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MG TD TF 1500 - Wooden steering wheel project

Hi all,
Well, I am finally getting around to it. I got a decent table saw so now I can undertake my steering wheel project. I've made a jig out of heavy Masonite material and marked out the octagon, and built a simple router jig which will allow me to route the work pretty easily (I think). Tomorrow I hope to get to Woodworker's warehouse and pick out some decent wood for the project.
The first thing I already had to do was take my ebay MG wheel which was seriously bent out of shape and rebend and reweld it. That went pretty well; it's close to round and within 1/8 or less of being flat, so I think it will do. (Frankly, it's a Frankenstein wheel I suspect the seller of making one out of several old units, it has four separate welds of the rim and the metal that wraps the rim to the spokes looks like a handmade item too.... but when covered with wood it will look perfect...
My question today is: the steering wheel hub is coated with an ivory colored epoxy material. What's the thinking on this? Should I strip it off? Seems like several of the people on the forum just took it to the metal and polished that.
I saw Huib's steering wheel post in the archives and noticed his rim was nicely coated against rust etc - I'll have to do the same!
I'll post pics as I get into it...
Geoff Baker

I am not a wood worker but I did make one, and am very happy with it, my fillets at the spokes should have been done a little better with wood working tools.
I have no experience or tools for wood working, but I did as per this Morgan web site http://www.gomog.com/allmorgan/steeringwheel.htm
Len Fanelli

...the way i used to do them...


http://www.gblandco.com/oldwheel/oldwheel.html

I have always stripped the hubs and polished them.....
gblawson(gordon- TD27667)

...that is a pretty old webpage... i stopped using tung oil...got sticky when damp...switched to marine spar varnish....really liked the finish...
also made up little aluminum channels to cover the steel clamps used at the spoke ends to hold it to the rim...they finished it off nicely....


http://www.gblandco.com
gblawson(gordon- TD27667)

Hi Geoff,

I found a hexagon template worked well (see attached). I made the spoke covers from ebony, and they were the most difficult part by far. I used a simple lap for the joints.


J Barry

The cut-off pieces are really useful for holding the wheel when routing the channel.


J Barry

I still like the shiny metal hub. I ended up painting the center to match the car.

Jim


J Barry

The craftsmanship with those wheels is amazing and I love the wood grain. As a friendly comment I wanted to suggest that a reduced diameter on the rim cross section would make the wheel a little better balanced and proportioned - at least in my thinking.

The thin, original thickness might make these beautiful wheels look even better.

Again excellent craftsmanship,

Jeff
Jeff Delk

Thanks for all the comments! Gordon - I already had your pages bookmarked :)

I guess I'll strip and polish the hub. (Hoping there are no bad cracks etc hidden; like I said, this wheel is a bit of a Frankenstein anyway).

I'll post pictures as I progress.
Geoff Baker

Not as nice as the others but I much prefer a fat wheel over the skinny original types myself


L E D LaVerne

I got a thing for walnut.


L E D LaVerne

Gordon, I sent you an email about this - but can you post a pic of the aluminum channels you used to cover the steel clamps? Sounds like a great idea...

My plan so far is to use 5 quarter inch thick layers, the back two being solid dark wood (which will look better if I decide to route in finger grooves) a central light strip, and a top light wood. I may go for some inlay. (I really like gordons metal inlays but I'm trying to shop for some mother of pearl discs instead).

A lot will depend on what wood I can find.

Keep those tips coming, it's all enormously helpful. And especially to Gordon, thanks for keeping those web pages available to all of us!

Geoff Baker

Geoff, great to see that you started this lovely project. Once finished, it will give a lot of satisfaction.
One suggestion about the metal rim. You mentioned "almost round". Every 1/24 th unroundness in the metal ring will demand the same amount of extra space in the hole in the wood that will enclose that rim. At least if you will use your routerjig to make a perfect half round groove in the wood. And extra space will demand a larger wood crosssection to provide sufficient wood around the metal rim. The same goes for the flatness. Letting the wood forcing down that rim would give a pretty high tension on the glue that holds the two woodrings together since that metal rim is a relatively thick one.
So, my suggestion is: spend a lot of time in making the rim as round as possible (close to that 1/24) and as flat as possible. Reward will be in an easy fit of that metal rim in the groove of the wood.
Have fun, Huib
Huib Bruijstens

Thanks, Huib...

