Thread: Enlarging axle holes in wheels

G'Day Don, I do most of my enlargements by eye going up in stages from the 1/4" pilot hole the wheel cutter gives, BUT if you are to do a stack of them maybe clamping a piece of board to your drill press table with a raised square to hold the wheel centrally for resizing the centre hole...I hope that makes sense, as that's all I'd do. Cheers, crowie

Put the wheel in a chuck on the lathe and put the correct drill in the tail stock.

have you considered using a metal working step drill?

or a tapered reamer, ground to a cylinder at your preferred diameter
Standard Taper Reamers - Lee Valley Tools

As all your wheels will be the same size, I'd cut a 90 degree V into a piece of 19 mm pine, then glue that onto a base that can be bolted onto the table. Clamp the wheel to locate the centre with the 1/4" drill bit in the V block, and line up in the drill press, clamp/bolt it down, change to the size drill required. Once the base has been drilled it can be used over and over. This is what I do at the Day Centre where I help out.
Kryn

i have succeeded with a piece of scrap wood ... cut a hole exactly the size of the wheel in it and then halve it taking out about 1/8 inch while i am at it ... i SCREW one half to my false table on the drill press and use a clamp to hold the other half around the wheel blank ... i use this method to cut a hole for a hub using a sawtooth bit which puts a fair bit of pressure trying to spin the wheel ... it holds fine ... the hole in these tractor wheels was (from memory) 2 and 1/4 inches

i probably don't need to add this (but just in case it is not clear) ... i position the wheel blank by using the same size drill (without the motor runnning) as the original hole and then screw the guide down to make a tight fit and then change the drill bit over

regards david7_tractor5.jpg

The lathe method mentioned by DavidG should be most accurate

For a bulk lot I would go with a method along the lines of that described by Kryn

I have a drill press with a table that slides up and down without pivoting around the post. This alows eaier repeatability with jigs being reused

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

in case my previous post wasn't all that clear i have ducked down and taken a couple of photos:

the first shows the clamp and the next three some work in progress back and front wheels for a couple of ongoing projects but which demonstrate that a significant hole can be drilled in something held quite firmly by the clamp ...

i make a seperate one for whatever size wheel i want to make ...

this doesn't show the best clamp (although it still works well enough) but it is more effective when i use square blank and cut straighter on halving it ... the clamp across it holds better i think .. i used to just use the bandsaw for the whole process but now halve the blank using a dropsaw (and widen the cut by a bladewidth as well)

regards david

Thanks for a bunch of great suggestions. I think robbys will be the best/easiest. My drillpress rotates around the post, which doesnt help things. Would love to use the lathe method, but I dont have one right now.

Pretty sure that means I should go a buy one, though.

You can still do it on your type of drill press. Just means if you take the big off you need to be sure to get it ligned up again

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Originally Posted by DaveTTC

You can still do it on your type of drill press. Just means if you take the big off you need to be sure to get it ligned up again

Dave TTC
Turning Wood Into Art

Yeah, im assuming I would need to align everything up each session, which im fine with. I just didnt want to have to align everything up each wheel.

Hi DI, Thinking outside the square, seeing as how the axle dowel will be capped, have you considered a flat cap (I have just adopted this method of cutting the dome part off the pre-fabbed cap to leave a flat (wind resistant) profile) which could be sliced from appropriate sized dowels.
Then you could use an axle dowel the same dimensions as your holesaw bore.
You might need to alter the axles' holes otherwise small bushings could be a challenge
You are then only left with the conundrum of how to centre the cap on the dowel which may be a harder solution than your original problem (DOH!).

Hey you need idiots like me to make the rest of you appear good...

Originally Posted by Alexkara

Hi DI, Thinking outside the square, seeing as how the axle dowel will be capped,

Actually, the dowel wont be capped. I make the axle too long, then sand the remainder down so its smooth with the wheel. Then its painted over.

But thanks anyway =)

Figured I should show what you helped with

Cool, should make some ankle bitters happy.