Treaded wheels vs Solid rubber

[Anupam Goli]

Originally Posted by Munchskull

I know about this. I am just wondering how they did that.

I've heard of some teams treading their colsons by being very careful with a bandsaw. (IIRC I think 11 did that in 2013).

[George C]

I've cut treads on Colsons a few times using a dividing head with a three jaw chuck on a horizontal mill. Bolt the dividing head on an angle across a couple of t slots, put a piece of hex shaft in the chuck, use a hex shaft collar to hold the wheel on. The angles aren't critical. I cut every 15 or 20 degrees, use a 1/8 slit saw, high speed and feed and cut both directions. Do all your wheels at one angle and then move the head to get the other angle for a diamond pattern.

[JesseK]

Cutting treads for more traction should probably warrant testing similar to how AM did their traction testing this year for the new treads. I bet the extra stress would decrease the life of the plastic hex bore in VEX's Colson wheels, similar to the original 4" knobby VEX wheels with the plastic square broach (or the large green VEX gears before there was a metal hub option)

Remember, VEX's Colson wheels have yet to be tested in live, repeated defensive pushing matches. IMO spares are a good idea for this year.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Cutting treads for more traction should probably warrant testing similar to how AM did their traction testing this year for the new treads. I bet the extra stress would decrease the life of the plastic hex bore in VEX's Colson wheels, similar to the original 4" knobby VEX wheels with the plastic square broach (or the large green VEX gears before there was a metal hub option)

Remember, VEX's Colson wheels have yet to be tested in live, repeated defensive pushing matches. IMO spares are a good idea for this year.

I honestly think there's no reason for concern whatsoever - the hub is solid and thick plastic, the hex is a very tight fit, and teams have run hex bore plastic hubs in drivetrains before. I'm quite confident the guys at Vex wouldn't design an entire product line of drive wheels that couldn't stand up to basic defense.