Tiring the Wheel

Step 11: Tiring the Wheel

Pneumatic tires had not been invented during the era of the Penny-Farthing
and I think they are still not available in this size!
So, to add authenticity, you use a solid rubber hose for the tire instead.
The tire measures 1" OD (outside diameter) and has a 3/16" hole down the middle.
You want to cut your tire about 4" longer than the circumference of your rim.
You then measure and cut 1/8" (14 gauge) galvanized solid steel wire to 4 feet longer than the circumference of your rim. Apply a lubricant on the inside of the tire and
insert the wire through. Try to keep the wire straight and roundover the end of the wire to make inserting easier. You may have to use pliers to help it along as the resistance becomes greater as you insert it. 15 ft. of wire is plenty as you need some extra grab the wire by the ends while tensioning it.
With the wire tight and the ends of the tire 3" apart, you want to sand off the galvanized
layer and braze opposite ends of the wire with silver solder.
The tire should then close up to form a seam.
There are several ways you can apply tension on the wire. The easiest I have found is by use of a homemade tensioner.

The homemade tensioner as you will see is the key to making the job easy.
It has 2 bottom bolts which when tightened, will sandwich the wire and hold
it's tension. The top big bolt, when turned clockwise will raise and pull the wire, thus applying tension. Use clamps to hold the wire ends.
It measures 3 inches across and has a window opening for brazing.
You can get the rollers from Home Depot or Lowes and are the rollers found in sliding glass patio doors.

This completes the wheel. Congratulations.

tiretensioner.skp182 KB

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27-ton Artillery Walker says: Mar 19, 2012. 7:27 PM

Where did you get the rubber for this? And do you know specifically what type of rubber? (Everything i find that has a 1" OD has a massive ID, so it would warp and all that jazz and the steel wire would swim in it...)

Mcschphail says: Apr 19, 2011. 5:47 PM

How does one acquire a 1"OD 3/16"ID rubber tube? Unfortunately, I do not have one just laying around...

kevo63 says: Mar 1, 2011. 11:36 AM

Excellent build! Thanks for this great Instructable. I'm in the process of building a Penny now, but I'm having trouble finding rubber to tire my wheel with. Where did you get yours? Or where should I look?

voldemortkein says: Feb 20, 2011. 12:40 AM

Thanks man!, I'm watching it now

carlitos (author) in reply to voldemortkeinFeb 20, 2011. 5:31 AM

The drawing shows the pulley 1/2 inch above the base, but instead should be
1 1/16" inches to prevent the tire from touching the pulleys.

voldemortkein in reply to carlitosFeb 21, 2011. 12:49 AM

Is the function of the Bolts joint the metal plates and sandwich the wire??.

carlitos (author) in reply to voldemortkeinFeb 21, 2011. 5:07 AM

Yes, the 2 bolts when tightened will hold the wire and maintain the tension in the wire so you can either start brazing or pick up more wire before loosening the bolts and tightening the wire further. I see you posted it to 3D Warehouse. I would rather post it there once it has no errors. The 2 pulleys need to be moved up at least 1/2 inch to provide clearance for the 1 inch tire.

kptan69 in reply to carlitosFeb 20, 2011. 6:58 AM

Supreme. Just change inches to centimeters and make it. Thanks a lot. It´s going to be very useful to me. I cannot believe that there are people who shares his time so generously. By the way I had to download the aplication.
I bought the rollers in a chinese store. Very cheap (about 0,2 $ each other). With them I´ll make my tire tensioner.

carlitos (author) in reply to kptan69Feb 20, 2011. 7:24 AM

Good. Another thing is the top hole in the tensioner must not be threaded since the bolt slides in and out of it. Only the hole in the middle piece is threaded. With the middle piece all the way down, the bolt will be in all the way. Then turning the bolt clockwise will raise the middle piece to pull the wire. You can make the top part longer if you have a longer bolt then you don't have to repeat picking up more wire as much.

packratpat says: Dec 17, 2010. 11:54 PM

Hi, I'm a bit confused on the process of adding the tire. So you have a solid rubber hose 4in longer than circumference, and a galvanized steel cable 4ft longer than circumference...then one end on a vice and one on a wicnh...do you tighten it that way off the rim?

"With the wire tight and the ends of the tire 5" apart, you want to sand off the galvanized layer and braze opposite ends of the wire with silver solder. The tire should then close up to form a seam"
Ends of tire 5" apart, but they form a seam? How? And what happened to the extra 4" of hose and 4' of wire?

Sorry if these are bad questions, but I'm just not quite getting it here...if you could explain this better or include pictures/diagrams that would be awesome. Thanks.

carlitos (author) in reply to packratpatDec 18, 2010. 3:25 AM

Yes, this part deserves more details and pictures. I'll post a few soon as I will be replacing the tire in the coming days with a better quality one. The tire I used was not all the way solid as it's supposed to be and it's already showing signs of wear. Also, I'll be using a different technique to tension the wire without the use of the vise and winch. The extra 4' of wire is so you can grab it with the vise and winch. That all gets cut off eventually. Now the extra 4" of hose, which would overlap when the tire is loose, will fit fine since the tire gets compressed by the wire. For the rear tire, an extra 1" or 2" will work. I later decided to replace the rear wheel with a pneumatic instead. Brian Doran from Seattle made a clever tool to help in this step. Wish I would have thought of if. Here's a link to his blog describing how he did it. Here's a link to a different technique using a special tool by David Toppin. A similar tool by GSimpsonOAM on youtube. I'll be using this idea as I've now made one. Perhaps an instructable on making and using it would be good.