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July 2012
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WhEEL The Evolution of the Undercarriage
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SEARCHLIGHT Serving America’s Plain Communities
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Bleak. Dreary. Downturn. These are all words that have been used to describe the current economic condition our country is in. They’re all fairly accurate words, if a bit ublication depressing. The average small business owner Editor/Publisher might even become disheartened by the way Wayne Schwartz things are going in today’s economy. The good news is, most astute business people realize that it’s possible to make just as Advertising Sales much money in a down aconomy as it is in a Tina Miller good economy. The other bit of good news is that most Contributors actual experts agree that the group of people that will bring our country back from the Brownen A. Sanders brink of economic disaster, is not the government, not Wall Street, but, you guessed it... Vol. 1 No. 1, June 2012. you guys! Published monthly. By “You guys” I mean entrepreneurs, small Printed in the USA by business owners, produce growers, farmers, Schweiki Media Group. and other visionaries. That’s why we’re so excited to launch this Editorial office: 125 N Jefferson St. brand-new magazine! Berne, IN 46711 Searchlight magazine is the culmination of over ten years of publishing and marketing For advertising rates or general experience, and our main focus will be on information, call (260)-849-4004 supporting small business and entrepreneurs Subscription Rates (for a more detailed explanation of what I $18.00 for 12 issues mean by this, see the column titled The Entre$29.00 for 24 issues preneur on page 7.) Searchlight magazine is a monthly Zig Ziglar once said, “You can have everymagazine published for the Plain thing in life that you want if you will just help communities of North America. enough other people get what they want.” Mission Statement Here at Searchlight we have adopted that as To support and encourage our mantra. If our magazine is having a posientrepreneurship in the Plain tive impact in people’s lives, our mission will communities of North America, have been accomplished, and we believe, the while promoting Scripturally based money will be there. success principles, entertaining and We look forward to getting to know you, informing the reader, as the magazine grows and the Continued Page 6
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Contents
Monthly Articles Spot On Page 4
Cover Story
The Entrepreneur
Re-inventing The Wheel:
The Evolution of the Undercarriage Page 12
Searchlight News
News and views for and about the Plain Communities from around the country
Essays and stories on entrepreneurism
Page 7
The LIGHTer Side Games, cartoons, jokes, and short stories.
Page 10
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Spot On, Cont. services we offer continue to expand. We will be rolling out a lot of new material in the coming months, and we hope you will come along for the ride! In the meantime, sit back with a cup of your beverage of choice, prop your feet up on your desk (which if it’s anything like mine, is covered with papers), your workbench, or your kitchen table, and take a stroll through our pages. Cruise on over to our cover story on Page 12, Reinventing The Wheel to hear about some really cool new developments in buggy manufacturing. After that, swing by the LIGHTer Side for a quick giggle, chuckle, or maybe even a guffaw or two. We are published in a nice, portable, easy-to carry format, so feel free to roll us up, stick us in your pocket and take us with you to work. We don’t mind, really! But above all, if you like what you see, share us with your friends and fellow businessmen. Also, let us know what you like, what you don’t like, and what you wish would vanish from the pages of the magazine. Our contact info is in the masthead on Page 4. We are aware that we will be read by a pretty diverse group of people, so there is a chance that one of you, somewhere, may take exception to something you read. If you do, please know that our intent is not to offend anyone. Until next month, keep the Light shining,
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The Entrepreneur A series of essays and stories on the American Entrepreneur
► by Wayne Schwartz Entrepreneur: (n) ahn-truhpruh-nur, -noor; 1. A person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. 2.An employer of productive labor; contractor. The above is the dictionary definition of the word entrepreneur. Sounds pretty simple, right? If you look deeper into the meaning of the word, you soon realize there is more to it than meets the eye. According to online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “Entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, and become leaders because they perceive opportunities available and are wellpositioned to take advantage of them. An entrepreneur may perceive that they are among the few to recognize or be able to solve a problem” Joseph Schumpeter, an AustrianHungarian-American economist and political scientist, first coined the term “creative destruction” to describe industry changing innovations that come into being. I have a great deal of admiration for these masters of creative mayhem. Maybe even a soft spot in my heart. There’s just something so inspiring about the common man, who just simply knows there is a better way, or just has a dream, and then makes it happen. When one thinks of game-changers
such as this, often names come to mind. One of the first people I think of when I hear the term “creative destruction” is an unassuming Arkansas retailer named Sam Walton. He knew there was a better way to sell goods cheaply and conveniently. He also
Sam Walton in the old Ford truck he drove to work, even after becoming one of the wealthiest men in the country
knew that if he got a certain number of customers to walk through his doors every day, some of them would buy something. In fact, enough of them would buy something to make the store profitable, no matter what they bought. So, Sam Walton had a dream. He turned his dream into reality. You may have heard of the little venture he started, that we now know as “Walmart”. The Plain communities have had their share of innovators, dreamers and creative thinkers too. When a need arises, either from the changing times, or the growing obselecence of some of the tools used in the Amish and Mennonite communities for their daily life,
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there is usually someone ready and waiting to fill that need with some innovative idea. You may very well have picked up this magazine at the 2012 Horse Progress Days in Clare, Michigan. This event is an awesome place to see some great examples of this type of innovation.
