10-300

Does anyone know where i can purchase 6" and 6 3/4" wheels for a Fokker D7 since williams brothers went out of business?

thanks Louie

Probuilder

My Feedback: (443)

Dubro is going to manufacture them; they had the prototypes at the AMA show in January.

Dave

10-300

Dave,

thanks for that info. That's great news.

Louie

abufletcher

Louie, as they say, necessity is the mother...

Even though I did get a couple pairs of WB wheels just before they closed their doors, this prompted me to try my hand at making some wheels myself. With the help and advice of a number of modelers here and on rcscalebuilder.com, they can out pretty well. One prototyle has a ply core with carved wooden rims and the other is a full spoked version (40 spokes). I'll get some pictures up as soon as I charge the battery on my digicam!

--Don

abufletcher

As promised, here are a couple of pix of some (first efforts) at home-made WWI wheels. One has a solid ply core and the other is a full spoked wheel. As you can see neither is finished yet. I still have to paint the wooden rims (metallic grey) and the wheel covers (silver grey). I plan to press a bit of cloth into the semi-dry paint to create weave pattern. I also need to figure out the stitching along the edges. The impression of spokes is created by scoring the back of the .05 aluminum sheet. It took a lot of research to figure out the pattern for the spokes. German WWI aircraft mostly used a 40 spoke pattern, i.e. 20 in each side. As a model I ended up using a 1919 era wheel from an Indian Motorcycle. It looked most like the photos I had seen of German planes. But I'd be open to better info, e.g. a close up of an actual German aircraft rim.

The spoked wheels are much more of an experiement. I'd like to figure out a way that used as little soldering as possible and limit the soldering to the insided of the hubs. The hubs themselves are made from Japanese 5 yen coins, drilled and ground down. I'll add a wooden rim like on the ply wheel.

The tire on the ply wheel is made of hollow rubber foam tubing with a hard rubber tube inside for some impact resistence. The tire temporarily laid in the spoked rim is made of hard heater hose. These were the only two materials available at my local (Japanese) hardware store.

mr sopwith

That's great!!
what about the machine guns? will Dubro make them too?

I'm still looking for only a pair of 1/6 vickers to complete my camel project

Reg Hinnant

My Feedback: (9)

Hey Don, the wheels look great.
The wheel closeups your looking for are on the CD I sent you. (when you finally get back to get it)

abufletcher

Reg, thanks. The rims were a good first try but not anywhere are nicely shaped as the one's you've done. I must say it's very satisfying to think I can make my own wheels -- I would have never imagined this when I was working on my EIII last year. It's also very liberating to think that I can chose any scale I want and not be limited by the wheels available.

Still, I don't imagine I'll have the skill or delicate fingers to make anything as fine at the WB guns anytime soon. Luckily I stocked up on those so I'm set for at least a few more German and a couple of British models! As long as I stick with 1/6 scale!

Eindecker_pilot

A few weeks ago, I got some large (1/4 scale) Williams Bros. wheels from Proctor Enterprises THey had some stock left then.