absolutely!

Dave,

I have seen that diagram in Babcock's book... looks like ripples in a pond.

Geometry is neat, especially such "low-tech" examples as the wheel. I find it fascinating and also somewhat rebellious to think carpenters used no numeric measurements or tape rules, yet built beautifully proportioned buildings. Today carpenters are chained to precise measurements and even need calculators. The wheel suggests that this is all unnecessary. Try selling this to a modern engineer!

In it's simplicity, the wheel also seems deeply mysterious. Why are there 12 arcs, etc.?

And perhaps the deepest question of all, why was it abandoned and forgotten? If it was a pagan symbol, the church would have perhaps killed a carpenter for employing it.

Hi,

I would encourage you all to start examining possible fact based suggestions in respect of the potential use of this symbol. Some of the uses suggested thus far appear to be somewhat speculative and with others being downright misleading.

If this symbol is not needed to layout and cut frames today then why might it have been needed centuries ago ?

This symbol is probably found in only 5% maximum of houses, cottages and barns in SE England but can sometimes be found on items of furniture like bedsteads in Scotland.

Is this symbol found in North America and if yes what is its geographic spread and likely date range of use ?

Regards

Ken Hume

ken -

facts have no place on an internet forum! (smiley, laugh, chuckle).

yes, i would like to know if it was a building computer, where it was used, how it was used.

and the notion of it being pagan and then dropped - that does'nt make sense. if it was useful the church would have just co-opted it like it did with all the other symbology, sacred dates, festivals, etc. throughout the ages... there'd simply be a pope or a cathedral or a saint inlaid in the circle, and history would have been tweaked and re-written to make sense out of the 12 rings (tribes, apostles, you name it), etc. etc. etc.

-mike

I know of it existing in two buildings in NA. One is a log house built in ca 1820 in Henry County Georgia and the other is a grist mill building near Staunton, VA which the Guild surveyed as part of a workshop in 2007 -- I don't know the date of that building.

Since I have no facts to back up my view on the daisy wheel and the wheat barn....Anyhow, what jumped out to me is the floor layout could also be explained by application of the ratios in a 30-60-90 triangle and the roof slope appears close to an equilateral triangle configuration. Both triangles are to be found within a daisy wheel but the derivation through a daisy wheel is unnecessarily complicated and to layout a building by a complicated process of divding circles an projecting towards other circles which are again divided, seems overly cumbersome and not carpenter like. I will try to post later when I have more time for a full explanation.

Ken,

Of course some of these posts have been speculative. We are trying to grasp at a topic that is notoriously ambiguous. My pagan suggestions are based on loose references from your own country (and I will post these soon)... This is how we learn on a medium such as this forum where most of us are poking 'round in the dark. We suggest ideas and see if anyone else has supporting information, etc. There is no harm in this at all.

I encourage you to share w/ us more of what you know about the wheel. It's clear you follow this topic closely. Come down and chat w/ the rest of us. As you can see, we need concrete snippets like "5% maximum of houses, cottages and barns in SE England but can sometimes be found on items of furniture like bedsteads in Scotland."

I am learning from this and enjoying the discussion. I do agree that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I just doodle with the compass and a chip carving knife sometimes. I'm not much good at it but it is kind of fascinating just playing with the proportions a compass can come up with. I've seen the same type of things on old furniture, trims, etc so I imagine crude embellishment has probably gone on for a very long time. Some of it has come out looking pretty religious and some has looked like I was devil worshipping, but it all just came out of the swinging of arcs. I wonder if the interpretation is learned or built in?

Pictures of the Daisy Wheels from the Lyles Mill outside Staunton, VA. from the Guild workshop. I don't remember the date either.
[img][IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r177/Edgeworks/P1010020.jpg[/img][/img]
[img][IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r177/Edgeworks/P1010021.jpg[/img][/img]

Hi Don x 2,

I believe that the quote is :-

"A woman is just a woman but a good cigar is a smoke !"

Please do not be tempted to interpret my ignorance as loftiness. Most people "don't know what they don't know" but in respect of daisy wheels I now "know what I don't know". Its a big step forward.

Tom Cundiff's post is a sure step in the right direction. He has now identified a building that contains this feature and presumeably the layout and date of this building can be established. This "fact based evidence" now needs to be gathered, analysed and sythesised until hopefully a picture emerges. The gathering of this knowledge and the interpretation and understanding of same is currently the holy grail that Laurie Smith seeks. He is the person that might stand the best chance of informing us all. I am not worthy to comment upon the likely outcome of this research.

Regards

Ken Hume