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The Flexible Shaft: Turning a Tool Round a Corner
Martin

作成者

Martin

27. 9月 2026NO
37
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The Flexible Shaft: Turning a Tool Round a Corner

A dentist's drill must reach any tooth at any angle while it spins. A rigid shaft cannot follow the hand; universal joints give a few fixed bends. James B. Morrison of St. Louis tried two answers. His dental engine of 1871 carried the drive by a belt over pivoted, sprung arms. A year earlier his US 106,498, *Improvement in Flexible Shafts*, dated 16 August 1870, carried it through "a wire spiral or helix … enveloped in a short piece of india-rubber pipe, which allows the free flexure of the helix", in sleeves that act as bearings, with an adjustable head holding the bur and a parallel bracket for the instrument tray. The flexible shaft outlived the dental use: it drives rotary tools, speedometers and hedge trimmers today. This rung works out why only thin wires can bend and keep turning, and makes a flexible shaft from wound spring wire.
初心者
About 3 hours

手順

1

Bending stress, fatigue and torque

Jupyter ノートブックを読み込み中…
2

The sibling: belt over sprung arms

Morrison's other answer to the same problem carries the drive by a belt over pivoted arms. The embedded blueprint builds it; compare the two ways of reaching round a corner.
3

Read the 1870 flexible power-conveyer

Fig. 1 of US 106,498 shows the apparatus on a stand: a pulley shaft B, joined by a wire helix C in a rubber pipe c to a shaft section D, turning in a swivel-eye E; a double hinged parallel bracket H, I carrying the instrument tray L, which stays level however the bracket swings; and further helix sections R and t′ leading through a sleeve to the socket-head holding the burr U. The patent's three claims, in order: the flexible shaft with its enveloping sleeve, which gives journal-bearing to the enclosed shaft and the tool; an adjustable head joined to the sleeve by a hinge, so the tool can be set at any angle; and the combination with a parallel bracket that swings, rises and extends.
4

Wind a flexible shaft and drive it

Clamp a 3 mm steel rod in a cordless drill as a mandrel. Clamp one end of a length of 0.8 mm spring steel wire to the rod and, turning the drill slowly, wind a close helix about 400 mm long, every turn touching the last. Slide it off: that is the core. Push a short length of steel rod into each end and secure it with a dab of solder or a crimped sleeve. Chuck one end in the drill; put a small drill bit in a pin chuck on the other end, held in a length of aluminium tube as the sleeve-bearing. Bend the core round a 100 mm radius and run the drill in the direction that tightens the coil: the bit turns and will drill soft wood. Reverse the drill: the coil opens, winds up and barely turns the bit. Compare with a commercial rotary-tool flex shaft.

このステップの材料:

ばね鋼線ばね鋼線1 個
鋼の棒材鋼の棒材1 個
アルミ管アルミ管1 個
錫鉛はんだ錫鉛はんだ1 個
回転工具用フレキシブルシャフト回転工具用フレキシブルシャフト1 個

必要な工具:

コードレスドリルコードレスドリル
ドリルビットセットドリルビットセット
万力(ベンチバイス)万力(ベンチバイス)
はんだごてはんだごて
革の作業用手袋革の作業用手袋
透明保護メガネ透明保護メガネ
5

A flexible shaft that fails

Flexible shaft faults.

Flow

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6

History and honest limits

**James B. Morrison** of St. Louis was granted **US 106,498**, dated 16 August 1870, for his flexible power-conveyer "for dental and other purposes"; his treadle dental engine with sprung arms followed in 1871 (US 111,667). Flexible shafts with multi-layer wire cores now drive rotary tools, instrument cables and garden tools. **Honest limits.** The bending-stress figures are the simple beam formula for one wire; a real core's stresses depend on its winding. A hand-wound single helix is a demonstration, not a tool shaft — it will not last.

材料

5

必要な工具

6

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