Thread: Ride on wooden truck, How?

Hi all,

Read the request regarding bearings for steering on truck.

If I can add some advice regarding wear-ability based on my experience as an engineer.
The use of dowelling is fine but when considering the bearing I use a basic rule of thumb, i.e. do not use materials of similar hardness they will wear quickly. This I would think would apply just as easily with wood as with metal. I found wear-ability improved when you ran a hard material with a soft one. They tend to polish each other and make the running surfaces slippery, hence lasting longer.

Most of the engineering work I did involved farming and often required a repair on the job. e.g. An elevator housing might be worn through by the grain and the farmer was losing a lot of the grain.
Problem. I could not go into the field to do the repair where I was in a field of dry wheat crop.
I found a solution that worked very well and lasted several years was to repair the surface with resin and fibreglass. Cured quickly and without danger of fire and the farmer was soon back in stripping the crop. Typically, it was not followed up during the down season as "well, it worked so let it be was the philosophy. You wonder than grain could wear steel so easily.
Bronze/brass with steel worked fine as well. Have even used solder in an emergency.
A friend's utility, many years ago broke down in the outback of Australia, with a bearing problem and too far to the nearest repair station. The repair was done on the side of the road using some brown paper to pack the white metal bearing so it could be driven. Last some 10,000 miles before it was decided that it would be a good idea to repair the motor . Another similar repair was carried out by stripping down the leather from some bridle reins. Worked too.
So in conclusion softwood to hardwood should work.

Regards
professori_au