Today I started working on the tires and wheels for the first AC Six. The wood used is simple poplar but since they will be painted or dyed, I did not want to use more pricey stock. I will also say that the assembly shown here is my 2nd attempt of completing them. No project goes without some screwup some where and this one is no exception. I looked at the plan and thought that I would change up the tire/wheel mating schema a bit and so only drilled the tire 10mm deep to accept the wheel. The key was to make sure that the axle hole was drilled dead straight and accurate in both mating pieces. Not sure how I screwed it up, but I managed to be off by about 1mm or so. Rather than screw around with it, I chucked the first 5 and remade them as the plan calls for.
I made the tires and wheels parts on the CNC after bringing the stock to final dimension: Tire, 14mm, wheel, 10mm. Then just ran the file and got 7 clean sets. I always make a couple of extra since a spare or 2 might come in handy.
Next was the sanding and shaping the tire into a final shape before adding the tread to the road surface. For this, I decided to use the layout Dutchy included in the plans for treads. It is a simple layout and will still provide a good approximation of early auto tires. I made a template so I could easily layout the tread design.
Once scribed, use a parting tool or the nose of a skew chisel to make the tread fill the space between the lines.
The last add to the tire is the Logo and the side ticks. The logo presented no issue but for the life of me I could not think of how to cut the rim tick marks. I finally asked Dutchy and he said "laser". Duh!!!!!! (Thank you Dutchy!) So I made a jig and lasered the final tick marks and logos on all 5 tires. .
Here is the lasered tire and wheel. Note that on the original the wheel had an additional ring where 4 lug nuts secured the assembly to the axel. I added that feature to the wheel and will add the 4 lug nuts a bit later. I was able to find a circa 1926 Dunlop logo and so went with that. I will dye the tires with India Ink and the wheels will receive the same color treatment as the auto body, once I decide on a color.
I am going to stop at this point and will add more to this Part of the blog soon.
You are really rolling (haha...couldn't resist the pun).
But, seriously, interesting to read the process involved. You noted you will use India ink. How is that different than a black stain (I've used the General Finishes onyx before)? I'm guessing it gives a deeper color?
