Toy Page Numbers correction.

 I was readingthrough some of my old notes about my digital projects and I noticed what seemed to be a curious error.  The four numbers on the bottom left side of the ‘Toys’ page, 138,139,140 and 141, are not present on a microfilm version of MT, which I have.  Several years ago I obtained a microfilm copy 8of Bessler documents, over 600 of them, which included all of MT, this was done via an international library loan system.  This was back around 1997 or 1998, I think.

Anyway the microfilm predates the images contained in my version of MT, so I must assume that Bessler did not write them.  I apologise for this mistake and I hope that not too many people did as I did, and make an ingenious explanation of these bogus figures.

There are a lot of three digit numbers scattered around the pages of MT and I think they  are simply evidence that more than one file clerk tried put the papers of MT in some kind of logical order, and not Just MT, but all the other documents associated with Bessler.  MT 137 is the last Bessler numbered picture, and numbering up to 141, might have included anything else.

I don’t have the date the microfilms were made but it could have been done a few years before I saw it.

Several years ago I corresponded regularly with Glenn Rouse a long time researcher into the world of Bessler.

The old microfilm version is on the left, with no sign of those four numbers.    I published the pictures on the right above which came from the translator because they came with the translations.  Many of the microfilm images were not so clear. It has recently occurred to me that there might another set of images made in 1991.

Glenn, who supplied the translations also passed on the following link which explains where his images came from.  A friend of his was about to do a tour of various European cities had agreed to stop off in Kassel, to try to purchase printed copies of the woodblock images left by Bessler; the same ones I published as Maschinen Tractate (MT).  The friend, Irv Thomas, wrote an account of his trip and in it he gave a full account if his search and eventual finding if the 141 prints.

Here is the link, I’ve included a short passage from his book below:  http://www.irvthomas.com/Innocence%20Abroad/innocence15.html

“My English was understood at the reception desk, from where I was escorted upstairs to the manuscript room and turned over to a large, stolid-looking guardian of its treasures, who brought out for me a huge and ancient bound volume of papers, easily five inches in thickness and maybe twelve by eighteen inches in flat measure. It held hundreds of hand-written pages - separate documents of diverse size, almost all of them in German, a few in French. All equally obscure to me.

I could tell a bit by the format: many were letters, some were inventories and others appeared to be legal documents. The dates I saw ranged from 1712 to 1746 and a good many were signed by Bessler himself, but in the curious affectation of an anagram he used: Orffyreus. I couldn't immediately see how any of it could possibly be of use to Glenn. I might arrange to have a few copied and sent to him - though on what basis of selection I wasn't at all sure. Nevertheless, I stayed there patiently for an hour or more, going carefully through them page by page.

I was about done with it, hurriedly flipping pages toward the back binding, when I reached what certainly looked to be the engravings! Their smaller page format was almost tucked under the larger material above and might have thus been missed by Dr. von Mackensen. It had to be what I came for, for they counted out to 141 exactly, annotated extensively, perhaps by Bessler himself, and their subject matter was quite clearly what Glenn had expected. Hardly able to contain my excitement, I had now to deal with the language problem, to discover whether, and how, I might get copies of the entire batch.”

Irv obtained copies of the images. Did Glen use those images so carefully obtained by Irv, or did they come from a later  source?  If I used Glenn’s images then they date back to before 2016, but my microfilm is definitely older so we can assume that the four numbers on MT Toys page weren’t put there by Bessler.

JC

PS Further proof that Bessler did not write the four numbers on the Toys page.

Friedrich Wilhelm Strieder wrote about Johann Ernst Elias Bessler (known as Orffyreus) in his 1795 biographical work Grundlage zu einer Hessischen Gelehrten- und Schriftsteller-Geschichte, where he famously documented and critiqued Bessler's perpetual motion wheel claims. 

Streider was not a fan of Besseler but he was highly respected archivist and librarian.  It was he who informed us of the 141 sheets of paper contains images of various mechanical designs.