When horse-drawn implements started going out of style, Amiah manufacturers started designing and building their own...usually improving on the original designs. When more and more roads started to be paved and surfaces became harder, and tougher on horseshoes, an innovative blacksmith in Berne, Indiana, discovered that applying a hardsurface normally used on oil-drilling heads would give a horse much more grip and save a lot of wear and tear on the shoe, making it last much longer.
And when it became harder and harder to run a business without a computer, a group of Mennonites from Pennsylvania partnered with a computer programmer to build a computing unit that was not connected to the internet, but could run accounting and CAD software to help give Mennonite and Amish businesses a competitive edge, or at least level the playing field with their nonAmish competitors, without compromising belief or convictions. As time goes on, and the world becomes eternally smaller, and technologically smarter, the need for Anabaptist innovators will grow. the sharing of information, the open sharing of ideas, will help this process work faster than ever before. We live in the Information Age now, and even in a culture that still operates mostly on Industrial Age principles, we will be affected, and in this day and age, the people with the best information, will be the most successful people. So write to us, call
us, or, if you have email, email us and tell us about the creative and innovative people in your church, and your neighborhood, and in your workplace. Or more importantly, give them a copy of this magazine! In the next few months, this column will feature essays on entrepreneurism and and innovation from some pretty impressive people, so stay tuned. SL◆ The Last Set of Cookware You’ll Ever Buy!
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Small business and Amish news from around the world Accidental Entrepreneurs
World’s Youngest Entrereneur?
Business News Daily is reporting that the downturn in the economy, has created a new breed of business owner, which they are terming the “accidental entrepreneur”. This new type of start-up is usually a professional, formerly employed by a larger company, who finds himself starting a business out of necessity because of being laid off or downsized, rather than because being a business owner or entrepreneur or their dream or chosen path in life. These new business owner are professional, smart, and business savvy, and are recording some of the fastest growth among business startups.
When Mallory Kievman tried getting rid of her hiccups in the summer of 2010, she tried everything. Pickle juice, salt water, drinking water upside, and about 100 other remedies. Two years later, the 13-year-old girl is getting ready to lead a group of MBA students from the University of Connecticut. in building a company that is going to produce her invention...hiccup stopping lollipops, called Hiccupops. ‘’It’s very rare, when you’re evaluating businesses, that you can envision a company or product being around 100 years from now,’’ said Danny Briere, a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Startup Connecticut, which nurtures new companies, including Hiccupops, and is a regional
affiliate of the Startup America Partnership. ‘’Hiccupops is one of those things. It solves a very simple, basic need.’’ Mallory had developed the product in
13-yr-old Mallory Kievman
her family’s Manchester, Conn., kitchen, amalgamating her three favorite cures -lollipops, apple cider vinegar and sugar -- into a single confection. ‘’It triggers a set of nerves in your throat and mouth that are responsible for the hiccup reflex arc,’’ said Mallory with a matterof-fact tone. ‘’It basically over-stimulates those nerves and cancels out the message to hiccup.’’ SL◆
SEARCHLIGHT The LIGHTer Side A shopkeeper was dismayed when a brand new business much like his own opened up next door and erected a huge sign which read ‘BEST DEALS.’ He was horrified when another competitor opened up on his right, and announced its arrival with an even larger sign, reading ‘LOWEST PRICES.’ The shopkeeper panicked, until he got an idea. He put the biggest sign of all over his own shop. It read: ‘MAIN ENTRANCE’
A young executive was leaving the office late one evening when he found the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand. “Listen,” said the CEO, “this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work?” “Certainly,” said the young executive. He turned the machine on, inserted the paper, and pressed the start button. “Excellent, excellent!” said the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. “I just need one copy.”
