How to make your own beach wheels

Every once in a while someone comes along and asks about homemade beach wheels convinced they would be much cheaper than a set from cat-trax.

I decided to make 2 pairs for myself to see if indeed it is any cheaper, I will also share costs and processes.

This project started when I was at the local scrap yard and saw a set of aluminum golf cart wheels that were set aside for sale. I started thinking that these could easily be turned into cat-trax. The next step was to purchase some .5" aluminum plate and some 3" aluminum tube. I paid $25 each for the wheels, $35 for the tube and $40 for the plate that is pictured. The stick of 2" .125 tube for the axle was $140. Smooth tires are $65 each.



Here is a general mock of how the tube fits in the wheels (it doesn't)



The first step was to cut some 6" hub flanges for the wheels I did this by loading a big hole saw into the drill press. Mark carefully to get the most out of the plate.



You will probably need to make your own heavy duty arbor, none of mine where up to this job. (Your obviously using the larger diameter in this picture)




Your left with this circle.





The next step is to open up the flange to allow it to fit over the 3" tube. I did this with another smaller hole saw. I did not take pictures but it is the same idea as above. After this I cleaned up the rough cut from the saw.


[img]http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/black92se/null_zps254d8f4e.jpg[/img]

Next I marked the flanges and drilled and tapped them. I used .5" wheel bolts.

[img]http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/black92se/null_zpse9ae3ffe.jpg[/img]

I built a simple jig to help hold the flanges evenly on the tube for welding. Use small tacks to get started.


[img]http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/black92se/null_zpsb70edf8c.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/black92se/null_zpsa1b8fa15.jpg[/img]

After welding both sides of the plate I chucked the hub back into the lathe to face it up.

[img]http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f149/black92se/null_zpsb8f4f7a4.jpg[/img]

At this point I installed some stainless bolts from the back side as studs. I did not want to use bolts with the aluminum threading.

The next step was to make a collar to contain the bearings. I opened up the remnants from the flange centers. (4 of them in the chuck)




Installed in the hub here. (I made them a press fit)



The next step was to open up the wheel centers. My lathe wasn't big enough for this, I ended up using a fly cutter on the mill.



Next the wheel are bolted onto the hubs.



I used .303" rod for the bearings, the whole wheel is assembled here. You can see I decided to weld the collar into the hub to try it out. The wheels are basically complete in this picture. I bought an used cutting board from goodwill to make a UHMW washed for the cotter pin in the axle to wear against. It cost me about $300 per pair without cradles to build these wheels. Cradles cost $50 each used or $110 each new.

I dont care how much you saved, they are good looking! Cool project!

What about weight, and how will the rims look after they have been in and out of seawater a couple of years?

Are you a machinist by profession, or is that your hobby workshop we see pics from?

There are easier and cheaper ways to make quite good beach wheels but none of them would look anywhere near as good
as your wheels. Your wheels are more like engineering masterpieces.
Really good stuff. Thanks.

Good job, but they look heavy. do you have a finished photo? Why did you not just weld the wheel to the pipe bearing? It would have saved you weight and time.

This is all hobby stuff on old worn out machines.

The wheels have a coating on them which I will hope will prevent corrosion, time will tell.

David, I had considered that. The idea was to see if these hubs could be made cheap enough to possibly manufacture the hubs to sell for other home builders to use with their wheel of choice. Opening the center of a rim could be done with a router, dremel or even a hand file if someone was determined enough.

There are several things I found that would make these easier and cheaper next time around.i have yet to weigh them.

Good looking wheels, but weight is killer. It's hard to beat the weight of a set of cat trax. Really hard. We were moving a N20 the other day with 2 sets of cat trax on it (owner was originally trying to move it solo), the extra ~50 lbs was very detrimental to our ability to move the boat.

how much time away from sailing did acquiring the materials and constructing the set take?

I'm figuring a cost/hour of sailing vs. building stuff for an analysis (since I'm not sailing myself, but I do have an evil master plan at work...)

A hobby machinist then? Well done! I dig diy projects, especially when the resultat is as good as this!

All those wheels need now is a set of spinning rims with low profile tires... oh, and some neon lighting.

In all seriousness, those trax look real nice. I can't believe all that was cheaper than buying some cat trax.

Finally picked upwd the project again and got around to weighing all of my trax.

Bacho trax 51lbs
Cat-trax 37lbs
Euro-trax 41lbs

All measure on the same scale.

You could probably machine away half of that aluminum and get that weight down quite a bit and still be way over-built.

Mike

Right now they have 24-9.5 Carlisle ATV tires. The Carlisle website says they weigh 16lbs each, if I switched over to the 20" smooth tires which weigh 11lbs each I would quickly be in the ball park. However my heavy tires were free and my crew will be toting these anyways!

Jordanna will not be amused.