow of doubt, the great wheel lathe was a pre-industrial innovation that really transformed the wheelwright's trade. It enabled the wheel-maker to turn out much larger pieces, much quicker, and more accurately than if they were shaping them by axe. What is interesting to me now is how the great wheel lathe stands as an intermediary to the motorized lathes of the early 20th century—comparable to one of those in-between species in the trajectory of evolution. For many wheelwrights, I imagine, the introduction of the great wheel lathe would have been their first taste of how new tech could vastly improve their practice. Once introduced, it seems, the great wheel lathe had a firm foot hold and, by dint of its utility, held a hallowed place in the shops of many wheelwrights and coachmakers for easily 150 years. And were it not for motorization and industrialization, were it not for the rise of the automobile and the tractor, it would likely still be haunting many a lathe-shed, like some ponderous medieval creature waiting still for the sharp, raspy sound of a gouge against seasoned elm.   

Written by:

Murphy Conn Griffin

Apprentice Wheelwright

Citations

Sturt, George. The Wheelwright’s Shop. Cambridge, 2022.

Moxon, Joseph. Mechanick Exercises or the Doctrine of Handy-Works. The Astragal Press, 1975.