My new Wheel

This is a Great Wheel that was given to me by a wonderful friend this week. This wheel has been in her family since the wheel was new. She gave it to me because, due to health issues she has to move to a one level home and won't have the room to keep it and she choose me because she knew I would love her and take good care of her forever.

She is in pretty good condition considering her age but is not currently is working order. She does show signs of being repaired throughout the years and I have a few pictures to show you what I mean.

In this photo if you look carefully at the two spokes you can see the one on the left, as compared to the one on the right, looks hand carved. Of the ten spokes on the wheel three of them are like the one on the left. I found something similar on the legs.

Above you can see the leg on the left has decorative turning and the one on the right does not. This leg on the right looks hand carved like the replacement spokes and I am guessing the repairs to all the wood were done by the same person. I could find no identifying markings as to identify the maker of this wheel. The next repair I found is in the following picture.

What you're looking at above is the bottom of the large wheel, it appears as though the wheel had split at some point and was repaired with these three thin sheets of metal that were riveted to the wood to keep the wood from splitting further. What I have noticed about this repair is that even though the metal is very thin it has added weight to this section of the wheel and it will move the wheel around until these metal sheets are on the bottom. So the wheel is now off balance.

This next photo shows why the wheel isn't in working order.

The peg sticking up on the top left hand side is called a maiden, there is supposed to be two of these and in between the two maiden is supposed to be a spindle, without these parts the wheel won't work. Another interesting thing you can see in this photo is hanging from the maiden by a string that has been tied at the top, it looks like a miniature base ball bat and I honestly have no idea what this would have been used for. It doesn't look as though any part of this wheel has been banged on by a little bat such as pegs being tapped into place so this is a mystery to me. Perhaps someone reading this might know what it is and what it is for and mention it in the comments.

I would like to get this wheel in working order again if at all possible. I do have a few messages out to people who do wood turning and I am just waiting for replies now so I will post any progress reports as I get them. Thanks for reading and if anyone out there has information that might help with getting this beauty working again please leave a comment.