I love old time airplanes. Much of my youth was spent at a grass field airport, begging rides, watching planes, sweeping the floor, whatever I could do to be near the airplanes. Many of my models reflect my love for the old designs.

Recently, I’ve become interested in the small electric Park Flyers because they can be flown close to home, are small enough that they don’t need to be taken apart between flights, and they are cheap and easy to build and experiment with. I’ve done several designs but some of my favorites are the older planes with, guess what, wire spoked wheels. The December issue of Fly RC published my home-brew design I call HorseFly, which is a non scale, sort of like, early biplane. It looks a little like a Standard, a Travelaire, and a Jenny, all at the same time. As the design for this model developed, I decided it just had to have spoked wheels, so I set about building a set for it. Follow along, and I’ll show you how you can make your own.

The wheel design, and the tools for making them that I describe here, are 2-1/2-inch diameter. This size however, can be adjusted for about any size you desire. As the diameter increases, try to keep the hub width at about 25% of the tire outside diameter. My wheels have a 1/4-inch diameter tire section and are spoked with monofilament fishing line. They weigh 3 grams each as completed.

I use hot wire cut blue “Dow Foam” for the tire. This foam is commonly used for insulating houses. It is very light, can be colored black with a magic marker, and makes a realistic looking tire. It does, however, have some limitations with regard to long term durability. If you are flying from a tennis court, a rubberized outdoor athletic track, or pretty smooth concrete, they will give good service. They will last a long time if used indoors on a wood or astro-turf floor. Rough concrete or gravel will ruin them in short order. A substitute for the wire cut foam tire is to use 1/4-inch diameter foam rubber cockpit coaming or a 1/4inch foam rubber weather strip seal found in home improvement stores. Both will give improved durability with a slight increase in weight.

I made my rims from fiberglass sheet. This material can be bought in various thicknesses from Frank Tiano Enterprises, www.franktiano.com. The .030 thickness is stiff enough for our purposes and a 12 x 24 sheet will make many, many wheels. This stuff also makes great control horns and can be used for many other purposes.

I use balsa hubs. I make a 3/16 diameter dowel hub, 5/8 long, from 3/16 square sticks. The flange for the spokes (on the hub) is a 1/64 ply washer. The spokes are made from 8 lb. test monofilament fishing line. My wheels use 28 spokes each, with 14 going to each side of the hub.

The three hub parts. The length of the hub should be 25% of the outside diameter of the wheel. The flanges (washers) are 1/64 plywood. They should be glued in place at 1/8 from either end of the hub. The hole in the hub is 1/16 diameter.

I’ve made a little fixture that keeps everything in alignment during the spoke lacing process. This way I can lace one side of the wheel completely and then turn it over and lace the other side. I can also pull the spokes quite tight while the wheel is being assembled (the fixture allows this) and this makes for a very strong wheel assembly.