Wooden pawl on a Liberty Machine Works no 7

Thank you for your post. It addresses one of my pet peeves, and that is, most people never even consider making machine parts out of wood. Wood is easy to form into parts, and lasts well, provided the correct type of wood is used. With adequate lubrication, it provides good bearing surfaces for rotating shafts in the drive train of presses. (Baum, at one time a large manufacturer of folders, used wood bearings in the folding sections of their machines). Wood gives a small amount, instead of breaking, which is good trait to have in a machine. It is easy to make treadles from. Heck, the original hand presses were made of wood! I agree that wood isn’t suitable for everything, but it has its place, especially in many of our machines which are not used 40 hours per week.