Home made lightweight wheel covers

[Dave S]

In trying to find some lightweight wheel covers for our kitfox to keep the grass and grunt out of the wheel bearing area I couldn't find any that had the correct amount of "dish" to them, so I made some.....using a technique called "Metal Spinning".

First photo is of the wood plug fabricated on the Lathe out of 3" white spruce (that's all I had laying around for something that thick)

Photo #2 is of the 0.017" thick aluminum sheet screwed to the wood plug (had some 0.017" laying around)

Photo #3 is of the spinning process using a 3/4" hardwood dowel for a spoon (yup - the dowel was just laying around too)

Photo #4 is the two completed blanks before trimming/deburring

Last two are the trimmed/deburred wheel covers.

Each wheel cover ended up weighing in at 1.45 ounces.

Still have to paint to match and drill the three little mounting holes; but, this whole business up to this point took barely an hour....FYI - I have never done any metal spinning before but it works pretty slick - that is how aluminum prop spinners are made also but I am sure those guys have far more sophisticated equipment.

Sincerely,

Dave S
KF 7 Trigear
912ULS Warp Drive

[War Eagle]

That's quite the effort you put in to make those.

They will look great on the plane.

I used ones from Aircraft Spruce but had to make a center cut out for the axle.

[DesertFox4]

For your first attempt they look great Dave.
New hobby?

[jrevens]

Those look just great, Dave! Good job!

[Jfquebec]

Wowww....great job...thank's to share...

[ken nougaret]

that is very cool! I think anything you can say YOU made or DID yourself on an experimental, the more pride you can take.
ken