In my version of MT there are two pages bearing two images on one page, each referenced MT 1 and 2. The last page before the Toys page is numbered MT 137.  This number is correctlty applied to this sheet for reasons I have explained previously, (https://johncollinsnews.blogspot.com/2021/05/johann-besslers-hidden-codes-golden.html)

MT137 is indeed the 137th sheet if you don’t include one of the duplicated MT 1/2.  This means that although Strieder counted 141 sheets, leaving out one of the duplicated MT1/2 leaves just 140 sheets.  So the correct number for the Toys page is MT 138, plus the two hand drawn images at the end of MT, and then totals 140.  Bessler would not have needed to add those other numbers after MT 137: unless he wanted to number the Toys page and the two hand drawn sheets.

QED

JC

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UPDATE

 I must apologise for my recent absence, I’m not about to retire and anyway I enjoy reading all the comments, both for and against!

Ok, quick update to explain one month’s disappearance of my blog.  With my daughter and son-in-law on an extensive holiday in Australia, we are needed to stay with Amy, my disabled granddaughter just in case she needs any help. 

Anyway, I’ll be back at the beginning of November, when I plan to share more information about my design, in the meantime I will concentrate on finishing my version of Bessler’s wheel.

Looking forward to reading your comments about my design and how I found it.

JC

I liked the picture linked in the first comment! See below.

“I’m NOT retiring!”

I know it was a Humorous take on my view but I do like it.

JC

What Happened After Johann Bessler Left Kassel.

I promised to post some information on Johann Bessler's life after leaving Kassel, but I need to share some of his earlier experiences first, as they affected his later ordeals as well as his adventures.

Early in 1713, the town of Annaberg was shaken by a strange illness.  A rapidly increasing number of people suffered cramping attacks, similar to epilepsy, which were accompanied by apparitions of the devil, witches, goblins and other similar forms, which compelled some of the patients to perform an excessive amount of cartwheels and convinced some of them to sell themselves to the devil.  Many, at the start of the illness, began to vomit copiously and suffered skin eruptions. Outbreaks of the illness lasted more than seven years, and were accompanied from the outset by an even longer lasting dispute as to whether the cause was black magic or a natural cause.

Into this complex situation in Annaberg, stepped Bessler. On one of his journeys he had heard a rumour about buried treasure hunters. and decided to investigate. Some of the treasure hunters that he met, were so enthusiastic and guileless that he resolved to join them. He had made the acquaintance of some "eminent people" who were sponsoring the hunt, actually they were the Mayor and his wife. Bessler joined them and dug enthusiastically where ever they indicated., But a child’s body had been found in a deserted building and the Mayor’s wife was suspected of being involved in some way, she was thought to be involved in black magic. After some time Bessler was evicted from the group for refuting their belief that they could find hidden treasure by using black magic.

Bessler had learned the root cause of the illness, and how to cure it, possibly from his time with the apothecary. While he was there he had learned some basic medical skills.  Once he had completed his wheel he returned to Annaberg for a compelling reason - he wished to reconnect with his former girlfriend, the youngest daughter of the Town Mayor.  In the records of Annaberg, there was much gossip about one of the Mayor’s daughters, Barbara Elizabeth Schumann, who was reported to have been seen several times with a young soldier in their garden, spending time together.  A year or two earlier, Bessler had been press ganged into the army but had managed to escape. After his escape, he visited Annaberg and while there, investigated the treasure hunters. 

He had met the Mayor’s wife, also called Barbara Elizabeth Schumann, before. She was the chief promoter of the treasure hunting scheme, hence his familiarity with the Schumann family. Upon his return, having explained that he had succeeded in his quest to solve the perpetual motion mystery, he was able to persuade the Mayor to let him see his daughter, Barbara Elizabeth.  She was convulsing, had cramps and saw imaginary creatures.  Bessler said he knew how to cure her and asked Mayor if he could  marry her if he cured her illness.  The Mayor agreed but insisted that if he succeeded he must take the girl away and also take her maid too and never let her return.

