Hi Guys,
I have taken a break from my figures & busts to build my Harley 1/9th Motorcycle & I am re-building the wheels with wire spokes. I have experimented with some spare wheels I have & I have attached a photo.
Anyone interested in a SBS?
http://gallery.kitmaker.net/data/500/wire_wheels_001.JPG
Mark

Opps,
I will get this right one day!!!

Mark,
go for it Mate!

Like a lot of SBS, somethings will work for some, other things might not.

Just by sharing your experience, you'll be pleasantly surprised by what people ask!@

Knowledge unshared is knowledge lost, after all.....

Cheers

Jamie

Okay Guys here we go with the first step.
We need to gather some suitable wire for our spokes & I got mine from my former welding days as I had a reel of 0.6mm Stainless welding wire which looked the right size. Now we need to find a drill of the same size & mount it in a pin vice
Starting with our inner ring of spokes, I drilled the inner rim at each end of the plastic spokes to match a reference picture of a Harley WLA, as photo 001.

Next is to remove two spokes from the outer rim leaving a 3mm stub to form the outer rim ‘nipple’ which I will come back to later. The inner rim was cleaned up with a blade & sanding board ready for the first run of wire. Photo 2
Note!. Doing two spokes at a time & opposite to each other stopped the rim distorting!

The next stage is marking off the spoke direction on the outer rim by marker or scribing (seen clearly on photo 6) & then drill through the rim into the cut off stubs of the plastic spokes. Photo 3

As the stainless wire was coiled, I used the old engineering method of straitening by fastening one end in a vice & gripping the other end with a pair of pliers & pulling hard! This gives you a straight run of wire Photo 4.

Using the pliers to bend a 90 degree angle, I snipped off the end near to the angle as per photo 5 and hooked this into the drilled hole on the inner rim. I then marked the wire length as it meets the outer rim. Once cut to length, the ‘hooked’ end is removed & the wire fed into the drilled hole in the outer rim. As the wire goes through the outer rim, re-hook the angled end into the inner rim (photo 6)

Working opposite spokes you will end up with something like photo 7 & 8. Note that I have cut all the other directional spokes ready for drilling on photo 7 & 8.

Nearly there now, guys, as we repeat the spokes in the other direction. (Photo 9) & as I mentioned, it’s now time to deal with the outer rim ‘nipples’. Using your favourite extra thin cement or MEK, brush this around the stubs until you can blend the plastic around the wire spoke & this will form the final finish (see photos)


The finale is for the inner rim spokes to be capped off with some punched out discs to cover the drilled holes & wire. I use discs punched from yoghurt pots which blend easily with thin plastic cement.

Repeating this exercise on the second part of the wheel assembly gives you the end product on photo 15 with only the tyre valve to be done.

A bit of a follow up to the wire wheels as I was asked about how I tackled the smaller spindle hub on the other side…So here’s what I did…
I drilled the hub at each point where the plastic spokes met as per photo 1 for the outer run of the wire spokes close to the outer edge of the hub.



I then cut off 2 spokes as before & clean up the area & marked off for the inner run of spokes. This involved drilling between the holes already done & drilling these holes off the centre line. Drilling off centre staggered the holes so it left room for the inner run of wire spokes to meet the hub. The photos shows this better than I have explained.




Once this is done, measure, cut & glue wire spokes as before & hopefully you will end up with something looking like this.



Hope this cleared up some grey areas.
Mark

Please see my 1/9 Bobber wip on FSM Auto forum .I cast my hubs and rims and laced according to Harleys manual. I would post pix here but it seems not to work for me.

Hey James, Nice work
I might have a go at casting myself...
I will be following your work!
mark