How Did They Do It? The Making of The Ford Model T Wheel Start to Finish An Original Film By Ford. 

My brother turned a full set of spokes for all four wheels of our family's 1926 Ford touring car. Our dad, who was a brilliant carpenter, oversaw the project; the wood was harvested from an oak we lost during hurricane Carla in 1961.

For all you young fellas out there, this is called work.

This is a great illustration of the main principle of mass production...take an otherwise skilled trade, wheelwrighting, and break the process down into many small operations that can be done by semiskilled labor using equipment designed specifically for the given task. All of the various operations look like they could become repetitively mind numbing, but check out the guy at 3:20. He is running two machines at once continually turning in an anti clockwise circle. At the end of the day, I wouldn't be surprised if he was still turning circles when he walked home from the plant. But, he was making a better than average living wage for the time. Thanks for posting this.

This was filmed before OSHA was a word. God bless these hardy men. Today, we stand on their shoulders.

Henery ford didnt like wasting all the wood trimmings so with the help of a man named Edward kingsford the two started the Kingsford charcoal briquette Co.

Isn't it amazing how ingenious the folks were that designed and built all those machines ?? 🤯🤯🇺🇸🇺🇸🔥

The old whimsical music doesn't do justice to the amount of hard work and craftsmanship these guys are putting in. Those wheels would be thousands of dollars each if they were made in a similar fashion today.

This little documentary was done 3 years before my dad was born. He later worked all his life as a die maker for Hudson Motors and then Chrysler Motors after serving in the war. Thanks for the upload. I know he would have enjoyed watching this as I did!

Awesome to see the Ford assembly line of the era. All of the workers were tough SOBs.

So amazing to think these plants were designed and built without a single calculator or computor. A slide rule , drafting table and really smart engineers. Great content.

In the late 70's I discovered a shop where I grew up - spelling? Weir wire wheel works. They had belt driven tools some they said from the civil war as well as similar tools in this vid. They repaired, re-made wheels for cannons to old cars. There were wooden crates and barrels filled with original fittings for the wheels some marked ford,Buick Cadillac. Was so awesome to see the operation as a whole! Thanks for the great vid!

Boy is that work mind numbing, i doubt i would last long in that environment.

So refreshing to see such polite discussion in the comments.

All those workers would have been born in the 1800's back in the horse & buggy days. They would have thought the model T was the most advanced thing they ever saw.

Back then a poor man had a horse the rich owned automobile's today its the opposite..

It's like something out of Fritz Lang's film Metropolis.

Machines driven by belts, old school awesomeness.

Thank you for this video. I was, until recently, a utility tree trimmer for 15 years. I watched a video of the early loggers, similar to this one. I was reminded of how much harder our grandfathers had it than we do now. It's so easy to take our lives for granted. Videos like this are a great way to gain perspective on our (relatively) plush lives we get to live today, thanks to them.

WOW! So many steps to making one of these!

How amazing is that? Hundreds of people employed just to make some car wheels. The unions would love this.

What an operation just to make the wheels. And all the machines that were designed and produced to build the wheels. Very impressive.

Absolutely mind numbing work.

Thanks, amazing production line, I cannot imagine how hard a life it was working this fast and repetitively for perhaps years. They were tough guys.

The monotony of those jobs would have been mind crushing. I once saw a comment related to a similar video , and someone claimed that back in the day they stamped the same side front fenders for GM square body trucks for literally years.....

Every movement and action of each worker, was timed and analysed for efficiancy. In a process industry, assembly-line stoppages cost money, and Henry loved money.

It's been said, the noise inside the factories from all the machines, belting and shafting was deafening, but the factory itself was kept scrupulously clean. To be sure, a very different time in American automotive manufacturing. Great film, thanks for posting.

Now you see all the workers that were involved in just making wheels. Ford always did their workers right, when they upgraded to metal wheels they retrained all their workers into new positions. Never a man left behind. That's why Ford is still one of the best to this day.

Amazing to see the process. Not convinced that dunking the bearings in paint was Henry's best idea though.....

