Wheel topping tool, Triumph, with cutters brass and steel mechanical tool on rectangular wooden base with drawer. Large wheel on right hand side with wooden handle, rotates shaft which then rotates smaller wheel. Various screws and rods extending from tool. Drawer holds 17 cutters of differing gauge and 2 metal stakes. This machine has been set up with a wheel and cutter in position to show the action. A topping or rounding off tool. These machines were used for slightly reducing the diameter of and/or truing up wheels which were not running true. They were also used for shaping the teeth of wheels which were being made. After radial slots had been cut into the outside of a wheel, leaving square-shaped teeth around the circumference, the topping tool, used with appropriate sized and shaped cutter, shaped the ends of the teeth to the correct curvature. The selected cutter, of the exact shape of the required space between two adjacent teeth, had an adjustable part offset to one side, set

Part of the Applied Arts and Design collection. 

Credit Line: Collection of Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, 2004.44.34 

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