Making a Ship's Wheel
by John M. Bobbitt, M.D.
with photos by the author
HE PERSON NEXT TO THE HANDSOME WHEEL On Star
of India (Figure 1) is 5 feet 2 inches tall, and such
knowledge can be used to obtain fairly accurate dimensions when no tape measure is at hand. I think modeled
ship's wheels often appear too heavy. Even this comparatively large wheel has a light appearance. Its rim is reinforced with a brass band. Such bands appeared late in the
Figure 2.
Figure 1.
nineteenth-century and were not commonly used. Hubs
were usually brass or a combination of brass and wood;
spokes were square at the rim and hub.
To achieve the proper look and structure for a miniature
wheel, a fine-grained hardwood, such as boxwood, holly,
cherry, or Swiss pear, is needed. Old brown cherry, when
treated with Watco Oil, most closely resembles mahogany,
with Swiss pear, similarly finished, a close second. Figure
2 shows the finished wheel of the inland river towboat
Wild Goose. Its overall diameter is 1-1/2 inches, or 5 feet
at 1:40 scale. (A 5-foot wheel at the more common scale of
1:48 would be 1-1/4 inches.) The dimensions and specifications given in this Shop Note are for a wheel of this size,
although the same basic technique could be used for larger
wheels.
A wheel's rim is made up of an inner core and outer rim
faces. To make Wild Goose's, I used 0.20-inch stock for the
rim faces and 0.36-inch for the rim core and spokes. The
grain of a rim made from a single piece of wood would run
in a single direction and be exposed along much of the
edge. To minimize end grain around the circumference of
a rim, I make rim assemblies from separate pieces glued together. Five-minute epoxy is best for this kind of assembly,
because white and yellow adhesives do not have sufficient
Figure 5A. Rim face laminations. Drawing by Irwin Schuster.
strength on such thin edges. The core for this eight-spoke
wheel (Figure 3) is made from four quarters; the inner and
outer circumferences are scribed around the center point.
The next step is to trim to and smooth the outer circumference of the core. The seams of the four quarters
define the locations of four of the spokes for an eightspoke wheel. For the other four spokes, two additional
lines that intersect exactly at the center are scribed. The
eight spoke slots are cut along the seams and drawn-in diameter lines; these slots extend into the center of the
core to a little beyond the inner circumference (Figure 4).
Now the outer faces are added. They, too, are assembled from pie-shaped sections. Before gluing the sections
onto the core, the apexes of the sections are trimmed
back so that the same compass center point used for the
core can be used to draw the inner and outer circumferences of the outer rim faces (Figure 5). The number of pieshaped sections is whatever number allows the joints of
the finished outer rim faces to be staggered in relation to
the seams of the core—four sections for an eight-spoke
wheel, five sections for a ten-spoke, and so on (Figure 5A).
This wheel has eight spokes, so the outer face assemblies
are made from four pieces. Staggering the joints provides
maximum strength. The outside diameter of the face
pieces are then brought down to match that of the core
(Figure 6).
Next, most of the center is removed with a jeweler's
saw or jigsaw, and the wood is trimmed and sanded to the
inside circumference line of the rim (Figure 7). The thickness of the outer faces is reduced by sanding, to bring
them to scale. (Still, in order to provide enough support
for the core, these faces should be no less than 0.010 inch
thick.) Figure 8 shows the thickness of the outer faces in
relation to the inner core, and the square spoke mortises
created when the outer faces are laminated over the slots
in the core and the core's center is removed.
To assure a snug fit, the spokes are made from stock
the same thickness as the core. To turn the spokes, solder
a short length of hollow square brass stock to a brass rod
and mount it in a three-jaw chuck. This serves as a square
driver for the square wood stock. (A four-jaw chuck can
be used instead, if it runs very true.) To support the other
end of the spoke while turning it, drill a 0.010- to 0.015inch hole with a #78, #79, or #80 bit into what will become the inner (hub) end of the spoke. Then, reversing
the drill bit, insert the smooth shank in the hole just
drilled and the working end in a pin vise held in the tail
stock (Figure 9).
Sometimes I provide additional support while turning
spokes by curling my left index finger over the top and allowing the stock to rest on the crease in my first knuckle.
Fine work, indeed, can be done this way. Marking the
limits of the shaped portions with a pencil, I have turned
spokes only 0.032 inch in diameter by eye with 400- and
800-grit sandpaper mounted on narrow sticks and a small
knife file (Figure 10).
After turning it, I determine the spoke's locations
around the huh with an indexing device I made to mount
across my lathe's cross slide (Figure 11). Figure 12 illustrates how spoke holes are drilled into the edge of a metal
huh. (The round wooden hacking of the indexing device appears in the background.) Each spoke in turn is inserted
through the rim and connected to the hub by pinning. One
end of the pin is inserted into the same spoke-end hole
used earlier to support the spoke while it was being
turned, and the other end into the hole drilled in the hub.
I use epoxy to fasten spokes to both the hub and rim.
I find this procedure moves quickly and can be finetuned to achieve close reproductions of wooden wheels of
various designs. For example, to replicate a wheel such as
that on Star of India, I round over the outer edge of the
core before adding the face pieces, which I make separately
with a smaller outside diameter so that the rounded rim
core stands proud of the faces. To simulate fasteners, one
can drill for and insert 0.020-inch-diameter brass wire.
(For accurate drilling, I center punch with a sewing needle
epoxied into a dowel.) A brass rim face reinforcement can
be made by photoetching, using tape cut with a compass
cutter as a resist or mask. As an alternative, one could cut
shim stock adhered to a faceplate on a lathe. Note that
a wheel like the one on the 1854 sloop of war USS
Constellation (Figure 13) shows no brass reinforcing rings
or visible fasteners.