rearenginekarts.com

Over the holidays I decided I wanted some narrower wheel rims for some front tires. I use mostly Margay 24 wheels so I decided to create a 2-1/2” wheel with a 1” ring, a hub and I needed an additional 5/16” for this wheel. After a little doodling on the computer, I came up with this drawing.

While visiting McMaster-Carr, I found 6” rounds of 6061 Aluminum, a half inch thick for $20.16, so I ordered two. After some hours on the lathe, I had two nice wheel rings for a wheel.

After milling the rim looked like this.

After assembly the wheel and tire looked like this…

Man that was a lot of work but great results! Yes the 1/2" wide inner rims are very hard to find.

So at $1 an hour these are about $50 + material?

I had about 3 hours of turning per wheel and a half hour of milling, less than $25.00 each at $1 per hour...

Labor of love! Nice job.

Those are neat. Great job Bob and thanks for sharing.

Bob,

How does it compare to a stock Margay wheel half in terms of weight ?

R.E.A.R.

Very Nice work!!

R.E.A.R

According to my scale, a 1" rim weighs 3-1/4 oz and mine weigh 3-3/4 oz.

Bob

Nice job there, I have some 3/4 plate getting the same transformation.

Are you concerned about the bead holding on such a small contact surface?

In the later 90's I attended college in Denver CO for Industrial Design. For 4 hours a day I had access to a full manufacturing type machine shop. One of the obscure tools in the shop was an old industry metal spinning lathe. While most of my fellow classmates used their time on the machine making dog bowls or novel bedside change trays, I was busy spinning 5" and 6" kart rim halves. I made several hardwood rim plugs in various depths and spun about a dozen sets of rims for my Margay and Hartman karts that both ran the Margay 62 wheels.

I like what you have done making those wheels. Pretty cool.