Yes, I'm not done with the metal wheel yet. I still have to strip off the finish off the hub and I will be working on getting the rim more perfectly round. I agree, the wood should not be used to keep the rim under tension or it may split quickly.

My thought was to make the router channel big enough (or do it by hand so that it accurately follows the rim, by drawing the rim onto a sheet of ply and using a jigsaw to cut it out and then using that ply sheet as a template to route with).

I was also thinking that because it absolutely will NOT be perfect, and I will probably end up with a bigger channel than is absolutely ideal, of setting the wheel carefully into the bottom half of the channel with epoxy. Has anyone done that?
To make that work well, I could have the bottom section thicker than the top section so that the rim fully 'drops' into the channel, instead of splitting it exactly in half. That way the rim would sit down further into a deeper channel and I could more easily set it in with epoxy.

Thoughts?

Great advice from everybody!

PS bought the wood yesterday, purpleheart and curly maple. Also bought a 90 tooth blade, for greater accuracy and a thinner kerf.
Geoff Baker

Geoff, find your self a wood turner with a lathe that will handle a 24 inch piece. Then you can mount the two halves of the wheel, one at a time, on a fixture and turn a channel on the inside of each half to accept the wire rim. Cut out the areas where you will have the spokes go through, glue the two halves together and set back up in the lathe chuck using the shaft installed in the hub. You should be able to get the wheel turned perfectly round and to the shape that you want on three sides. The fourth side (inside) will have to be cut out with a router or saw and finished by hand. I have a large wood lathe to do this since I do a lot of turning and make some large wooden bowls, however, even a metal lathe will work. Mark
Mark Strang

My father did one for me. He used a satin finish so it wouldn't slip through the hands. Sorry, not really a flattering picture. I'll probably just paint the hub.

This is the first and only one he had done and he used some exotic woods that he was saving for a project that he didn't want to learn on.

Therefore, he did it three times-- twice with common woods until he was comfortable that he knew what he was doing, then finally with the real stuff. Not a bad idea if you're not willing to destroy some expensive wood in the learning process.

He said it was really helpful to do it this way, particularly considering that I had specifically asked him to do a thin wheel. He said it took some experimenting to get it right.


David Littlefield

Thanks Dad!

Wow Dave, Your dad did a beautiful job. What is the wood?

Jim
J E Carroll

Black walnut.
David Littlefield

Continuing progress...

Well, I got sidetracked. There was so much dust and wood chips from the saw and router that I had to rebuild the interior of my toolshed. I added a dust collection system using my shopvac and 30 feet of 3 inch plastic drain pipe, rewired and relighted the shed, and then built a router table that mounts to my saw. All for under $200 because I'm that cheap. (My new Ryobi saw does NOT take a router, so I had to build it from scratch and build mounts onto the saw and a table out of UHMW plastic. Why Ryobi's better saw won't take a router but their cheap old ones will I don't know - I guess Ryobi just wants to sell separate router tables. Anyway...)

So now, back to the wheel, which has been sitting on the wall the whole time. I've routed the inner channels of the two halves. I've routed the outer circle of one half and will do the other today. I'll jigsaw the inner cuts so that I can curve around where each set of spokes meet the wheel. Then I'll use the router table and a jig to radius the outside of both halves.

Now I've got the following question:
How did you all set the wheel in the wood? Did you epoxy? What glue did you use and how did you do the gluing?
Geoff Baker

I did not use any glue for the metal wheel in the wood because I did not see any advantage in glueing there.
Greetings, huib
Huib Bruijstens

Huib, thanks for the info. I'm a bit surprised in that I expected that people would epoxy the wheel into place. If it is just fitted around the metal wheel, will the wood not be stressed every time you turn the wheel, and most of the stress be directed at the wood next to the spokes area?
I was thinking that putting a bed of epoxy into the bottom wooden wheel form then setting the wheel into it and letting it dry might be a good idea, then clamping and gluing the upper wheel form onto it with wood glue.
The advantage (I believe) would be that the entire assembly moves as a single unit if it is all epoxied together.
More work to take apart, of course...