Imagine the look on the craftsman wheelwrights at the Ford factory who spent his lifetime perfecting their trade the day they came in with the hydraulic press that stamped out wheels from sheet steel 30 a minute. I imagine they all threw their tools in the box and went for a beer or two. Times are a changing.

It's amazing that the Steam bender that Dave Engels from Engels Coach Shop on u tube has built is of a very similar design as the steam bender in use @2:22 !!THANKS for Posting such interesting content.

"Equalizing" looks like the easiest way to lose your fingers if you lost concentration for a second. Frightening what people were expected to do day in day out. I don't think I could do it. Respect to those guys.

Henry was WAY ahead of the game. His innovative thinking changed the world.

somehow hurt my back watching this ! tough work.

No OSHA, that's for sure. Looks like a finger and hand mangling haven. Much respect to those hard working men, they truly built the modern world in which we live.

The work must have been mind-numbing. All these steps just for the wheels. Amazing.

And to think that all those machines and tools were also built using other machines and tools and so on. The whole process is incredible.

Hello from romulus Michigan brother thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise and for taking us on your adventure through time and history GOD-BLESS

What an enormously labour intensive process. 😮

Just think....all that and those people for tires...just the tires lol amazing! All those belts moving to power and turn the machines is crazy!

the sheer amount of steps that go into making a wheal then as apposed to now is astounding

That is something I have never seen. Thank you Ken for sharing. Quite a bit involved. 💕💯👊👍

Very interesting to see the manufacturing details. Thanks.

I have one of these wheels given to me by my uncle here in Scotland, I often look at it wondering how it was made, and now I know! Absolutely fascinating. I can look at it again and think of all those workers through whose hands it passed. Thank you.

33 years painting commercial building, and always interested in our past, Dip the wheel in paint and give it a spin, Smart !!!😅

Wow, Fritz Lang's nightmare film Metropolis hit the nail on the head, I had thought it exaggeration.

I'm such a fan of history, and all these documentary videos 📹 of it. Cars 🚗 were built so much better back then, being built by hand ✋️. There's a saying for cars today. Mounds of cash 💸, piles of trash 🗑. Money 💰 is all car manufacturers care about today, not safety or the people driving them. At least, not yesteryear's safety. Just subbed!! VERY INTERESTING RU-vid channel!! Your friend, Jeff!!

Wow that’s an astonishing number of operations to finish just the wheel. Very interesting. Thanks!

The assembly of the spokes into the felloes before inserting them into the hub is opposite of how wagon were generally made. Great way to speed up mass production.

It's almost unbelievable how many people were employed there compared to today's production facilities. How many work steps had to be done. All these people were able to support their families with this work. A Ford T cost something under $500 at the time. And Ford made great profits. When I look at how things work today, what life costs, what a car costs, sometimes two jobs aren't enough. What's going on today, 100 years later?

Thanks for posting this, Im a lifelong woodworker, enjoyed it

Thank you so much for providing this video as the closing argument for another video discussion where the spokes on Ford wheels were determined to be made of hickory, but with very little evidence available to prove it. 🙂

Next time you think your job makes you feel like "a cog in a machine", watch this video and see what that phrase really meant.

Henry Ford; "You can have any colour you want as long as it's black!"

Huge amount of work went into those wooden wheels, even with the wire spoke wheels how the spokes are welded is amazing.

So much automation involved and lots of job creation too! Amazing!

I put new wood spokes in the wheels of my 1925 Buick, took me 4 days. One a day was enough

Imagine your mechanic saying, "Your wheels have termites, sir"

so glad to see the film. In 1965 I worked with a fine gentleman who worked at this plant in the U P of Michigan. He said he started at 17yrs old 12:59

What a historical video! The amount of material & labor required to make one wheel is incredible. I wonder how many men it took? Didn't Ford manufacture something like 15 million Model T cars? If so, that would have required 60 million wheels + Lord knows how many spares. I wonder if the workers ever got to rotate their positions on the production lines? Men used to smoke like crazy, but I didn't see one cigarette.

Very interesting.

Now wait just a minute! Are you telling me that Ford had piano music playing for his workers? 😂

My father would have loved watching this - he was a Carpenter and Joiner but also was a wheelwright and worked for a time in Harland and Wolf Shipyard in Belfast. All the things he did by hand - Henry Ford mechanicalized.

