Tyring

THE new wheel being finished and painted and puttied (a most important matter this last as will be shown) black-smiths took it in hand for a time. Two jobs they had to do to it: first, to put on the tyre; next, to fit and fix the small iron bonds on the stock, one behind and one in front of the spokes. Note that these were what a wheelwright called "bonds." Customers, I know, sometimes used that name for tyres, but they sounded ignorant to me.

A great business was this tyring--if possible deferred, for economy of fuel, until a number of tyres could be put on in a batch, being "hotted up" in one fire. A new wheel--say a five-foot waggon wheel--required of course a new tyre; and to look out the iron bar to be used was the very first part of the performance. The new bar (new bars were about sixteen feet long. Two-and-a-half inches wide and three- quarters of an inch thick were common dimensions for a waggon tyre), the new bar was laid on the ground, where the blacksmith trundled the wheel carefully along it, so as to get the exact length. Chalk marks setting this out were best verified by a second trundling, for it would not do to have any mistake. As soon as the proper length was ascertained the bar was cut off to the chalk mark. By the antiquated method in my old shop this was a job for two strong men. The bar was slanted up on to the anvil, across the new chalk mark on it the smith placed a special "tool" (short cold-chisel held with twisted withe or iron rod for handle) and the smith's helper--usually a strong-armed young man--smote down on the chisel two or three resounding blows with a sledge-hammer. Then the bar was turned over, to be partly cut through on the other side also. At last, being nearly asunder already, it was broken off by the smith with two or three blows with his hand-hammer. The short piece of superfluous bar was now a "bar-end," to be stacked with other waste pieces like it and sold by weight by and by at half price. (Other refuse from the blacksmith's work was but "scrap," and not so valuable.)

"Scarfing" or "scarfing down" was the next operation. Each end of the bar was flattened out under the sledge-hammer, the smith himself always directing this, although his mate, strongarmed, actually wielded the sledge. Of course the end of the iron had to be heated for scarfing down; and while it was still hot a hole was punched through each scarf. Then, one end having been bent a little under ponderous sledge-blows, the bar could be inserted into the tyre-bender. By winding a handle on each side of this implement two men could get the tyre-bar bent into circle, but the smith was not one of these two. His part, more exacting, was to guide the bar through the bender, watching especially two points. First, unless bent with care, the iron might have a spiral twist, which it was very needful to avoid. Otherwise the wheel likewise would presently twist inside the tyre, and there was no doing anything with a twisted wheel. It could by no means be made to run true on its axle. Therefore, in first bending the tyre, the smith above all things tried to keep it properly directed through the bender, swerving neither to right hand nor to left. Across its diameter from side to side the tyre must be in one plane, "true out o' wind," all round.

The other point was to bend the bar approximately into a complete circle, bringing one scarfed end fully round to meet the other. As the bending progressed the smith could judge how it was going. By straining the bending bar up or down (sometimes a lot of strength was wanted--the man would leap from the ground so as to get his whole weight into the pull) the two scarfs were got near enough together. At last, there stood the half-finished tyre; a loop erect in the air resting on the rollers of the tyre-bender. The blacksmith steadied it on one side, until his mate could take the other side, skipping round from the handle of the bender he had been turning. Then the two lifted the tyre to the ground-- ninety pounds of iron or so, according to the wheel it was meant for.

And now for the "shutting"--the welding. But first, to keep the two scarfs together, a nail was thrust through the holes that had been punched in them. In memory I still see the men straining with strong shoulders, still hear them panting, still watch them doggedly hammering or levering, to bring two obstinate scarfs clicking into place, so that the smith may knock the nail in. But at last the nail can be hammered through and clinched over on the anvil. The tyre may be put into the fire for shutting now.

Yet there must be no hurry, for consider the smith's problem. At each stage the demands on his skill have increased until, now, a little error of his may spoil the wheel, in which case he will have an indignant wheel-maker to reckon with, to say nothing of other troubles. For observe, the tyre is to be put on hot, so as, when cold, its shrinking will tighten the wheel together. I sometimes thought its name came from that; it was to tie the wheel in an irresistible or rather an unshakeable clutch. Immense strength the contracting iron would have--I have seen thick oak spokes come over bent as no load could ever bend them, in the grip of a tyre too tight. On the other hand, if not tight enough a tyre would not pull the wheel together and would soon come off. A quarter or a half-inch more or less in the circumference might make or mar the wheel. It was therefore expected of a good tyring smith to know all the different possibilities in scores of different instances, and to get the right one. To get it. To intend it was not enough. The tyre could not be tried on first to see how it would fit. It had to be right within half-an-inch when it was once for all put on, red-hot.

So the smith went to work with due deliberation. Long use indeed had made my old friend Will Hammond look nonchalant enough at tyring; yet he was always watchful, careful. Most unusual was it for him to have a misfit with a tyre. A hook at the end of a chain hung just above the outer edge of his forge, where sundry tongs stood up in the water-trough, and in this hook rested one edge of the tyre. The opposite side lay across the hearth, right in the glow of the fire. There, in short, were the two scarfed ends, now to be shut together. The nail had tied them together temporarily; but the problem was to weld them, expanded as they were with intense heat, so that, when cold, the tyre should be of the right circumference, neither more nor less.

