20
Walked past a dumbwaiter in a 1920s building downtown and noticed the cable sheave was half the size of a modern one
The old one ran smooth as silk on a 4 inch sheave with steel cables while we use 8 inch ones now for basically the same weight, has anyone else seen older gear that just works better with simpler parts?
2 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In2 Comments
butler.shane20d ago
Man I stripped an old manual winch down to bare metal and greased it up, still runs like new 50 years later.
2
ivan87320d ago
Man, thatās a good point. Iāve seen the same thing with old hand-cranked winches in warehouses. They used bigger bearings and simpler metal parts that just lasted forever with hardly any maintenance. Meanwhile, we throw in all these complex gears and plastic bits that fail in a few years. It really makes you wonder if they overengineered stuff back then on purpose or just because they didnāt have cheap shortcuts yet. Iād take that old sheave any day over the new stuff.
1