Never realised how much work went into making a wheel and how many men it took great film

10:27 bearings 12:08 paint wheel and bearings :)

That was.... _entertaining_

Incredible how much work was put into just the wheels. OMG

Fascinating. Those people were earning their money for sure.

Kings lumber supplied the wood for ford and with the waste pieces of oak they formed the company Kingsford charcoal.

I'd like to see people today work like that again. You can be guaranteed that not 1 of those workers felt entitled or the world owed them anything. Making a steel wheel would have been easier, but look at all the people who would have been out of work back then.

Holy cow, so much work by so many people involving many finely machined components whether turned wood or threaded bolts and nuts all to be replaced by a comparatively crude sheet metal stamping when the steel wheel was introduced.

Wow, those poor schlobs! All day any day the same move, all in the dust and the noise... I don´t at all find that romantic. It might have been for Mr. Ford- he was able to extract every living inch out of those people without fear of it coming back to him. Thanks for putting this up!

So when the hub went into the paint dip, did the dipping machine seal off both hub holes from the paint? Were the bearings subsequently lubricated as they went onto the axle?

THousands of families were kept afloat just from making wheels. Imagine how the rest of the place fared.

The inner hubs were far more complex than I would have predicted. The finest wheel known to man at the time, and a very high quality part even today in 2024.

At one point the workers were paid $5.00 a day. Glad it was before my time. But very interesting to see. Thanks

Had some monotonous jobs in my day. Some were not really that bad, if you didn’t have to concentrate too much, your body could just run on automatic while your mind was elsewhere.

Clever machining and manufacturing from so early.

Love the video! AND....cool piano 🎹 😍

My great aunt, 35yr at Ford, my grandmother 30yrs at GM,factory work in the old days wasn't an easy way to make a living, 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 They did have a great retirement plan better than I have. 😢😢😢😢😢😢

Production workers vs maintenance workers. I'm a mechanic. I could never do this. And operators could never be in maintenance. Two different worlds.

Nice bit of Scott Joplin there 🎶🎵 And some youngsters working hard

My great grandfather worked in that section, spindles specifically in 1918, I still have his ID card.

If only things made today were given that much care.we live in an era of modern junk.Henry Ford would cry if he saw how todays throw away pickups are made.

You can see how metal wheels were a cost savings....so much labor

It’s amazing how far we’ve come in what seems like a relatively short amount of time.

They painted the whole wheel with the ball bearings already installed. I bet the had a lot of wheel bearing failures back then.

How many got their hands chopped off?

Great video, a testament to a different time and hardworking men.

The “boys starting nuts” makes you realize how an employee like Willie Fulton could work nearly 70 years for Ford. Things were definitely different 100 years ago on the factory floor.

These jobs would suck

Fantastic video

Back when people weren't afraid to work. Great video

Ahhh! The good ol’ days - when work was plentiful and music was great.

Pretty interesting how labor intensive fabricating wheels were then.Kudos to the person that invented the stamped steel wheel👍

Nice video. Great music, I'm heading to the piano now! wheres my Joplin book?

Thank you yt for suggesting me this

With all the machinery, there was still a LOT of skilled craftsmanship going on. The machines helped, but they needed immediate human control for the "brain work". The machinery enabled fantastic volume and economy of scale The "assembly line' was a revelation. It certainly included strong discipline on the workers to keep up with the pace. It was machine driven work pace - relentless. Of course, the workplace hazards were barely appreciated - just part of the job - not for sissies. Really interesting how "old technology" persists: case in point - building wood spoke "wagon wheels" for the new "horseless carriages". They kept the carriage wheels of old - actually manufactured with great precision and care. The wheels on those Model T s was actually one of their special qualities. And then "mass production" meant that most families could afford their own Model T, and opening up a whole new 20th century. What a ride!

Although not safe by today's standards, the tooling is amazing.

Fascinating thank you for sharing this delightful presentation 👍😊😎

I was told ford recycle stuff like pallets to make parts out of them. Very smart man.