I'm building a 1:64 scale thresher for my diorama. The one I'm modeling has spoked steel wheels. I've been noodling how to make them for a while. To be in scale, or nearly so, they need to be made out of half inch plastic tubing and have 8 spokes equally spaced around the circumference - i.e. every 45°. The spokes themselves would be .063 diameter.

I have a 3" rotary table for my Grizzly benchtop mill, but no way to hold the tubing. I took that as an excuse to buy a 3" 3 jaw chuck that fits my rotary table. Got it on Amazon, and with various discounts it was just a hair over $45. High precision it's not, but plenty accurate enough for model work.

Next problem? How to hold the tubing in the chuck without crushing it and still be tight enough to work with. Solution? Turn down a piece of wooden dowel to a snug fit and chuck that up and slip the tubing over it:





Then just crank the rotary table around in 45° increments and drill through the tubing and the dowel. Drilling all the way through both sides makes alignment pretty accurate and means I only need to drill 4 holes. Worked pretty darn well after a couple of adjustments to get things lined up.

Next problem? How to cut 1/8" wide rings off the tubing after the spoke holes are drilled and have them come out reasonably square and centered. Solution:



Another piece of dowel chucked up in my mini-lathe and an Xacto knife in a boring bar holder to part them off. Wicked cool.



And the finished products. Now all I gotta do is figure out how to glue them up.

That was a whole lot of ingenuity on your part. Great job!

Above my expertise, but I enjoy your ingenuity. Keep on Keepin on!!

I've heard that a large part of machining (and woodworking) is buying more tools and building fixtures and jigs. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I like ingenuity.

This is fascinating, following this!

Aaah, that's what they call "Yankee Ingenuity".

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Originally posted by Eponym:
I've heard that a large part of machining (and woodworking) is buying more tools and building fixtures and jigs. Not that there's anything wrong with that; I like ingenuity.

Yup. Machining is the hobby where you buy tools so you can make more tools to use with your tools.

The idea I had for making a jig to assemble the wheels seems to be working. Just waiting for one to cure enough to pop it off the jig and take a picture.

Wheel jig works pretty well. Used the same dowel, bored a hole in the center to insert the tubing for the hub. Slipped a small disc of plastic over the hub for a glue point. Work the rim onto the edge of the jig so the spoke holes just clear the end. Insert the spoke from the outside, cut to length and apply a dab of liquid glue to the outside of the rim and another at the hub.

Do a couple at a time, wait for the glue to cure, rotate the chuck, do a couple more.



Here's where I am with the overall project. Lots more details to add.

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Here's where I am with the overall project. Lost more details to add.

I hope you don't loose any more details

Nice work, I wouldn't have the patience to do that!

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Originally posted by HRK:

quote:

Here's where I am with the overall project. Lost more details to add.

I hope you don't loose any more details

Nice work, I wouldn't have the patience to do that!

I can spell, really I can. I just can't type...

Funny thing about patience. In 99% of the situations I run into, especially involving people, I have none. But alone with my thoughts in my hobby room, I take stuff like this as a challenge and find ways to get there from here.

Great job. A lot more impressive than 3D printing.

Now, we just need to see the Case steam engine that powers the thresher.

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Originally posted by Merc50:
Now, we just need to see the Case steam engine that powers the thresher.

Hmmmmmmmm. Not a bad idea, actually.

A guy I used to work with built metal scale model farm equipment.He was stumped on how to make the auger.We were back in the machinist area and I looked down under the lathe.I picked up a shaving and asked him if it would work.He found one that matched the dimension and wrapped it around small steel rod and it worked perfect. Just a thought if the need ever comes up.