UPDATE - Alternative Simpler Solution…….Hopefully!

 My recent post suggesting that Bessler might have found two different solutions was, at the time, an almost random thought that was generated by a discussion about the Gera wheel and the subsequent iterations which he presented to the public.

Comments about the proportions of the first wheel, galvanised my brain cells into considering how my suggested mechanisms would have fitted inside a wheel’s interior of potentially less than two inches.  I concluded that they wouldn’t have fitted.

Some of the comments by spectators of the Gera wheel suggested that the wheel contained a dog or a cat, because of the scratching noise which came from within.  This suggests that the mechanisms were rubbing against some part of the wheel, probably the casing protecting the interior from the public seeing inside.

Once the idea had settled in my mind that the Gera wheel was, at the very least, a simpler configuration compared with my later attempts to find a work-around for the later larger wheels, I began to reconsider what we know about the Gera wheel and Karl’s comments about it; simple to understand its principle, easy to build; couldn’t believe no one had discovered it before.  My concept might still have value but it wasn’t the design Karl had seen and I’m sure it wouldn’t have fit inside the Gera wheel.

So I have returned to my various designs over the years but this time with the knowledge that it needed to be simple, able in its most basic form to fit within the Gera wheel. So I have some ideas but I’m not sharing anything yet, but it feels good to be building from scratch again.

I’m using the previously discarded 18 inch diameter disc to test my latest theories on, but if it looks like it will work, I’ll repeat the build on a new disc.  I’m using parts from many discarded attempts, so it won’t be the most attractive model, but I’m past caring  about its looks - other than to say the 18 inch disc has so many holes it sometimes difficult to find an empty space!

Whether I succeed or not, I’m not going to waste much time in reconsidering past failures, but I do have a couple of ideas I never considered before.  Being of a vastly simpler design I don’t expect it to take long to test, and as soon as I know, one way of the other, I’ll post about it in case it stimulates someone else to success.

JC