Barbara Schumann, the mother, had fallen under suspicion that the dead child was her grandson—whose secret birth and killing she was alleged to have been involved in. This suspicion stemmed not only from a series of circumstantial clues but also from gossip and/or indiscretions on the part of her maid. The maid’s name was Anne Rosine Mauersberge.  The maid had been imprisoned on two occasions for spreading malicious gossip about the Mayor and his family and was only release after she begged to be forgiven and promising she would never gossip again!

Because the mother also had a reputation for an interest in treasure hunting, these two suspicions were joined A contributing factor was the unpopularity of the town councilor families; indeed, due to her membership in this upper class, it was assumed that the town council and municipal court had deliberately left the matter unresolved.

From my biography of Bessler, after he successfully completed his first perpetual motion machine: -

Having received two letters from "two rich patients, I stopped all work, took the coach that had been sent for me, and rushed off, leaving my work in pieces, but with the thought that it didn't matter now that my trust in God had proved so well founded". He cured both patients who were generously appreciative, and through them got to treat other sick people, "whom I was likewise able to cure". Orffyreus now travelled to the Erz Mountains. He visited water-mills and mines in the area, because he needed to know if and how his newly discovered perpetual motion machine might be of use in such occupations - whether the machine could be built large enough to cope with the loads imposed on it, and how to connect such a device. He arrived at Annaberg-Bucholz where, in order to earn sufficient funds to maintain hisway of life he continued to practice medicine.”

“ The town mayor and also chief physician was Dr. Christian Schumann, and Bessler had met both him and his wife during his treasure hunting period. The Mayor had a daughter, his youngest, who was lying seriously ill, suffering from the same Annaberg disease as many others. "She was screaming, tossing to and fro, and twisting her limbs. Her parents were greatly distressed, and had tried, to no avail, many ways of alleviating her suffering. I gazed at her and said that it was awful that such a lovely girl should have to suffer so. Straight away I set to with God's help, and within the hour I had cured her. As a reward I was given the girl herself! With God's grace I took her hand in marriage". This was in 1711, and Bessler was. already about thirty years of age.”

Although Bessler said he married the Mayor’s daughter, unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any documentary evidence that he did actually marry her.  One reason may be because of a mention of a woman who claimed that she was already married to Bessler, but no further information is available now.

 Barbara Elizabeth, one of the mayor’s daughter, had met Bessler previously, but he had left suddenly, possibly driven out by her brother, father and mother.  But he was back, just in time to save Barbara from the Annaberg affliction. Bessler had learned about the cause of this diseases and the cure was simple once you knew the cause.

Rye bread was a dietary staple in 18th century for the working classes and cold winters followed by damp spring could  lead to mould forming on the bread.  Ergot, a parasitic fungus that caused violent muscle spasms, rigid contortions, painful convulsions, and severe, vivid hallucinations or delusions. People frequently described the sensation of bugs crawling under their skin. 

The cure involved removal of all affected rye bread, following this the patient was cured and returned to good health and normal behaviour. Bessler must have learned this on his various travels and her knew he could cure the Mayor’s daughter quickly.

At the time the disease was blamed on witchcraft and specifically on treasure hunting.  This method of looking for buried treasure was purportedly accompanied by child sacrifice.  In support of this rumour a child’s dead body was discovered in an abandoned house.  The mayor protected his wife, who was believed to be the source of the witchcraft.  Dr Schumann died in 1727, and a kings  commission, looking into the reports of child sacrifice, concentrated their investigation on the activities of the Doctors wife, was able extend their investigation for several more years.

The doctor’s wife, Barbara Elisabeth Schumann, who was now Bessler’s mother-in-law, moved swiftly from Annaberg to take up residence with Bessler, in 1727, thus avoiding the Kings Commissioners and their investigation into her criminal activities.

Gartner died that year February 2nd, and although he was thus absent, there was a large conspiracy aimed at Bessler, headed by his mother-in -law, Barbara Elisabeth Schumann.  She tried to enrich herself, by interfering with the economical affairs managed by Bessler for the Landgrave. She was aided by her two son-in-laws, and endeavoured to pressure Bessler into giving them access to accounts of the various businesses managed by Bessler.

