KKSD 09: The Sand Reckoner: The Cursing Begins

Today was Repetitive Task Sunday. Hedy, Erik, Tom, Kate, Dave and I put in a full day of work on the Reckoner's wheels. The goal was to get at least one of the wheels done, 'Atlas' was chosen first. Mind you today would be the day where all of our wits would be tested, and as predicted, people would be cursing.

The shop was in full swing with multiple stations set up. And now a quick recap of what we are getting ourselves into; The design we have chosen requires 3 wheels with each wheel requires the following:

1 rim cut from a 36'' ribbed irrigation tubing
1 hub off of a mustang
96 holes drilled into each rim
48 holes drilled per flange
2 flanges per hub
96 wires cut for spokes
96 ferrels threaded and crimped
96 thimbles set
96 cable stops crimped
96 eyebolts to weld
96 bolts
96 washers

That is about... a million steps. Perfect for Repetitive Task Sundays! Time to get started! Kate took lead on welding duty closing all the eyebolts.

Tom is ready for anything

Tom was head of the cutting station, with appropriate union representation, prepping the axles. Nothing but class and professionalism....

Do this 1000 times... with class

Erik was drilling the final few holes on the flanges

While that was all orchestrating, Hedy, Dave and I threaded thimbles, ferrels, and crimped the spokes. Our fingers were chewed up pretty bad by the end of the ordeal

Duct tape bandages are for hardcore wheel makers

Whew! Finally 96 spokes ready to crimp. Erik and Hedy made some serious headway crimping the first spokes! But...

We realised about 20 spokes in that we crimped the wrong length spokes. Tom was to blame, luckily we could salvage the cut spokes and use them on the other flange since they were still long enough.

This was a good time to break for lunch and recharge the old batteries around the fire.

Lunch was good, rejuvenating our bodies and resetting our minds for more repetitive tasks! Once the first flange was crimped it was time to weave the first spoke pattern. We decided to go with a 3x pattern for torque on both sides. We ran into a problem when weaving the pattern, we kept getting 1 extra spoke. After counting 5 times and re-spoking we finally got the pattern down. Note: Math isn't a strong point for us.

One side woven! Looking good

We flipped the wheel around and our expert crimping team finished the other flange:

Headlampin' for serious crimpin'

Now time to weave the other side:

Kate and Family helping out

More weavin'

Yes, another snag.... The second side spoke length, even though we cut it for a 3x pattern, wasn't long enough. After more cursing and brainstorming, we discovered that a 0x pattern fit. We had to progressively tension the wheel to get all the spokes to fit. But alas! 1 wheel finally complete!