On these occasions I used to like to slip round to Will Hammond's left side, take the lever of the bellows out of his hand, and blow the fire, while Will kept it going with little tiny shovelfuls of coal (half a handful at a time) put on and patted down over the heating iron. Here, if anywhere, it was possible to chat to old Will, for here his impenetrable deafness seemed to give way a little, affording rare opportunity of friendly conversation; and to be on affectionate terms with such a man was reward enough, so lonely as he was too. So I stood blowing the bellows for him, carrying on some sort of shouting chatter into his least deaf ear (his hair close to my nose now and then smelt of soap) and watching how he worked his miracles.

The very act of blowing the bellows needed some practice, I found. In order to keep the heat in the iron regular the air blown up through the "tue-iron" must not fail for a moment. On the other hand, to blow too hard was to blow the smith's coal unprofitably away. What was wanted was a steady blast that would die down when the iron was at last lifted on to the anvil. Then, there should be no more than a quiet flicker in the erst roaring fire.

The blacksmith never left his fire alone. Staring into it, in constant watch for "the heat"--that moment of moments when the iron could be properly hammered--staring, watching, he was for ever fidgeting about with it. Now, it seemed to be flaring too freely, and he sprinkled water on it with the little stubby heath broom kept in the trough at his right hand. Now he worried at the coal with his small sharp-pointed poker, bright of handle. Sometimes he would (with frown of great annoyance) poke out from the very heart of the fire a blazing mass of what looked to me like coal, and push it scornfully away over the further edge of the hearth, to fall on to the growing heap of clinkers there; for in fact this was but molten "dirt," not good coal. If such a piece of clinker found its way between the two ends of iron to be welded together, Will grew almost frantic until he had poked it out, lest it should spoil the "shut." This sort of thing went on amidst Will's talk of his parsnips or potatoes --how, digging some "taters" after a drought, he had got nothing bigger than "nuts and warnuts '; or of the grape- vine over his father's cottage in Frensham village; or of a blacksmith neighbour working in another shop; or of-- any other country chatter that came uppermost.

Then, in the midst of it, he would signal to his helper--the smith at another forge or perhaps one of the wheelwrights-- and the said helper promptly got into position with the sledge.

For the moment was come. Old Will had got his heat. Indeed, flaming sparks were whirling up the chimney; a pinch of sand had been thrown into the fire to keep the iron from "burning"; unaccustomed eyes like mine could not look into the intolerable brightness; the iron was melting. One more push down then of the bellows lever, and I too had to hasten out, to help lift the tyre on the anvil and to help hold it there while able men "shut" one side of it. I was not quite an able man myself--too feeble of arm and too fumbling. Moreover, as employer, I could not afford to be too obviously a laughingstock. Besides, a third man--or boy--was really often needed, with heavy tyres. I was that man--or boy. So I saw the tyreshutting, and was of some slight use too.

The second half of the shut required another heat. Accordingly the tyre, turned over, was lifted back into the fire, the bellows were blown again, the whole process was gone over a second time. But, after the "striker," panting a little it may be, at last put down his sledge (a chinking of the hand-hammer on the anvil was the signal to him to leave off, as a lighter chinking had kept time for him all along) old Will still continued, hammering out the bruises or "squats" left by the sledge. So he worked up the edges of the new tyre until it matched the rest of the bar.

And even so he had not quite finished. Before the new tyre --welded up at last into an uninterrupted loop--could be lifted down, all springy, on to the floor, it had to be measured, as also had the wheel it was meant for.

Blacksmiths kept a special implement for this purpose--a "traveller" or "tyre- runner " The traveller was a thin circular disk of iron, six or seven inches across, which the smith would hold out, waist-high, at right angles to himself, and run round wheel and tyre in turn. Wheel first. The wheel was laid up, face- downwards where Will could walk all round it, gravely chalking the "traveller" where it came round again to the starting point. This was probably done twice over, to make sure. Meanwhile the helpers looked on silently, too fascinated by the interest of the job to joke, though we liked joking. There were one or two questions I might have asked, had Will been less deaf. As it was I never quite knew how the circulations of the traveller were counted, if at all. Having gone all round the outer circumference of the felloes, Will then turned to the tyre, where it lay across from anvil to forge. Now, it was the inside circumference to be measured. Will accordingly, lifting his leather apron, straddled over, long-legged, to the inner side of the tyre, and solemnly ran the traveller round that also, usually twice as before. If then it showed the required circumference, all was well. About an inch and five-eighths, I think, was the "tightness" of a new tyre for a hind-wheel for a waggon. The circumference of the iron had to be that much less than the wood. The tyre that passed this examination now needed only drilling for the nail-holes, and was otherwise ready to be put on to the wheel.

Footnote

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