or 
Cr 
A NEW METHOD OF SETTING THE 
TYRES OF WHEELS. 
BY 
Wd OI Ere 1, OW IWIN, 1, A. 
Ir may be of interest to some of my brother officers to know that a 
new method of setting the tyres of wheels has been invented and is 
now being introduced in London. 
The advantages claimed for the machine are that it sets the tyres 
cold, quicker, cheaper and better than any other known method. 
When it is realized that the average period in which an omnibus 
wheel requires re-tyring is three months, it will be understood what a 
large field is open to a machine doing what West’s! Tyre-setter claims 
to do. 
The machine is in two parts, together weighing 5 tons. 
The Tyring machine itself consists of a stout Bessemer ring, about 
62 inches in diameter. Around and inside the circumference of this 
ring are some 18 hydraulic rams set at equal distances and in pairs 
on the opposite ends of the interior diameters of the Bessemer ring. 
The second part of the machine is a double pump for working up 
the requisite pressure, and this requires a force of 4 h-p. to work it. 
The fluid employed is oil. When it is required to set the tyre on a 
wheel, all that is necessary is to place the wheel resting on the 
interior with its hub over the centre of the ring and the tyre outside 
the wheel. 
Blocks of cast-iron of the requisite thickness, according to the 
diameter of the wheel to be tyred, are then dropped round the outside 
of the tyre, one opposite each ram. 
ihe pressure is then applied and the tyre is gradually compressed 
until it fits the felloes accurately, the whole process not requiring more 
than half a minute. 
The metal does not rebound when the pressure is removed, nor is 
the metal injured in any way. 
When under pressure the metal of the tyre sheds small filings and it 
is claimed that the metal is rendered more homogeneous and harder, 
the wear of the tyre being in consequence much increased. 
On the face of it the method would appear to be a great advance on 
the present system of shrinking the tyres on. 
1 This method has been adopted and a fully equipped machine hag been installed in the B.C.D. 
Royal Arsenal Woolwich for some months.—4.J.A, 
IO, WOlbe xexa° 
