spoked wheels

The spoked wheel, or rather the wheel where the spokes are not covered over, is an essential item when building certain vintage models, It is also a most attractive and eye catching feature of a model but the difficulties involved in making such a wheel with a diameter of only about half inch is enough to put even experienced modellers off the subject altogether. The systems illustrated have been evolved after a great deal of trial and error and have proved to be the simplest and most effective. The finished product can represent exactly some spoked wheels, but can represent all others with a little variation. It is not until a subject is studied that its complexity becomes apparent; this is particularly so in the case of wheels. There were parallel spokes, cross over spokes, radial spokes and some other variations, and a study of perambulator or motorcycle wheels can give some idea of the problems involved.

The first method shown above requires a template cut from thick plastic card. (A) wiith a series of notches cut all the way around at even distances. For making all types of wheel twice the number of notches should be cut as in the diagram which is kept simple for clarity. The other components are two plastic rings and a hub (B) Small plastic curtain rings made from polystyrene or nylon are available from chain stores or haberdashers and these have been found to be ideally suited, although in the smaller wheels a ring has to be made from sprue softened by steam or hot water and coiled around a rod of the correct size -- or use the moulded method. The hub is made from stretched ink tube from a ball point pen as described previously. A bulky knot is made at one end and the other end is passed through the notch at '& the top of the cormer (C). The thread is led down and passed through the hub and taken up to the rear of notch 'A'. It is then led down left to 'M' passed through and taken down to 'I' at the bottom. It is brought up from 'I' passed through the hub and taken down to the rear of 'I' (follow the arrows). The four vertical spokes now hold the hub in position. The thread is now led back to 'M' and passed to and through the hub coming back to the rear of 'M'. It is taken down to 'I' again and then to 'E' where the procedure is repeated. When the vertical and horizontal spokes are in place the hub is 'fixed', and when repeating the process all around the clock, care must be taken to apply even and firm pressure to ensure that the hub stays central. The thread must not be pulled too tight as this will cause too much tension which will be disastrous later. Only enough pressure should be applied to ensure that the thread is in a straight line. A variation on this pattern is to stagger the spokes as follows. In the early stages instead of taking the first spoke down from 'A' back to the rear of 'A' it can be taken back to the rear of 'B' thence down to and through the front of 'J' to the hub and back to 'I', and so forth. This first stage is now completed. The plastic rings (two are required for each wheel) are then stuck on to a piece of balsa using double sided adhesive tape; this is merely to hold them whilst they are sanded to half their thickness (D). The result is that they become a pair of half wheels. The object is to stick these two halves together with the spokes between them (E). If polystyrene wheel halves are used, ordinary plastic cement will do this satisfactorily; however, if nylon or other plastic is used a special mix of plastic cement and chips of plastic card dissolved in liquid cement will do the job. In all cases to ensure a better joint and to stop the spikes slipping out of place, both flat faces of the wheel halves should be roughened. One wheel half should be stuck lightly in place first with plastic cement. The adhesive should then be liberally applied to the inside flat faces of both wheel halves putting most of the adhesive on the outer perimeter for when the halves are forced together any excess on the inner perimeter will ooze out into the inside of the wheel and is most difficult to remove later. The two halves can usually be stuck together with finger pressure initially (F) , but this is only to ensure that they are correctly placed. The whole assembly is then placed between the jaws of a vice (faced with cardboard to prevent marring the wheels) and left there overnight (G). When it is removed the outer threads are snipped carefully close to the tyre, a line of plastic putty is run around to seal the joint and when this is dry the surface is lightly sanded. The wheel is now completed except for painting. The whole ring should be painted with matt dark grey (or in the case of some earlier models, medium grey or even dirty white) and the rim is painted in either dull silver or shiny black. The most effective and accurate method is to mount the wheel on a vertical pin and rotate the wheel holding the brush still.

Alternative method of making spoked wheels and wheel discs Whilst this method is quicker than that previously described it requires great care and patience, Plastic cement of the thin variety is the normal adhesive but for beginners it is best to use matt varnish. This takes a long time to dry but will not affect the plastic which is this case is very fine sprue. Sketch I shows a balsa former made from about 1/8 inch sheet with a circular hole cut in the centre slightly larger than the wheel so that it can be used for various sized wheels.. Placed on top and held with double sided adhesive tape is a plastic card template as shown in sketch 2. The hole is cut just a fraction larger than the wheel and is traversed by a series of lines, verticals, horizontal and two diagonals. Sketch I also shows tape placed on the card so that all the lines are covered. The half wheel as described in the preceding description is dropped in the 'well' in the plastic card and fine sprue lengths are placed as shown in sketch 2 one on each side of the guide lines allowing a narrow space (about 1/32 inch for small wheels between them. The tape, of course, holds them in position. When they are all placed in position they are stuck to the wheel half by dabbing with adhesive and allowed to dry (at least one hour in the case of varnish). A razor blade is used to cut the 'spokes' just outside of the wheel and the wheel half drops out of the former. The surplus spoke ends are trimmed off (sketch 3) and the boss is inserted as shown in sketch 4. The boss can be a piece of tubing as previously described with a length of wire inside merely to hold it. The 'boss' is then inserted in the middle of the spokes as shown in sketch 5 which will bow out a little as intended. Still leaving the boss on a wire for convenience the whole central area is now smeared with adhesive so that the spokes will stick to the boss (if the drawn out ball point pen plastic is used, matt varnish is best for this job). Allow to dry and meanwhile prepare the second wheel half in the same way as the first, When this is trimmed it should be mounted on the boss and stuck a short distance from the first half, again the distance depends upon the scale and size of the wheel but in small wheels it should be about 3/32 inch- Before leaving it to set as shown in sketch 7, the second half should be turned so that the spokes are not exactly opposite the spoke" of the first half as shown in sketch 6. When the wheel is finished the impression will be that there are about twice as many spokes as there actually are. The two halves are then drawn together as shown in sketch 8 but before doing so adhesive (as described in the previous method) is applied to the inner, outside perimeter. It is not necessary in this method to press the halves together in a pice. The space between the wheel halves is filled as shown in sketch 9 and finally sanded. When making this type of wheel the boss and 'tyres/rim ' can be pre-painted whilst the spokes can be made from black or silver sprue- One method of producing wheel halves is to mould them by using a suitable piece of metal tubing (obtainable from shops dealing with model ships or locomotives) and rounding off the edge with a file and emery cloth. The principle is to force the tube down on to some heated plastic card (at least 20 thou) which has heen dropped on to a mound of Plasticine as shown in sketch 10. Sketch 11 show the effect in cross.section- Sketch 12 shows the moulded piece having the main waste area cut away with a pair of dividers- Sketch 13 is a cross section of the moulded wheel half; showing the direction of sanding to remove the inner waste ring and then the final shape. This type of construction is not so long as it may seem and the advantage is that it is possible to run off as many as required and being plastic card it will stick very well. Sketch 14 shows a typical kit wheel mounted on a toothpick and stuck into a base of Plasticine. The object is to make a convincing wheel disc by merely heating a piece of 5 or 10 thou plastic card and drawing it over the plastic wheel. The kit wheel must be painted over with thin oil before doing this. Sketch 16 shows the dividers being used to cut out the disc and 17 the embossing of the 'spoke' lines with a sharp edge and scribing tool- The spokes should not be drawn too heavily..