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Old 07-25-2014, 12:47 PM
JimSeipel JimSeipel is offline
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Question Spoked wheels

My son and I are considering building a replica of Karl Benz first car as a family winter project. My biggest concern right now is duplicating the wheels. Is anyone here experienced in building turn-of-the-century style steel spoked wheels? I have a few ideas, but don't want to "reinvent the wheel" (no pun intended)
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Old 07-25-2014, 04:14 PM
crystallographic crystallographic is offline
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Originally Posted by JimSeipel View Post
My son and I are considering building a replica of Karl Benz first car as a family winter project. My biggest concern right now is duplicating the wheels. Is anyone here experienced in building turn-of-the-century style steel spoked wheels? I have a few ideas, but don't want to "reinvent the wheel" (no pun intended)
We are running into that on this 1902 curved dash Olds replica, too. Some guy made a set of artillery wheels for his oldie, and we are trying to reach him about a set for us. Not steel spoke, tho.
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Old 07-25-2014, 05:54 PM
Richard-S Richard-S is offline
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These guys made the wheels for many of the great Italian cars. They are still there.

http://www.ruoteborrani.com/en/
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Old 07-25-2014, 06:00 PM
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Superleggera Superleggera is offline
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to recreate the wire wheels / tires isn't that tough. You will have to machine your own hubs though. If you do a search -- look for what are called "penny-farthing" bicycles -- one giant wheel and a small one from pre-geared bicycle designs. There is a small cottage industry out there making rims, spokes and tires for these. It's what Karl Benz used to create his originally so why not do the same. (I asked a Mercedes engineer years ago who built some of the replicas for the factory and above is what they did to build the wheels they used)
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Old 07-25-2014, 09:46 PM
Oldnek Oldnek is offline
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This Mob in QLD Aust, do them. I'm not sure if that's what your after though.
http://bigtyre.com.au/wheels/vintage
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Old 07-26-2014, 12:17 PM
hlfuzzball hlfuzzball is offline
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Here is a reference that may help you:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Anti...ycle/?ALLSTEPS
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Old 07-28-2014, 09:50 PM
Doug M Doug M is offline
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I made a jig to put 12 steel spokes on motorcycle rims, pipe hubs. They have greased wood bearing drilled after welding. We used these for walking speed carts and used rejected rims and tires, remember its walking speed.

For more speed you could use un-punched rims, punch them and jig them for welding/brazing a hub in the center. The design for the hub may follow your pattern to be similar to the Benz wheels.

http://monumentimpact.org/programs/t...rstengine.html

These pics seem to have wooden spokes a style easily available to them but not so easy for us though a caisson style wheel similar to below may be made with wooden spokes and steel rim inside a pneumatic rim. Hold the pneumatic on similar to the model T. You could cover the caisson hub with a wooden bowl if that is the style you want.

http://www.lovettartillery.com/US%20...estoration.htm

These caisson have band brakes on the inboard end of the hub where these may or not be on the Benz car but would have been available at that time since these brakes were on limbers during the US Civil War.

I don't know if you want pneumatic tires but I'm thinking of them. you might have a hard time finding the larger tire but the tire guy might have a sourse for the rim.
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