plastic Mercedes wheel conversion to metal wire

brady | scaleautoworks - Mar 3, 2004 3:26 pm
Edited by Mar 3, 2004 4:17 pm

This is a Pocher Mercedes plastic wheel, all spokes cut, drilled out, and laced with 24 gauge craft wire. Smaller gauge wire is easier to lace without kinks, would look thinner than scale, but still be a huge improvement over the ugly plastic spokes. No jig is needed to center the hub if you drill and lace only a few spokes at a time, working back and forth across opposite sides of the wheel to keep the tension balanced. I rushed this one in less than 2 hours, so it's sloppy, and there is no easy way to make fabricate the spoke nipples, but it's still far better than the plastic one. Painting it disguises minor defects and the missing nipples, and makes it look even closer to the old Pocher wheel. The balancing weights are made from 0-80 hex bolts sleeved with aluminum tubing. Click the photos to enlarge in a new window.

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  Steve McDermott - Jun 10, 2004 2:59 am (1.)

A suggestion only,

I am new to the Pocher fold but have had experience building Protar 1/9 Motorcycle kits (the ones with spoke wheels only) and have used Piano Wire in various gauges to re-spoke the wheel rims. I use piano wire because it is high tensile, keeps the spokes nice and straight. I have also seen the same rims re-spoked using Insect Pins (as in Entomology & Butterfly collecting) which are available in various gauges and lengths and have a pin type head.

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  brady | scaleautoworks - Feb 18, 2008 7:12 pm (1.1)

Hello Steve,

Good suggestions for great looking spokes and a better looking wheel in the end. However it does require a lot of gluing, or some other method to secure each individual spoke. Lacing them with a continuous strand of wire (always to opposite sides of the wheel to balance the tension) creates a strong wire wheel quickly and without glue.

Brady | ScaleAutoWorks.com

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