Carouseldrive

What Makes the Carousel Spin?

An Illustrated Tour

This site gives you the opportunity to see the machinery inside the carousel.

There's something we must have to make the carousel spin. It starts at the motor. The picture on the right is a 12 horsepower motor built in 1910. It is the original motor that came with the carousel. The pulley on this motor drives a 5-inch wide, heavy canvas belt which drives a larger pulley.
The larger pulley below is about 2.5 feet in diameter. This in turn drives a shaft to the drive pinion gear on the right	Even though it appears to be dirty. It is! Part of our project is to give it a good cleaning. Dirt laden grease has no place in the machine room.

Here is something interesting. The teeth on the small and large gears are made of wood. The wood used is made of maple. While the main gear body are made of metal.	The above photo shows the drive shaft which runs from the large drive gear below to the upper pinion drive above.

Here we are looking down the drive pinion gear at arrow. This gear drives the large ring gear which is attached to the carousel frame. That's what makes the Merry Go 'Round!