Bessler describes the “complot” involving not just his mother-in-law and her relatives but also his first wife’s maid, Anne Rosine Mauersberge, who was made to accompany Bessler as his wife’s maid.  Together they made Bessler’s life miserable.  His mother died in 1727 and wife had died in 1725, but he wasted no time in getting married again, and his new wife was  aged just 18.

  She was the daughter of the Court Blacksmith, Adam Krone and despite the depressing circumstances of his life, and his failure to ignite interest in his various schemes, he was able to father four girls with Barbara Elizabeth Schumann, who died in 1725, and five more girls with Catherine Elisabeth Krone.

There is much more but I think the above gives you a rough picture of his life in Karlshafen

JC

September Update

My current construction continues slowly but surely.  I began construction in July, and it’s proved more difficult than most because although I have various parts drawn out on a sketch pad, the levers which move under the influence of gravity,  are controlled by other pieces of mechanism.  There are, as I’ve said many times, five mechanisms. As of this afternoon, Tuesda, four of them are finished, the last one should be ready before the weekend.  Following this there may be a pause in construction, because my grandson, Andy, is getting married then, and obviously they will be going on honeymoon.

The pause is caused by the space in my garage being largely taken up by Andy’s race bike, spare tyres, and his motorcycle racing leathers and about six helmets!  He won’t be back for three or four weeks.  This leaves me very little room to work, so my next blogs may be unrelated to my own project.  He has promised me he will move the bike up to his father’s new house once they have moved in.  This is supposed to happen some time after the wedding.  

 Other members of my family are moving northward to be closer to my amazing granddaughter Amy, a content creator and influencer.  Some of you may remember I started a  crowd fund for her a few years ago, shortly after her life as a teacher was cut short by a Doctor’s error which led eventually to permanent paralysis from the waist downwards.  

She has not let this situation stop her getting on with her life.  She has been on TV, commentated at the Paris Paralympics, done rock climbing, surf boarding, a marathon, swimming and so much more.  Her TikTok account has received 272 million likes and she has more than 4 million followers on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube  and other online social platforms.

She’s an example to all of us, never ever give up!  Look up Amy Pohl on google.

HAVING SAID THAT PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.

In the next few days I will be removing the ‘book pages’ from this blog and they will not be available for purchase any more.  I’ll also be removing any links to books for sale from my website at free-energy.co.uk and I have already ‘retired’ all the books which were printed and sold in the USA.

As you have probably guess, I’m retiring from this ‘obsession’ quite soon, but I will keep some websites for the time being.  I’m 81 years of age and to be honest, after nine years of it, I’m running out of things to say, and have begun to repeat myself!

I will finish this current wheel and I will post photos of it working or not.  I will also share a number of clues which will probably surprise you when you learn how obvious they are.

JC

Bessler’s wheel was Enabled To Turn Continuously by Gravity

This blog is copied from one I posted on 14th March 2016.  I still think it’s a valid viewpoint, ten years on.

I return to this subject from time to time, always seeking clarification.  I know that gravity cannot be a source of energy, I've been told so more times than I can remember.   But it does seem as though Johann Bessler thought that the 'heaviness', i.e 'ponderousness' or as they say in Latin the 'gravitas'  of the weights inside his machine gave the wheel the necessary energy to continually rotate.

Notice that there is a subtle difference between what we know as 'gravity', which is some kind of force field which attracts other things of mass - and a thing's inherent 'heaviness'.  Is there a difference?  Bessler believed that it was the 'heaviness' of the weights in his machine which gave it the power to turn continuously, but we always take one step further back in the process, i.e. was it the thing that caused the 'heavinesss' in his weights which he did not know of  and which we call 'gravity’, that caused them to move?

Can it be that this whole apparently pointless enterprise, making a wheel turn continuously simply by constructing a clever configuration of weights, has been doomed to failure because man sought the source of the 'heaviness' when it did not matter where it came from, he should have just been glad it was and is there?

