Cheap Homemade Wheels

by Eric Herman | April 14, 2013 | (20) Posted in Projects

I came up with this idea while drinking a Soda a few months ago one night when I realized that school is expensive. These wheels work great, have very low bounce and are cheap cheap cheap. I made the video right away, so after a few flights here are some tips that I don't have in the video:

After flying in cold weather(10F) a few times and a few rough landings with a 2 pound plane, the hot glue holding the aluminum hubs together did break. However, now that it is above freezing here(35F) I have not had any trouble. So maybe just don't fly with these below freezing? Or you could glue them together with epoxy, or a silicone glue.

If you want smaller wheels, buy smaller cans of your beverage of choice.

I have recently tried using a silicone-like glue to mate the ends of the backer rod together to form the tire and that seems to have worked very well. I temporarily taped the rod ends together till the glue dried. Just make sure the glue doesn't chemically melt the foam. The silicone is much softer than hot glue so you won't have a hard spot in you wheel.

One last tip: The rims lasts a lot longer(indefinitely?) when you use a hub or a bushing of some sort. I have used some brass tubing, or a coffee stirrer, or blue plastic Q-tips.

 

 

Materials:
-Hot glue
-2 pop cans
-5/8" foam tubing called "Backer Rod"

I'm open to any suggestions on improving these wheels. After testing my steerable nose wheel plane on warm/hot asphalt it seems that the backer rod doesn't hold up real great. The Backer Rod seems to shrink a bit with heat and a 3 pound airplane. so any ideas for some new tires for the wheels would be great! otherwise these still work well and look great.

COMMENTS

Nmackey on April 25, 2013
These look great. im gonna try em out.
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psguardian on April 30, 2013
Absolutely brilliant! If anyone else has thought of it I haven't seen it. These wheels & the plexi L.G. are going on my next geared plane for sure!

~psguardian
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Eric Herman on May 1, 2013
Thanks! I hope they work well for you. Just be careful with the plexiglass landing gear, on real hard landings they can break, but they do look nice! Thanks again!

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RedBaron1 on April 17, 2013
Excellent looking wheels, looks like the "Spirit of St. Louis" wheels. Gotta try it!
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jerimiah85 on April 24, 2013
This is a GREAT idea. other ideas would you like to share lol?

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Eric Herman on April 25, 2013
I am working on a simple to make steerable nose wheel right now. I might not have time until I'm done with Finals (I'm in dental school right now) which are in 2 weeks. I just mounted my first test run on my model today and need to make some revisions as far as placement of set screws and such. So in the next 2-3 weeks look for that video.
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Newtown on April 25, 2013
Very nice. Look great. Plan to try them soon but ...
What did you use for an axle? What did you put on the outer end of the axle to keep t he wheel from coming off? Looks very small and neat. How is the axle attached to the struts? What did you do to keep it attached firmly to the strut at a right angle? How are the struts attached to the plane? It looks like you used some sort of fastener but to attach to the plane but it's a foam plane so how did you do it?
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Eric Herman on April 26, 2013
Thanks!
OK here we go: 1. my axle was a piece of 10-32 threaded rod. 2. I used a nut to hold the wheel on. 3. the axle is held on by two nuts, one on either side of the plexi glass. it seems to hold is plenty strong/square. 4. see 3. 5. The struts are attached to the plane with screws. I drilled holes in the plexiglass in 3 places. The screws anchor into popsicle sticks on outside and inside of the bottom of the plane. so it goes like this from the outside in. Strut-popsicle stick-foam-3 layers pospsicle sticks. After a few flights the plexiglass shattered... I would not recommend plexiglass struts anymore unless you can land really smooth. ;) I would go for aluminum or fiberglass and anchor these solid or with rubber bands. It doesn't look as nice having rubber bands on the outside of your plane, but it is so much more forgiving and will survive many many rough landings/crashes.
Hope this helps!
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Newtown on May 6, 2013
Thanks for the details. I've now put these near the top of my "to-do" list. They are so professional looking.
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WingNutz on May 7, 2013
Great Tip, Thank you for that
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llharper on April 15, 2013
Nice job!
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Eric Herman on April 25, 2013
Thank you!
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gunntommy1970 on October 12, 2013
This is great. Only problem I'm having with them is getting a clean joint on the ends of the backer rod which meet each other. The hot glue even on low temp eats away those ends pretty good. Anyone tried another glue or method to join the ends?
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Eric Herman on October 29, 2013
I've had some good luck with a silicone-like glue( can't remember the name) and tape(temporarily). Just check to make sure it doesn't eat the foam.

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Mostly Harmless on October 10, 2014
For larger, more "balloony" wheels, there's a 3/4" foam backer rod material. Used for joints in concrete floors, it's not found with the usual window insulation materials, but with the concrete stuff. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Sika-3-4-in-Closed-Cell-Backer-Rod-108130/202523820?N=5yc1vZc866

I haven't tried this, yet -- I plan on picking some up soon.

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Cheap Homemade Wheels