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Re-Inventing
The
WhEEL The Evolution of the Undercarriage
►by Brownen A. Sanders
Part 1
The design of undercarriages tive blacksmiths were beginning to changed very slowly over the last work with iron to make wrought iron 5,000 years. As with many things, products. In 1400 AD, advances were man’s desire to go faster, go further being made in processing iron allowand be more comfortable while doing ing blacksmiths to refine the metal. so led to some significant changes in By the 1700s, Englishman, Henry Cort the 19th century. We will be covering had developed the puddling furnace five basic components of the underallowing iron to be heated evenly and carriage: axles, brakes, fifth wheels, rolled to make flatter sheets and rails. springs and wheels. Another important advancement was As early as 3000 BC there is evidence of wheeled carts, mostly the two wheeled chariots that people know from the Holy Bible. In Ezekiel 26: 7 – 10, there is a reference to Nebuchadnezzar coming from the north with horses and with chariots. As civilization spread, the use of wheeled carts spread, up to This shows a Herbrand patented fifth wheel, known in Mifflin300 BC when four burg as a skeleton fifth wheel. This is on a William Hursh piano wheeled carts made box buggy. William Hursh served in the 150th Penna Volunteer an appearance. At the Infantry (PVI), known as the Bucktails. While his company (D) guarded President Lincoln at the Summer White House, Hursh same time, primihelped Tad Lincoln gather and sell apples.
the substitution of coke for charcoal, that it could run 1000 miles between further reducing the impurities in the oilings. The Thousand iron. This allowed wheelwrights and Mile axle had a series of grooves for blacksmiths in Europe to replace the oil running the length of the axle arm. wooden axles with the metal bands on The other two main types of axles were the ends (axle arm) for metal axles in the cranked or drop axle and the hollow wooden beds which gave more strength and durability to the axle, while still maintaining the flexibility. When the American colonies were first settled, finished axles were shipped from Great Britain and other European countries. Carts and wagons made in the colonies and then the United States were made with wooden 1020 shows the undercarriage of a spring wagon. This axles. It was not until 1833, wagon was restored by Isaac Reiff of the Vicksburg Buggy when the Mount Carmel Axle Works of New Haven, Connecti- Shop, it was made by Daniel Miller, one of the many buggy makers who called Mifflinburg, PA home. cut was founded that metal axles were made in the United States. Don steel axle, both were late 19th century Berkebile, former curator of vehicles at innovations. Throughout the 19th the Smithsonian Institute in his book, century, axles were made by compaCarriage Terminology: An Historical nies that specialized in forging these Dictionary mentioned four distinct items. Axles were typically shipped axles: Full Collinge axle, Half Patent in two pieces for the buggy maker or axle, Mail axle and the Mather’s Thoublacksmith to weld together depending sand Mile Axle. The Full Collinge on the width of the buggy being made. axle, which was defined by Berkebile Among the many axle companies in the as “the most complicated and complete United States were Keystone Forging in of carriage axles, invented in England Northumberland, Pennsylvania which about 1787 and well adapted to the is still in business today; Philadelphia heavier classes of vehicles”. (BerkeSteam Forge and Axle Company; bile, p. 311). The Half Patent axle Cleveland Axle Manufacturing Co; Kawas “introduced into the United States lamazoo Spring and Axle Company and about 1835 and featured a single nut the Anstead Springs and Axle Company on the end and a box which covers the from Connerville, Indiana. collar”. (Ibid). The Mail axle earned When brakes were added to its name for the frequency of use for wagons is a bit of a mystery. Most English mail wagons, and was secured history covers the advent of brakes in to the hub by three bolts. Finally, the automobiles. Conestoga wagons of Mather’s Thousand Mile Axle, which the early 18th century were fitted with was introduced in 1898 and advertised mechanical brakes – a brake handle,
a connecting rod and brake blocks on the rear wheels. Typically light weight vehicles throughout the 19th and into
