Cheap Trick!

[btaylor]

No, not the band! this is a little cost saving jewel I just discovered. In a search for some small gauge steel rod, I ran across a wealth of scratch building material. I needed something strong, quality steel, solderable, and most of all, round. I looked all over my shop, benches, junk drawers, etc. Then it hit me! hanging on the wall from one of my motorized bicycle projects, was an extra wheel! Yes, 40 some spokes that I could cut out, and bend and solder into chassis rails, bumpers, roll bars, even driveshaft's for front motored cars. I normally use brass, but many a chassis has been built out of piano wire, witch is essentially the same thing. I also noted that different wheels have different size (dia.) spokes. So next time your kid, or neighbor parks their bike, grab some lineman pliers, and get yourself some building material!


Bob

[4424ever]

:text-bravo: :text-goodpost: :text-thankyouyellow:

[HomeRacingWorld]

There are plenty to choose from here, great idea Bob!

[bigman]

btaylor
GREAT IDEA :text-goodpost: :text-bravo:
Always like finding items to repurpose :auto-checkeredflag: :auto-driving:
Saves money and helps getting things done :text-thankyouyellow:

[frank9129]

The occasional coat hanger has been used.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

So much better than wire I used when I first started.

In 1964-65, I had a paper route in London, Ontario. Every morning, in the dark, in the snow and ice, I unwrapped and folded 200 newspapers from bundles of 50 papers each. The bundles were wired together with a soft wire with so little tensile strength we opened them by twisting the wire back and forth once. I built a rail dragster from that wire that was my first scratchbuild. It was slow, but also unwieldy and ugly, a triple threat.

[TuscoTodd]

Great suggestion! I think I may have an old 10-speed wheel kicking out in the barn that I may just have to go measure the spokes on!
:text-bravo:

[historiceng]

:) :)