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Carousel Construction - How Does a Carousel Work?

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Carousel Construction - How Does a Carousel Work?

The carousels, one of the oldest attractions, are made mainly of wood and metal. The main part of the carousel, the central pole, is made of steel. Other metal parts are electric/hydraulic motors, gears, bearings, crankshafts, horse hangers, and platform suspension rods, which are made with brass sleeves. The pieces of wood are the horses (if they are made as in the classic carousels), the platform on which the passengers stand, the sweeps, the rounding boards, the panels, and the mirror frames. Keep knowing more about electric carousels.

Before any fabrication occurs, the carousel is designed according to the customer's wishes, cost, maintenance considerations, and whether the carousel will be mobile or stationary. (If it is a roving carousel, it will cause the center pole to bend in half. The rest will stay the same).

The next part is to purchase a band organ for the carousel from a specialized manufacturer because the carousel cannot rotate silently. Band organs play music when bellows push air through wooden pipes, stops, and valves.

Some carousels use record players because maintaining the band's organs is expensive, but it is not real carousel music. Depending on the carousel theme or the customer's favorite historical model, the horses are made of wood or fiberglass, or aluminum, but modeled after the wood classics. The outer side of the horses (one that faces outward) is more ornate, and before making, precise drawings are made, showing what the horse will look like. These drawings are transferred to linden pieces to help the carver cut out the parts of a horse.

After cutting and pasting, the horse is carved with the design and grain of the wood in mind. The Carved block is sanded and other small details such as the tail and the mane are glued. To finish a carousel horse to the point where it is ready to paint, the carver needs about 35 hours of work. The horse is then stained, primed, painted, and varnished according to the original design.

They are usually painted in bright colors, and the paints chosen for them are chosen to last long and look pretty. The outer side of a horse (the so-called "romantic side") can also be decorated with rhinestones and other jewelry. Other parts of the carousel are designed to be easily assembled and disassembled, which helps with the maintenance and movement of the carousel.

The carousels rotate on a fixed central pole and are powered by electric motors. The electric motor turns a small pulley, which drives a drive belt and a larger pulley. Rotation is transferred from the pulley to a horizontal shaft connected to a pinion that turns a platform gear and with it the entire carousel. This gear supports a vertical shaft connected to another pinion gear and the drive gear, which drives so-called sweeps that are horizontal and come out from the center to the outer edge as spokes. They have cranks attached to horse perches and move the horses up and down as the carousel rotates.

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