Wheels advice

[Woodengifts]

Hi guy new to this forum
Hope you are well
I just started making wooden toys and would like to know how you guys cut wheels any help would be great and if you have a pattern that would be great too

 

[Baldhead]

Hi and welcome

You can buy wheels already made from here

http://www.woodworkscraftsupplies.co.uk/index.php

Hope that helps

Baldhead

 

[Woodengifts]

Thank you

 

[toesy]

There's a good post on the link below

http://www.toymakingplans.com/website/h ... heels.html

Or You can scrollsaw/bandsaw cut them out and then insert into a drill and sand to a cleaner circle shape.

Which is pretty much how I make mine,

 

[jonluv]

Hi Toesy,
I use a hole cutter (2 types) -- what I do is use a small cutter and drill the pilot hole through the wood and mark the tyre.
Then turn wood over and drill with bigger cutter to cut out the wheel - cut about 8 and thread onto a 6mm diameter rod , fit this into a drill and turn on and smooth the rims with a bit of sandpaper

I thought of buying but decided against it as all the wheels look the same ie no different colour woods and I do like the look of mahogany wheels


John

 

[bodgerbaz]

The hardwood wheels you can buy look really good and I've used them several times myself. An alternative is to make your own. They are more rustic and simple in design but very cheap as you can use scrap offcuts of wood. What you need is a 'hole cutter set'.

You can spend a lot of money on a quality set or do as I did and get a set from Aldi https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/specialbuys/t ... -saw-sets/ for less than a tenner.

If I am going to make a quantity I take some 3/4" pine and draw out a matrix with a pencil so that every intersection is where I start drilling. This is a very quick way to cut out the wheels and takes all the guesswork out of where to drill next.

Once I have the wheels they have to be sanded and rounded over to take off the sharp corners so I thread them on to a piece of same diameter threaded bar which is then put into my drill press.

The wheels have to be kept apart to get to the edges so I make a sandwich of pieces :-

Starting at the chuck . . .
nut
washer
first wheel
washer spacers
second wheel
washer spacers
third wheel
washer
nut

By tightening the bottom nut a bit you should be able to get a fairly solid mass. Don't over tighten otherwise the washers will leave a ring mark.

I only use a shortish threaded bar as I don't want to put too much sideways pressure on the drill press.

Once it's been bolted up, turn on the drill press and apply gentle pressure on the wheels with some sandpaper. Work the sandpaper on all the surfaces and especially on the edges to give a nice rounded over feel.

Change to a finer grit sandpaper to get a nice finish . . . . and that's about it really.

Barry

 

[martinka]

Steve Good has a video for cutting wheels on the scroll saw using a simple jig.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3L2FUaww4