Hi all,
I sail a self designed land yacht on the local beach here in the UK.
I had problems finding suitable wheels, here's my solution.
The front wheel is a 14" five spoke glass filled nylon wheel from a childs bicycle. wheel manufacturers code CHN CHANG 14" CC-225. It runs on a 14 x 2.125 tyre.
The rear wheels are a little more complicated and require skills with a mig welder.
I started with two front wheels from a Honda Melody twist and go scooter (they can be picked up from a local scrapyard complete with tyre for about £10 - £15).
Knock out the bearings with a suitable drift, but keep the spacer safe cos your gonna need it later.
After trial fitting an extension tube over the front bearing/hub housing, a cardboard template is fashioned to form the wheel reinforcement cone.
The shallow cone is formed from 1mm sheet steel (as used in car body repair) which connects the inside rim of the wheel to the short extension tube.
The extension tube can now be welded in place.
Form the flat steel sheet for the cone carefully into its cone shape and weld the seam
The cone is spot welded to the rim at 1" spacings while the wheel is immersed in a shallow tray of water to keep everything cool.
Starting at 12 o-clock and moving round to 4 o-clock then 8 o-clock, then 1 o-clock, 5 o-clock 9 o-clock etc. to avoid heat distortion.
A similar job is done at the hub.
Tidy up the welds with an angle grinder and fill the hub and rim joint with car body filler and paint to required colour.
Now for the bearings. The original bearings took a 10mm axle which in my opinion would not support the cantelever forces of a stub axle mounting. I upgraded to bearings that take 12mm axles (bearing ref RHP 16101 obtained fron an industrial bearings supplier for about £12 each).
The axles are made from 12mm diametre silver steel rod threaded at one end to take an M12 nyloc nut. A M12 nut (drilled out with a 12mm drill bit) is welded at the other end thus forming a removeable stubaxle.
This system has worked for me the last three years with some hard beach sailing.
I use the sail from my class 5 landyacht which drives things along at a pretty smart pace.
I have yet to break the fivespoke front wheel and it has proved tough concidering it wasn't designed to move at 40mph!
The rear wheels are indestructable, I have bent the rear axle tube twice but thus far I have failed to bend the stub axles.
The rear wheels are canted over from the verticle by 20 degrees to lessen the side loads on the bearings.
Photos can be found at Landsailerandiceboatdesignandconstruction@groups.msm.com
Gregs Landyacht Album.
Hope this helps
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