Harley 750 WLA but not :-)

[paddy]

As I have already mentioned elsewhere my next plan is to do a civilian take on Italeri’s 1/9 Harley WLA motorcycle from the late 1930’s

The kit depicts a military version and while it differs quite a lot from the civy version that’s mostly extra parts rather than missing parts.

The big difference is the mudguards which are cut down on the military version to stop mud clogging off road. Not sure what I can do about that but as the project is more a custom build than following any specific model, maybe it wont matter. This is my 2020 attempt at the Military version which was ok but I couldn’t do the wheel spokes so ended up with half 1mm plastic spokes and half .5mm metal.
I am hoping now with a little more experience with spoked wheels I can build 2 good metal spoked wheels but it is a challenge and will involve a method I haven’t tried before.
The problem is the flanges on the wheel hubs are just 12mm dia and you need to drill 20 holes in each as the wheels are a 40 spoke design. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as the spokes would attach to the brake drums built into the hub which are much larger dia but the Harley has separate drums, not part of the hubs.

The answer will be to attach the spokes to the outside edge of the hub rather than into the side face of the hub as usual

spoke into edge of hub

spoke into side of hub

The thing is if you go into the side the spoke can pivot to give you your angle, if you go into the edge of the hub each spoke will have to be bent to the exact angle to align with the hole in the rim. the other problem is the spokes cross over each other..... not a problem with the side of the rim as you just put one on the inside and one on the outside as per the picture.
On the first picture you can see the spokes are all in a line so the holes will need to be staggered so they can cross. On the plastic spoked wheels they just mould the spokes into each other The issue will be the edge of the rim is only 2.2mm wide and the holes will be 0.5mm and need to miss each other...all 20 of them.

I post this first because if i cant get this right there is no point in going any further.

 

[moon puppy]

Paddy I've seen several vendors offering spoked wheels for ww1 aircraft, is there no one offering these wheels?

Swords to plowshares. Dig it!

 

[paddy]

No , you can buy Generic resin rims but the hubs are what they are...anyway that sort of defeats the challenge.

 

[paddy]

So after a nervous bit of drilling (there is no second chance) and some time with a pair of dividers.... i have 6 parts with 160 0.5mm holes (1mm in the rim to allow for spoke nipples)

I forgot to mention why i am doing it this way. If you paint the rims and spokes silver or black as i usually do it all becomes much easier because you can build each half of the wheel separately and then join them and paint the whole lot once assembled. However if you want to paint the rims and hubs a different colour to the spokes you need to join the rim halves and spray them before you add spokes.
Back in the summer my mate bought this

and i rather fell in love with the black rims and shiny spokes.
So now i need to build a jig to hold the hub central to the rim and also get the off set right so the centre line of the hub lines with the centre line of the rim on the front and with the hub off set on the rear to allow sprocket clearance with the spokes etc

 

[Steve Ski]

Now that is one cool Hog!

I'll be watching how this is done, Paddy, I'm clueless on this method.

 

[moon puppy]

I got this divider thing with the Unimat, if you know what you're doing you can have notched or regulated consistent drilling on a subject. I haven't the slightest idea how to use it but that's an option with a mini lathe.