Hess Toys (What's a Flywheel?)

Friday, May 3, 2013

Hess Toys

What's a Flywheel?

   If you read yesterday's post, I wrote about the German toy company - Distler.  Of course, if you also have been following this blog, you'd know that whenever I do researcher, I'm always going to find something else besides my search topic. So that's what I'll be writing about today - the German toy company by the name of Hess. I'm posting at 18:00 P.M. EST (North America) late today. I had things to do, and then I cycled . The next thing I knew, it was 5:00 P.M.

   The Hess toy company was founded very early in the 19th century - in 1826 to be exact. At that time, there weren't any cars yet or airplanes, so Mathias Hess chose trains (without tracks - don't ask me why?), to produce. When  cars or "automobiles" were invented and became more common, the company produced high quality lithographed tin toy with flywheels. Naturally, seeing the word "flywheel" perked my interest, and I had to check what a flywheel was. Of course, the search results had to be "difficult", and complicated. I think there should be search engines for different ages of people and levels-maybe I can be the next Facebook  discovery!

   I'll try to explain in easy terms what a flywheel is. It's a mechanical rotating device that can store energy and then release it later. As far as the Hess antique toy cars toys go, I think that the energy was not stored in a manner such as a clockwork wind-up with a release.  What I'm theorizing is that when you turned the crank at the front of these cars, the energy would be immediately release as the toy was placed on the ground. If you look at some of the photos of both cars and ships, you'll see a large lead wheel that  was in touch with the wheels or axles of the toy. So energy from the crank was transferred to the flywheel,which then transferred that energy to the wheels for movement. Some of the toys  might have needed the child to roll the car or boat wheels on a wood floor. The energy then transferred to the flywheel, and was gradually release to move the toy by itself.

Please Click on this sentence to be redirected to Bertoia's fine website

Please click this sentence for an even more specific search

The second connection above will give you specific search results when you type in what you might be looking for. U had tried to post this before, but Blogger had rejected the web address. Now it's working. So if you search for Hess when you enter that word, you'll come up with all of the Hess toys that Bertoia has actioned in the last 5-7 years. If you want to see more Bertoia toys  from before that timespan,you can go to Liveauctioneers.

The 2 photos of the ship above  show you the flywheel . It's the dark grey wheel, that has an extension attached directly to the yellow regular toy wheel.

With the car above, the flywheel is better hidden or integrated into the toy.

   What's interesting about these toys is that Mathias Hess kept the same original method of movement for his toys for a long period of time. Other toy manufacturers, and specifically the European toy makers were using clockwork windup mechanisms, and in some case also using a brake. You'd wind up the toy, lock the brake to keep the stores energy in sleep mode, then place the toy on the floor. Once the "brake" was released, the toy would move.

   I'm sort of similar to Mathias Hess when it comes to certain things. If I like a particular food such as  (e.g. Classico Spaghetti Sauce) I will not  change. And whenever I'm tempted by a rival company's sale, I',m tempted, but I don't bite. Too many times, I've tried the alternatives, and they just don't come close.  Also, although the  car dealer sometimes is more expensive than the local garage, I won;t go there. I once went to one of the 5 "big sisters" quick oil change places. Big Oil was called that way back in the 1920's and later. The garage didn't screw back the oil screw from the oil pan properly, and the oil was leaking out.  I went to the Chevrolet dealer (my car was a 1981 or 1982), and they replaced the  oil screw with a larger one. Of course, the big sister garage paid for the expenses, but I never went back to a local garage again.

Thanks for visiting  my blog today,

and as always, 

have a great weekend 

wherever you may be.

Stacey