We accept several different forms of energy which we can turn to our advantage in one way or another but the fact that we know from where it originates and how it works and how we can best make use of it, is not neccessarily something we need to know.  People have sailed ships using the wind as an energy source for millenia.  Same for windmills for grinding corn etc.    Others learned how to use water wheels in a similar way.  Clock makers even used 'heaviness' to drive their weight-driven clocks, long before Sir Isaac Newton called 'gravity'.  Just because no one seems to have discovered how to manipulate weights to rotate a wheel continuously does not mean it can't be done.  I'm certain that Johann Bessler knew and yet he never mentions the word gravity in any of his publications, because it wasn't known about for many years after Sir Isaac Newton descibed it in Latin as 'gravity'.

My point is this, weights are inherently heavy, we know it is the effect of gravity but we don't actually need to know that to use them.  Gravity is not a source of energy but it does create the conditions which can lead to a device being able to exploit the heaviness which gravity gives to an object of mass.

So when Bessler said, " NO, these weights are themselves the PM device, the ‘essential constituent parts’which must of necessity continue to exercise their motive force (derived from the PM principle) indefinitely – so long as they keep away from the centre of gravity."  That is what he meant; the heaviness in the weights, not some remote force called gravity.

Interestingly he used the word ''gravium', at the end of the sentence above which I have translated as, 'centre of gravity', but I subsequently learned that the word ,'gravium', is the genitive plural of 'gravis' which I learned means 'heaviness', so Bessler uses the phrase 'centre of heaviness', which means the same thing but when you put it into the correct context of his time, you can see that he is not referring to the same thing as we are when we use the phrase 'centre of gravity'.  He is simply stating that the centre of heaviness is at a certain point but has nothing to do with the force of gravity. We on the other hand, mean that the centre of gravity refers to the action of gravity on the whole structure and identifies the balancing point between both sides affected by the fore of gravity as the central point.

In the second paragraph I suggested that we habitually looked at the conditions prior to the use of weights, or what gravity did to the weights, whereas we should be looking at the weights themselves as they were at the time of their use. We have been looking one step back and ignoring the evidence in front of our eyes.

All we need to know is that the weights are always heavy just as long as gravity is affecting them.  Gravity enables the wheels to move and it’s up to us the determine the correct configuration to obtain continuous rotation.

We know Bessler’s wheel worked; we know the weights themselves were the source of the wheel’s rotation.  There is therefore, definitely a configuration which works, but we haven’t found it yet despite all the abundance of Bessler’s clues.

PS. Today, 1st September 2026, I’m currently building a wheel which I think will work, I’ll keep you notified of the results of a test.

JC

Besslerrad.com

I don’t usually promote other websites detailing the life of Johann Bessler aka Orffyreus, I used to do it but as time passed sometimes they disappeared or they become outdated, and I’ve had to lose some of mine because of the cost of running several sites simultaneously.  But there is one site which is full of information about the inventor and although it was originally in German, it is now available in English.

I’ve corresponded with Volker Keller off and on for about sixteen years, he is the same age as me, 81, has two daughters, just like me!  I asked for permission to publicise his web site and he agreed, so please take the time to visit his site.  It’s brilliant.

Besslerrad.com

JC

Find Out How Bessler’s Wheel worked by Deciphering his Drawings.

I and some of my fellow researchers, believe that Johann Bessler intended  to leave a number of clues which once deciphered would reveal the workings of his wheel.  This was to protect his invention, and still have his name immortalised, should he die before he was able to sell it. I have studied all of his drawing over the last several decades and it has been difficult, to find the exact information needed to replicate Bessler’s wheel, but I have found a lot of clues, mostly not immediately helpful.  The clues are fairly easy to find but their meaning is not so obvious.

After his death, a piece of paper was found upon which the inventor had scribbled a  message. It reads,

Further demonstrations regarding the possibility and impossibility of perpetual motion. 

‘N.B. 1st May, 1733. Due to the arrest, I burned or buried all the woodcuts that prove the possibility. However, I have left all demonstrations and experiments since it would be difficult for anybody to see or learn anything about a perpetual motion from them or to decide whether there was any truth in them because no illustration by itself contains a description of the motion; however, taking various illustrations together and combining them with a discerning mind, it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and find the Besslerwheel action in them'.

