Rebuilding a pair of wagon wheels

[Dustin Lorenz]

I am attempting my first real turning and steaming project all in one. My mother has a set of authentic wagon wheels she would like to see restored. They have the complete steel outer wheel and all the the steel rings to make up the hub. Most of the wood is gone on one but the other has enough to get the proper dimensions to at least get me started. They are probably around 40 some inches tall and at least 3 inches wide. If anyone has advice on bending the outer pieces to fit in the ring I'd gladly listen. I am assuming I'll have to laminate thinner strips to get the full original thickness, although the original is around two inches thick and not made of laminated strips. Anyone know if I should attempt to try and form it at full thickness. By the way they only used to sections of wood to make up the outer wheel so one piece would have to be bent a full 180 on about a 24" radius. I have an old steaming iron my mom had when she owned her own dress shop years ago. She was going to sell it at a garage sale one year, but I got it, told her I have the perfect plan for it. Now I just need to build the steam box. It should work good the iron really blows out the steam. This is not her wheel but one very similar minus the large steel outer ring I found on the net.

[Alan Jones]

Not an easy job to steam bend that large a section to that radius without specialist equipement. There are a number of companies in the us who could supply the felloes (wheel rims) or an alternative is to make them in more sections, as is traditional with English wheels.Typically one felloe per two spokes. These are bandsawn out of shorter lengths of timber. Either way the finished wheel would look the same.

[David Dockstader]

As I remember the numerous living history displays I have attended over the years, you may be going about this the wrong way. I believe that the wooden portions of the wheel are made first and they are not bent. They are segmented, like a segmented bowl or round frame. They didn't glue them (they didn't have Titebond II back then); they pegged them together. You can see some of the pegs in your picture. The wooden wheels are assembled and the steel wheels and hubs are heated to expand them slightly larger than the wooden wheel. The steel is then hammered onto the wooden wheel and as it cools and contracts, it hold the whole thing together. Trying to fit a wooden wheel into the steel wheel may be a little difficult. On the other hand, I don't expect you are going to use it to carry all your worldly possessions along the Oregon Trail from St. Joe to California, but just be advised you may be doing something that really hasn't been done before.

[Rod Sheridan]

David is correct, the fellows are pegged together and the iron tire is heated to expand it.

It's then placed on the wheel and cooled.

The hubs were traditionally made of elm, due it's ability to resist splitting. There are fairly large mortises in the hub to accept the spoke tenons.

Regards, Rod.

[Dustin Lorenz]

Thanks for the input guys. I have heard that before about the steel being heated and shrunk on. I plan on using a new steel tire (I also do fabriction work and have a buddy with a slip roller) but I am going to cheat and build the wood "rim" put the unclosed tire around it then clamp it as tight as possible and weld it together. I will then go back over the steel tire and proceed to give it the traditional hammer blows to give it the forged look. As far as the felloes (now I know what they are called thanks ) the ones in my mothers wheels were only two halves to make the entire wheel. I am not saying you guys are wrong, but somehow they figured out a way to do it back then. After thinking it over I plan on doing it in sections. I am going to try and get three to four spokes in each, which ever comes out even (can't remember how many right at this moment). I also plan on giving all the steel parts a black oxide finish. Thanks Rod for the info on elm. I never gave the hub much thought as to what I should use.

[Geoff Harper]

Nice project!

I've seen a few wheels in a friend's barn, hadn't really given it much thought till now - but inspired by your project I'm going to have another peek at 'em!

Keep us posted on this and good luck

[Craig T. Smith]

Dustin, I caught an old rerun of The Woodwrights Shop last weekend, Roy Underhill was making steel tired wheels for a wheelbarrow just like yours. Very informative. You may try his websiteto find more info. Good luck, Craig

[Bill Wyko]

I would suggest doing a glued up lamination with a build up of 1/8" thick pieces stacked. I think you will have much better luck with it being round and it'll also be stronger. Let me know if you need more info on how to do this.

[Don C Peterson]

I'm not an expert by any means, and I've never actually built a wheel, but I have done a bit of research on this. There were many variations on how wheels were made but as far as I can tell they were all segmented. The number of segments varied but I have never seen or heard of a wheel that was made out of laminated strips that were then glued into the a hoop.

Tillers International is the one place I've found where they actually teach courses on wheelwrighting. You can see an interesting video here: http://www.tillersinternational.org/...wrighting.html