Well I have ditched the pine blanks for the wheels as I feel they just don't cut the mustard. Instead, I have decided to make them out of Red Gum and Huon Pine and add some appropriate tread.
I had a nice big chunk of Red Gum, so I cut off some 15mm slices on the table saw and then cut out the tyres on the bandsaw. Two will be glued together to create each tyre.
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I drilled out the bore using a forstner bit and then turned a mandrel on the lathe to mount them on. I then turned the tyres to diameter and shaped them a bit (can't see the shaping in the photos).
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After sizing and shaping the tyres I used the mandrel from the lathe and mounted it on a jig on the tablesaw to cut the tread. I should have marked out the indexing marks while the mandrel was still on the lathe. That way I could have used the indexing unit built into the lathe headstock to accurately mark the positions as I struggled a bit with the first couple to get the spacing spot on. If I do more of this sort of thing I will need to make up a proper indexing unit to mount on the tablesaw.
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Now all the treads are cut. I will make up the rims from the Huon Pine next, and some pegs to hold them on. I also want to ebonize the Red Gum to make it black. Something I haven't done before, but sounds fairly straight forward.
All the body and links have had a couple of coats of Urethane over the weekend.
Looking forward to my next chance to do some more.