Thread: Wheels

Originally Posted by Black Bear

IF you had your druthers what would you be looking for in a wooden wheel for toys?

What is your expectation of cost and finish of such wheels?

I imagine that there are wheels on the market, but from Aussie's comment, not worth buying.

I do not know a lot about these things, but I know a lot of home hobbyists that have lathes and not much work for their hobbies that may like to produce such an item.

No promises, but give me some ideas.

Kevin Rudd's payment plus a few sheckles is not a bad concept.

Hi
Some are worth buying and not worth making for the price is what I was getting at.Here is a pic of some of the better ones Made from hardwood and some are spoked.Only a couple of bucks each.Not worth making for the price.Maybe if you need a certian size you would have to make them
I don't think you could come close to making money from making wheels for toys.

Got to agree with AUSSIE. Not worth the hassle to make wheels for a project when you can buy them for around the $2 mark. I haven't come across a supplier of wheels in Australia that are a quality product but I stand to be corrected on that. If you were to start producing wheels at a commercial level, I think you would be better targeting model makers with a good quality product but would have to be very competitive to compete with the USA market that is available to us over here.
I would prefer to buy locally made stuff but we don't seem to have the products that can be sourced from overseas. Try and buy scale wagon wheels or cart wheels in Australia. I haven't found any in Australia but readily available from overseas albeit, some of them are pretty expensive and may be more worthwhile to make them yourself due to the cost factor alone.

No wonder USA laughs at us eh they import them from Asia at some low low price and tell us their US made and sell at 150%

What would it take to set up a lathe and make them I wonder all out of Aussie timbers to

Hi all, too right about mark up on U.S. wheels.

I reckon you'd need some good machinary to make the wheels ( toysnjoys types ) with consistent size and finish. I know Im going to lathe my own hotrod wheels as Ive only got to make 200 or so and the cost of the lathe is paid for.

When I got 200 wheels off toysnjoys the wheels were 55 c each, but the postage was $50 something and the exchange rate pushed it even higher.

If a woodturner or turning club could produce wheels here in Oz at a competitive price I for one would be interested. Very repetitive work though, could you set up a machine to just pump em out?

Cheers, Billy

Billy
Those wheels cost you 160 US dollars for 200 wheels Just say in normal times $200 AUS .
That is give or take $1.00 a wheel How are you going to buy the wood and make 200 wheels and save enough to pay for a lathe.OH and some tooling for the lathe as well.
That is apart from time and boredom factor.
If you are making different wheels than you can buy,that is different.
If someone was making the earth moving gear wheels,that would be cool.
They are made in two halves and glued .

Carbi-tool wheel cutters in AU just over $300 for 3 cutters

Seems Stu has a set

Originally Posted by wheelinround

Carbi-tool wheel cutters in AU just over $300 for 3 cutters

Seems Stu has a set

Seen those Ray and they are a very basic wheel that they produce, nothing like the American wheels. Would probably be ok for a toy but not on a model of any merit.

It sure would be boring making nothing but wheels.
When you figure a lathe at $400, wood chuck $ 150 and tools ( basic ) $50 then you're talking a bit of dough, but then you can turn up headlights, axle pins and other stuff as well so it wouldn't be long before you recoup the outlay.
As for me, if I'm going to make mainly hotrods I wouldn't be needing spoked wheels, so turning my own and making them slightly different from model to model would be interesting.
If I was making a toysnjoys type model that needed spoked wheels I'd probably buy a few but I don't really want to send too many more $ to America if I can help it.
Imagine how much sawdust I could make with a lathe!
cheers, billy

5 pages of wheels.USA pricing.
http://www.cherrytreetoys.com/Wheels...SortBy=&Page=2

Quick comparison, Timbercon have a very limited selection of timber wheels. USA price for aprox 66mm dia Wheel is $1.25 each.. Timbercon price for slightly smaller wheel but similar in design 63mm dia $3.20 each wheel.

Hi Aussie, I've been lucky with timber, haven't bought any in years.

Pick up whatever I can off the side of the road, out of skips, pester my builder mates when they're on site and harass the demolishers as well.

Most of my mates know I want timber and regularly drop stuff off.

Its amazing what you can get out of old discarded furniture, especially the drawers.
All nicely dressed and un weathered.

Billy the scrounger

Originally Posted by AUSSIE

5 pages of wheels.USA pricing.
http://www.cherrytreetoys.com/Wheels...SortBy=&Page=2

I have just had a quick look at that Cherry Tree site in the US. I could not switch the shed light on and have the wood fairy make them for free to beat some of those prices.

Thoroughly disillusioning when you consider the poor choice we have here and the cost if we are lucky enough to take second best and use what we can find.

It is a great site, one worth bookmarking and because the items are small the postage to Oz would be reasonable. That is if they send to here. I will have to check now.

Peter

Hi Star, thats a good site for wheels, have cached that site for ideas.
cheers, billy

Cherrytree does send to Australia

Juvy