miles an hour. Coincidentally it took the horses 77 feet to stop. Within two years, most American car manufacturers were using Olds’ brake system. At some point, the upper portion of the carriages be came separate from the undercarriage and were connected by a king bolt which would have allowed limited pivoting. Adding in the perch or reach as it is called in the United States allowed more movement. Eventually carriage makers expanded the idea of the king bolt into metal plates that pivoted on each other. OrigiThis is a portion of an undercarriage in the collection of nally, fifth wheels were not the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum. It is currently on display complete circles and were hand in the original buggy factory. It’s maker is unknown, but it forged. When the specialized shows a crank axle and springs. manufacturing of buggy parts the 20th century did not have brakes; began in the early 19th century, fifth only the larger, heavier vehicles would wheels were among the first products have brakes. It was not until the advent produced. The latter part of the 19th of the automobile that brakes changed century brought several fifth wheel patfrom mechanical to hydraulic. Acents starting with Gutches’ fifth wheel cording to David Quist of World Class in 1870; Herbrand fifth wheel in 1880; Carriages, most modern carriages use and Wilcox fifth wheel in 1905. disc brakes, but Amish and MennoIn 1804, Obadiah Elliot of nite vehicles use drum brakes. Disc England invented the leaf spring, two brakes were patented by Frederick W. sets of overlapping steel plates that Lanchester in 1902. These brakes, were hinged together at the ends. With because the copper brake pad rubbed the invention of the elliptical spring against the metal made a terrible and the hundreds of variations that screeching noise and it was not until followed, buggy makers, particularly Herbert Frood, lined the pads with American manufacturers were able to asbestos that they became quiet. At the make lighter and faster vehicles. The same time, as Lanchester invented disc addition of springs to vehicles allowed brakes, Ransom E. Olds tested the first for a more comfortable ride, as it aldrum brake. Olds actually tested his lowed the vehicle to be more elastic brakes against the mechanical brake on (bounce) as it rumbled down the street. a carriage and an expanding shoe type Different spring configurations and brake on another automobile. Olds placement also helps to define the varistopped with 22 feet from a speed of 14 ous types of vehicles. The Timken side
bar springs were used on the Concord wagon; telegraph springs were used on the Stanhope gig; elliptical springs front and back were used for Piano box buggies, surreys and Democrats; while variations of the French platform springs were used for spring wagons. The other major type of spring was the coil spring first introduced in England in the 1760s. Apparently, coil springs were more expensive and not used as often. In the United States, there were three coil spring designs, all patented in 1838; William Patton of Pennsylvania; E.G. Woodside of Maine and Stannard Baker of New York. The late Tom Ryder of the Carriage Association of America wrote that the “objection of the use of spiral springs that work by compression or extension is that the action tends to be violent”. Incidentally, Ford Motor Company used leaf springs in the front and rear of its cars until 1946, then went to coil springs, but leave springs are still used in many models today. The Carriage Museum of America, in its book Conservation and Restoration of Horse Drawn Vehicles stated that between 1790 and 1910, there were 8000 patents awarded for design or construction of wheels. The two most well known and still used today are the Sarven and the Warner. James D. Sarven of Columbia, Tennessee applied for a patent in 1857. His patent application stated “the object of my invention is to provide a wheel with wooden hub that will admit of a greater number of spokes in each wheel than can be used by the old method on account of the hub being cut away by mortises to receive a number of spokes
that would be sufficiently near together at the rim of wheel to prevent it from being flattened between the spokes by fast driving, thereby loosening the tire and rendering the whole wheel comparatively weak. It also consists in giving greater strength to the spokes at and near the hub and to the hub itself. The nature of my invention consists in the employment of flanged collars of metal to be used in combination with a wooden hub.” (United States Patent Office, Patent No. 17,520) In 1871, Almon Warner of Hamden, Connecticut applied for a patent for a “certain new and useful improvement in hubs for carriage wheels”. (United States Patent Office, Patent No. 61,900 and reissue 4642) The object of his invention Warner continued was to “more perfectly secure the spokes in the hub; and it consists in the construction of a ring or metal center provided with mortises to receive the spokes, and formed with flanges to bear upon the surface of a wooden hub which passes through the center of the metal ring, and is provided with mortises to receive the tenons of spokes.” (Ibid) Article and pictures courtesy of the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum 598 Green Street Mifflinburg, PA 17844. 570-966-1355 www.buggymuseum.org Sources used: Berkebile, Don H. Carriage Terminology: An Historical Dictionary. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. Neil Fisher, editor. Conservation and Restoration of Horse Drawn Vehicles. Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania: Carriage Association of America, 1997. Various issues of the Carriage Journal magazine, Carriage Association of America. SL◆