pic: 4 inch Wheel Render

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Chris, RC, and I have just been working on a few things lately that are mostly direct driven such as cost effective West Coast drives. Hex is just much easier to work with when doing this. (Or in most situations actually).

You mean all, right? I hate keys and everything about them and never want to work with them if I can avoid it. Hex broaches are not cheap at all, but I think Shaker can earn enough this summer to get one, or we can pool with local teams and collaborators for broaching. After a few scary wheel and chain failures this year, I want to look into live axle drivetrains including West-Coast cantilevered drives.

Originally Posted by NickE

Have you considered a tread groove?

Yeah, and I may add one to the model just to gain experience. I'm tempted to say with 6 evenly spaced rivets, the tread won't budge, but at least it'll help with the initial setup.

Originally Posted by squirrel

Chris, what about making the spokes with a channel cross section? might save some weight and add some strength, if you do it right. And I'm sure it would provide a good SW challenge for at least a few minutes

I'm really satisfied with the wheel weight as is, but I'll likely do this just to have fun with Solidworks and to push myself a little further. Thanks for the inspiration.