The Triumphant Orffyrean Perpetual Motion Finally Explained! by Kenneth W. Behrendt

Author:Kenneth W. Behrendt
Format: epub

As each axle pivot pin of the Merseburg wheel projected beyond the outside facing surface of its vertical support plank, it passed through the center hole of a large washer which was held near the outside surfaces of that axle pin’s two touching half moon bearing plates by a split pin that was inserted through a small hole drilled through the axle pivot pin and which then had one of its emerging ends bent in order to keep the split pin locked into the small hole and the washer from moving away from the bearing plates along the axle’s end pivot pin. The split pin and the axle pivot pin washer whose outward axial motion it blocked also served the purpose of preventing the axle pivot pin from withdrawing into the plank as the other end of the axle then moved closer to the inside surface of its vertical support plank and began rubbing against it. If such rubbing was allowed to occur, it would create energy wasting drag that would prevent the wheel from rotating at its maximum rate and, if severe enough, might even slow the wheel to a stop.

The exterior end of each axle pivot pin was “squared off” by using a file to give it a square cross section and then had a threaded hole tapped into the center of its outward facing square face that would receive the threaded section of a small bolt. Bessler, having been an apprentice clockmaker, would have been familiar with this technique because it was a method commonly used to securely attach the hour and minute hands to the posts projecting out of the center of a clock’s dial.

Once the exterior ends of the axle pivot pins were squared off, it was then possible to attach two somewhat unusual cranks to them. One of these cranks is shown at the bottom of Figure 12(a). It had a square hole in its central cylindrical piece that fitted onto the square cross section at the end of an axle pivot pin after which it was locked into place by a tightened bolt with a large slotted head on it. Then, from the cylindrical piece attached to the end of an axle pivot pin, a handle forming a semicircular arc extended away and its end was attached to a smaller diameter cylindrical piece with a hole in its center. The resulting radial distance between the center axis of the axle’s pivot pin and the center axis of the hole in the smaller cylindrical piece at the end of the crank handle was about 3 inches.

Why this unusual shape instead of just using a crank with a straight handle? It’s hard to tell, but I suspect that Bessler found them to be decorative and, perhaps, liked them because he thought their curves would distract the reverse engineers viewing his wheels from noticing the exact way that the two pendulums were attached to the ends of the Merseburg wheel’s axle and for reasons that will become obvious before the end of this chapter.

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