Geoff Baker

Update: I switched to a hexagon and am using walnut in two pieces instead of multiple layers. I think it will look nicer. I spent a week fighting a warp in one of the boards (oddly, they were cut from the same plank back to back and yet one wanted to warp the other was fine) and finally cut and mitered them to make two hexagons.
Halfway through routing out the inside channel, my router died. Bad bearings - it was old. So I had to go out and buy a new one to continue!
Hope to have some pictures in the next few days.
Next problem: I still haven't figured out what I want to do about where the stainless rods meet the wood. Some people have used wood inserts, others have covered with aluminum channel.
Not sure what I want to do... Time to think on it a while...
Having had difficulty setting up my first attempt (when I found that by the time I had everything jigged up and was trying to clamp it all, the glue was drying too quickly) - so this time, I used a long metal threaded rod in the center and made three wooden arms each side of which held down one section of the hexagon. just by screwing it down I could quickly clamp all six parts simultaneously. Worked pretty well!
Geoff Baker

Here are some pictures the first is the jig and on the right side are the three clamps


Geoff Baker

Here are the clamps in place


Geoff Baker

And here is the heavy duty trammel system I built for the router. I bolt it to the center rod and tighten it down so the router can move just enough but can't vibrate or shake loose...


Geoff Baker

Mine wasn't as elaborate as yours but the same principle.


L E D LaVerne

To get this after the first cut.


L E D LaVerne

I used ordinary wood glue to put the whole thing together. As the original finish wasn't round, I put a bolt through the center and mounted it to a large drill press and spun it a low speed and acending grades of sand paper to get the final shape and finish. Lastly I finished it with some automotive clear coat and wet sanded it and polished it out. I'm very happy with it although It's a larger rim I like the feel.


L E D LaVerne

Geoff. Find a wood turner and turn it in a lathe. You can get most of the shape you want except for the inside which will need to be done with a jig saw and/ or a router. Just fill the inside halves with wood glue and it will take up most of the space even after drying.
Mark


Mark Strang

Laverne, you'll be happy to know I'm opting for a middle ground; something probably not as thin as most (I have big sausage fingers and don't like the feel of the thin wheels) but probably not as big as yours either.
I also notice we have (well, had) the same router - a Ryobi 1 3/4 hp model. I picked up mine in a thrift shop and got some use out of it, but it turned out it was for sale for a good reason - yesterday the top bearing totally burnt out (without warning either, it had been purring along). So I purchased a new one from Home Depot. Luckily, the new Ryobi had the same baseplate measurements so both my home-made router table and my trammel worked fine with the new unit.
Today, I've cut out the pieces from dark cocobolo wood that I will use to mate to the steering wheel spokes and routed them front and back so they fit around. Now I just have to chisel and carve the inside wheel so they fit into it nicely.
Once that is done, it will be time to glue it all up and start sanding!
Geoff Baker

Geoff, once you get closer to tasks that make both halves specific (f.i. the places for the spokes to enter the wood) its good to be aware that both halves mirror each other. Huib
Huib Bruijstens

Mark, I don't know any woodturners. I could probably find one if I dug hard enough but I'd have to pay them, I'm sure - and half the beauty of this particular project is figuring out how to do it yourself!
I have to say that the idea of jigging a steering wheel up in a big lathe seems a little worrisome; even a woodturning lathe at low rpms (400 or so?) is going to put more torque on a steering wheel that it was ever designed for, when you start cutting away the wood. Especially an old wheel like mine, I could envisage spokes snapping... but then again, clearly it worked for you!
I can see the advantages, though; you can carve and sand about 3/4 of the wheel in a single operation while keeping it true in all three axes.
My plan is to jigsaw it into a rough circle, then turn it in the jig against a sanding disc on my saw table, until it's a perfect circle; then use a quarter cove bit on the routing table to turn the outer two sides into curved edges) then use a jigsaw and spokeshave to carve out the inner sides; followed by days of final sanding.
Today, it's back to working on the cobolo spoke covers and fitting them into the wheel.
Geoff Baker

Guess I should dig back into the archives, but I'll swear that when our atist, gordan lawson, started this concept going, a few years ago, his hardware was much simpler. And, he turned (turns) out masterpieces. Bud
Bud Krueger

Geoff, I used a 3/4" round edge bit on the router around the edges before I glued it together. I have access to a large drill press so the bolt and some sandpaper made easy work to get the desired finish.
L E D LaVerne

This thread was discussed between 05/09/2013 and 02/10/2013

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