I’ve posted a copy of the note below.  It’s rough and hardly legible but the meaning is clear

This is another example of Bessler sowing confusion by providing ambiguous 

Pinformation. On the one hand he’s telling us that he has burned or buried certain woodcuts which prove the possibility of perpetual motion. I assume he burnt all the drawings that were on paper, but buried the actual woodcuts from which he could print.  But he then he suggests that someone with a discerning mind might still find the solution by studying various illustrations.

I understand why many people assume he was referring to MT, because the message was written on the back of one of pages from MT.  But in my opinion I think he was hinting that there was another source of information leading to the answers and it could be found by studying other illustrations.  This note was written in 1733: long after GB, AP and DT had been published, but MT wasn’t even finished and he had no plans to publish it.  So he didn’t necessarily mean just those in MT. I refer to the ones in GB, AP and DT. 

At the end of his hastily scribbled note, I believe I see the word for ‘infinite’ or ‘unending’, which seems to have been omitted in the English translation.  So that phrase should read ‘… t will indeed be possible to look for an unending movement and, finally find one in them'. 

I also see what appears to be Bessler’s favourite icon or symbol, the circumpunct, representing his wheel.  This suggests that the last line might be intended say,  ‘….it will indeed be possible to look for a movement and, finally to find my perpetual motion wheel in them'.  See the circumpunct as Bessler’s wheel in the image at the top of this page.

Bessler wrote in his book, Apologia Poetica, “Those who are keen to ask questions should ask them of this little book. My work will not be revealed prematurely.”  He wrote this hint about hiding his secret in the AP book way back in 1717, so I doubt that he was alluding to his MT.

There are a number of different clues which are designed to point anyone who seeks to solve this puzzle, in the right direction, but they don’t necessarily form part of the solution.  They are framed to concentrate the mind in the correct part of one or more of the drawings, from which you must extract the right configuration. All of the drawings contain valuable information but it is not easy to make the correct choice or know what is useful and what is a deliberately inserted clue to confuse or divert attention from the right interpretation. There are almost invisible lines, hinted at but not drawn in, so the images require extensive and prolonged study to understand what Bessler was showing us.

Apparently every picture tells a story and although the GB one seems similar to the first one in DT, there are subtle differences which seem to point in other directions.  I don’t want fill this space, detailing all the nuances of the pictures, suffice to say, I have described many of the clues I have found over many years both here and on my other websites.  But to be honest I’ve never described the way to decipher the drawings, but I believe I’ve made enough headway to complete my latest model.

Of course I don’t know if it will work, but this configuration is new to me. So fingers crossed……again!

JC

When Will a Working Bessler’s Wheel Appear for Testing?

Recently I was reading the predictions of various ‘accredited’ forecasters, soothsayers and futurists and superforecasters (their terms, not mine). These days, serious predictions come from data scientists using AI studying climate change and economics. But is there anyone apart from our own homegrown soothsayers who are predicting the emergence Bessler’s wheel in the near future?

There are famous seers such as Nostradamus who cleverly embedded his predictions in a number of four line verses, which made his meanings notoriously difficult to extract and has led to large amount of confirmation biased suggestions which can be dismissed or not, according to one’s own gullibility factor. He didn’t predict Bessler’s wheel, although Bessler too, made use of four line verses to hide his secret information, rather in Nostradamus’s fashion! Perhaps he was familiar with the old seer?

But I was unable to find anyone predicting the imminent appearance of Bessler’s wheel.  I guess there’s a mountain of negative confirmation bias against such a prediction. Several years ago I contacted one of the largest gambling/betting companies in the U.K. and asked about betting on the appearance of Bessler’s wheel in the next ten years.  My bet was rejected but the guy’s reason for the rejection was that such machines were impossible and went against the laws of physics, and anyway if I was placing a bet on it, how did he know if I might or might not, have already built a successful machine!

