Part of my story needs a horse-drawn farm cart to look as if* it’s lost a wheel in the middle of the road (it’s a cunning trick by 19th Century highway robbers wanting to stop a horse-drawn coach). *The wheel didn’t really fall off of its own accord, the robbers made it happen. I’ve Googled for info on this, and the results are unclear – what I need to know is, how were wheels attached to a fixed axle, back in pre-automobile days? If I go way back to medieval times, apparently it was a simple arrangement of the axle through a hole in the centre of the wheel and a pin through the end of the axle; however all the pictures I’ve found from the 19th Century show a covered hub in the centre of the wheel. What I need to know is, what was under that hub? Any Rip Van Winkles on site? Or collectors of old farm carts? Or even just a good mechanic?
I would imagine you would be able to find out more about this if you focused your searching to forums about what you're looking for. I did a quick Google search for "antique farm cart forums" and one called smokestak com came right up. Google "smokestak" and then do a search on their forum. Plenty of info there. If you sign up there and pose this question you should get a definite answer...and the correct one for sure.
This is interesting stuff. I did a bit more researching on this and found a site by a group that makes reproductions of 19th century wooden carts. Apparently, they used a 6-8 inch wooden axle that was turned on a lathe and mounted the wheel at a predetermined angle with a wooden pin to hold it in place. See pics below. These were found at heritage.uen.org.
I half suspected the pin arrangement was still in use in the 19th Century. I might just wing it in my story. Hopefully the average reader isn't going to be bothered with small technicalities. Many thanks.
