The Hercules Patent Pile Shoe—For Wood and Concrete Piles

Progress, Volume IX, Issue 10, 1 June 1914, Page 1121

The Hercules Patent Pile Shoe —For Wood and Concrete Piles

That necessity is the mother of invention is forcibly brought under our notice by the history of the Hercules patent pile shoe. This shoe is the invention of a practical blacksmith, part of whose duties it was to manufacture the old welded shoes, which were constantly getting him into trouble owing to the high percentage of rejections. This trouble caused him to hit upon the happy idea of the possibilities of a pile shoe constructed with a cast steel point through which passed wrought iron continuous straps. This idea in practice proved a huge success and the result to-day is— Hercules patent pile shoe.

We recently had the pleasure of inspecting a number of these shoes which were made for a large public body in New Zealand, and it was quite evident, even to a layman, that the advantages claimed by the Hercules Pile Shoe Co. were genuine, and that to our mind the shoe will prove a great saving to engineers and contractors. .With the Hercules pile shoe there can be no faulty driving, because it is impossible for the wrought iron straps to burst asunder; every shoe is made true to size and gauge which means a perfect fitting seat is obtained for the pile. Another distinct advantage is obtained by the fact that weight for weight the Hercules pile shoe is twice as strong as the welded type; this means more than

one hundred per cent, saving in first cost, to which should be added the saving effected in the labour of fitting, which is fully one shilling per pile in favour of the Hercules shoe. These shoes are equally effective for concrete piles, as can readily be seen from the' illustration we give, which is one of a number of 401 b. shoes made for concrete piles supplied to the Otago Harbour Board. Amongst the many testimonials received we were pleased to note that Messrs. J. Blair Mason, and G. A. Lee, engineers to the Otago and Bluff Harbour Boards wrote that after severe tests they were highly pleased with the results obtained. We have every confidence in saying that when the Hercules pile shoe becomes known to engineers and contractors, they will entirely supersede the old type.