A soothsayer or predictor might one day pronounce on the success of  a Besslerwheel, but given the universal rejection of such a device it seems unlikely and possibly foolish for anyone to do so.  But "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers…" (from Shakespeare’s Henry V) continue relentlessly to seek Bessler’s solution. Why?  Because we know that Bessler succeeded in building a gravity-enabled wheel which turned continuously. It has been argued that he must have deceived all the people who examined the device, but no one has been able to offer any suggestions about how he was able to fake all the demonstrations.  

The sole purpose of those tests that were carried out was to eliminate any way of deceiving the public and that has proved to be a major stumbling block for those to make claims of deception or fraud.

And so we continue to seek the answer, how did Bessler do it?  

The most likely source of information leading to the solution, is to be found in Bessler’s many clues, both graphic and textual.    A solution needs to be found now.  Not because Bessler’s wheel could reverse climate change, it took over 300 years to bring about climate change, but a multitude of uses may be found for Bessler’s wheel, but what can we do about OIL?  Well it has huge number of uses none of which involve burning it in car engines.

Without burning it, oil is used as a chemical building block to make plastics, synthetic fibers, and rubber. It also serves as a mechanical lubricant, a base for skin lotions and cosmetics, a protective coating to prevent rust on metal, and an ingredient in asphalt for roads.  The possibilities are endless, as someone once said.

JC

August Update - Getting the Right Configuration for Bessler’s Wheel.

I understand why those who dismiss my suggestions about Bessler’s wheel, such as the importance of the number five, do so.  I have never filled in the blanks convincingly and without a working model incorporating all of those interpreted ‘clues’, no words of mine are ever going to persuade people that I’m right,

Recently I began working on yet another design but still based on my interpretation of those infamous clues that I’ve ‘obsessed’ over for many years.  My experience with this particular design has proved quite difficult because getting the pivots in the right place is only part of the problem.  Getting the length of the levers involved and placing each one’s connecting pivot correctly was difficult, also it was necessary to restrict a portion of the arc of each lever as .it moved, in order to stop it locking at either end of each action. This reduced the effectiveness of the actions, but this limiting factor can be overcome by adjusting the pivot position and the length of each lever.  Another problem occurs when adjoining levers clash during their action because they’re too close to each other.  Again this can be overcome by using longer pivots which raise the lever in contention, or just bending them upwards to clear the offending one.  This can solve an immediate problem but ultimately requires an improved layout to maintain actions.

So it’s a trial and error process, or rather a case of comparing several variations to discover which obtains the best result.  I also I have to ensure that I don’t overt-tighten the fixed pivots to avoid slowing or limiting the free movements of the whole assembly.  So I  always loosen each locknut by about three-quarters of a turn from fully tightened. This tends to lead to some looseness of all parts but it’s better than having everything too tight.

In this particular case I have come to the conclusion that when Bessler said he awoke from an inspiring dream, but still had to work on it for a long time before he got it right, I can fully appreciate those difficulties.  I still think it will prove almost impossible to build a successful working Besslerwheel without a fully hands-on approach, but I would be delighted if someone were to prove me wrong.

I work with a sketch pad, drawing ideas that I think Bessler is describing and trying to fit them into a coherent combination that might contain an overbalancing advantage but include a natural reversal mechanism, operated by the same parts which caused the initial action. 

I know I always think I’ve finally got the answer, but that is an important part of the research.  The optimism generated by the idea that I know the secret is a vital ingredient in wanting to carry on.  The knowledge that Bessler succeeded and was determined to leave information about his wheel and my own certainty about the clues he left, is enough to maintainer my appetite for building new designs and keep my enthusiasm continuing.

When I moved house about four years ago, I threw so much stuff away, thinking it was of no use because it was all failed mechanisms. There were more than 20 assorted round wood blanks with hundreds of small perforations drilled for insertion of various pivots; a huge 8tangle of discarded levers of all shapes and sizes.  Now I wish I’d kept some but they’re gone now, and of course I have a few new ones to modify.

One day my interpretations will lead to a successful wheel and I believe that, if not by me then by someone else using my interpretations of the clues.  There are so many clues I have never mentioned because detailing them all would be too tedious and time consuming, and they need to be taken as whole, not little bits here and there.

JC

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