I came up with this idea while drinking a Soda a few months ago one night when I realized that school is expensive. These wheels work great, have very low bounce and are cheap cheap cheap. I made the video right away, so after a few flights here are some tips that I don't have in the video:
After flying in cold weather(10F) a few times and a few rough landings with a 2 pound plane, the hot glue holding the aluminum hubs together did break. However, now that it is above freezing here(35F) I have not had any trouble. So maybe just don't fly with these below freezing? Or you could glue them together with epoxy, or a silicone glue.
If you want smaller wheels, buy smaller cans of your beverage of choice.
I have recently tried using a silicone-like glue to mate the ends of the backer rod together to form the tire and that seems to have worked very well. I temporarily taped the rod ends together till the glue dried. Just make sure the glue doesn't chemically melt the foam. The silicone is much softer than hot glue so you won't have a hard spot in you wheel.
One last tip: The rims lasts a lot longer(indefinitely?) when you use a hub or a bushing of some sort. I have used some brass tubing, or a coffee stirrer, or blue plastic Q-tips.
Materials:
-Hot glue
-2 pop cans
-5/8" foam tubing called "Backer Rod"
I'm open to any suggestions on improving these wheels. After testing my steerable nose wheel plane on warm/hot asphalt it seems that the backer rod doesn't hold up real great. The Backer Rod seems to shrink a bit with heat and a 3 pound airplane. so any ideas for some new tires for the wheels would be great! otherwise these still work well and look great.
0 comments