Good progress day...

Today I wanted to get started on the crown wheel and I was able to make good progress.

I started with the hub of the wheel.  This is just like the hub I did for the test great wheel I did months ago.  The metal is split into a "Y" shape and stretched out.  Then it is flipped around and repeated.

This is the last photo of the hub that I took.  I wanted to hold off on finishing it to make sure it would work with the crown wheel.

Next I turned to the crown wheel.  The crown wheel has a diameter of approximately 8" with 33 teeth.  Something of an interesting note.  An article that I have used for a lot of my source information had some interesting theories on how you would lay out 33 teeth.  He believed that since the number could not be easily split into halves that it would be difficult to layout with a divider.  He had some interesting theories on how you could layout the teeth.

In reality, it was quite easy with the divider.  I divided by 11 then divided those by 3.  I started by laying this out on a straight bar.  It was about 1/8" thick by 1 1/2" (I think).



I then removed the waste with a hacksaw.  Because of the thinness of the metal, this was fairly easy.  I am still a little bothered that I don't have more evidence on using hacksaws but it seems perfectly logical.  Medieval hacksaws do exists and they could easily be made to be hard enough it is just that I do not know of any woodcuts, manuscripts, etc...  that show a smith using a hacksaw.



You may notice a little tab on the end of the stock.  I was originally going to rivet the wheel together but I decided to braze it instead so the tab was cut off.  After cutting the metal, I began to curve it into shape.  This shows the crown wheel in the fire.



Finally, after curving the wheel, I took a photo of the crown wheel with the verge and foliot just to see them together for the first time.  The tabs are not yet on the verge and foliot and I haven't placed the hub in the crown wheel.  Also at the bottom of the photo, you can see that the crown wheel is not yet welded together.  I want to hold that off until I get the hub in the crown wheel to make it safe.



Finally, a picture of the crown wheel on its own.  I did double check and when it is brazed together, the teeth are perfectly spaced  (probably no more than 1/32" inch variation.)