Obviating Punctures on Six-wheelers.
Page 53
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QUITE early in the days of the rigid-frame sixwheeler we were told that the type seemed to suffer from a plague of punctures in the pneumatic tyres, and is a curious fact that, whenever users write to us on the subject, they never precisely specify the location of the tyres that puncture. Sometimes there is a vague indication in the phrase "rear wheels," but that (lees not help to any extent.
We have always supposed that the tyres which suffer from the puncturing implement are those upon the rearmost wheels of the bogie, and experience which goes back to our bicycle days has provided a clue to the cause. We have replied to our readers offering the advice to hang a flap of leather, or a loop of chain, close to the -gronnd between the two tyres on each side of the bogie. New that the six-wheeler is getting into more hands, the advice calls for fuller dissemination and we have had prepared a drawing which gives some idea of the reason for the puncturing and suggests a preventive.
Nowadays the highways are fairly free of puncturing implements, particularly flints, but occasionally a flinty stretch of road is met and many sharp spicules can be observed. Nails and screws are dropped from passing vehicles and horses not carefully tended will cast shoes or loose shoe nails. A large tyre passing over these things will generally do so without harm to itself, but the articles will be disturbed and will tip up on one end, to fall flat to the ground again. When thus turned up on edge by the tyre on the front wheel of a vehicle they have time in which to fall prone before the tyre on a rear wheel meets them, but when they are tipped up by the wheel on the forward of the two bogie axles they have not the time to fall before the rearmost tyre is upon them and so they are met standing up and rpady to enter the cover and pierce the tube.
If now a flap which nearly touches the ground is interposed between the two tyres it will meet the upstanding puncturing implement and strike it prone again, so saving the tyre which is behind it.
A. flap of leather is best because it does not matter if it serapes the ground, as it will merely be worn .away to a length which permits it to remain effective. A. loop of steel chain if supported in three places will hang fairly parallel to the ground, or rather in two bows, but it will be worn away by contact with the ground and may lose a link or two and become ineffective before the wear is noticed.
So we recommend the fitting under the wing of a light frame of, say, 1-in. by 1-in, angle iron, with a flap of leather about 12 ins, long and 6 ins. or 8 ins. wide. Our illustration., shows the support made of sheet7Steel, with its edges flanged, but it need not be so strong as this. If twin tyres be used, a flap of leather should be provided for each on the same frame.