Originally Posted by
nishiki12
So I did the math, and if I took 2 bicycle wheels with diameter 2 ft each, I could cut them, bend them out, weld them together, and get a 4 ft diameter hoop, right? (That was a hell of a run-on) Wouldn't this be like what rollagain mentioned?
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If none of these work, how thicc do you think the outside rim would have to be, if I made it out of the same metal as before? I have a friend that's a blacksmith, and he can help me out, so no problem with bending, welding, etc.
Yes I'm going through with this.
If you wanted to make two bike rims into one big one, you'd have to find steel rims because aluminum ones would be destroyed bending them that much. Then you'd still have an unsupported rim (as in, no spokes, no hub), so you'd need to add another circle inside of it like those third-worlders did (honestly, welding in sandals and without any eye protection--yikes). You're making a circular girder.
And that 'same metal as before' still won't be any good because it's still soft steel and it still has no cross-sectional stiffness. Please don't buy any of that, at
any thickness.
I see someone else here has echoed my suggestion of plywood. Now I'm going to also suggest that you start with a scale model, maybe one-quarter scale. That will teach you a
whole lot about your design before you commit to the full-scale version. I've modeled things before and made surprising discoveries as well as confirming calculations.
Describe your idea to your blacksmith friend and see what he says; they do know about steel.