Wooden Big Wheels Tricycle: Part 3 ~ Refining the Model

Yeah… now for the fun part… time to get this model closer to final finished production ready status here on CNCKing.com!

This is looking far better, the pedals seem a little too thick as I need to make pedals that spin along with the wheel otherwise you will have to constantly move your feet.

I need to make the pedals very strong as they rotate around the pedal – this is where it would be fantastic to use exterior hardware to introduce strength and to make things smooth but in this case, the more you use the Big Wheels, the smoother everything will bve as it will naturally wear out.

The pedals are looking good, I just need to fill-out the axles and pedals with cross members and a lock so that the rotating pedals don’t come off the pedals, the same process will be done in the back wheels as well to keep them from spinning off the axle.having internal cross-members dramatically increases the strength and doubling them up further will assure that moderate pressure won’t make the pedals break.

I’ve completed the pedal, should be plenty strong and be able to swivel without too much friction. I added a hole inside of the foot pad just for fun. Throughout the model thus far, I’m still very much roughing out ideas and concepts, I will focus on making things “nice” once I have the fundamentals sorted otherwise it’s just too much work to constantly go back and forth between structure and esthetics.

This is looking messy, what I need to do is create a steering column in-between the two arms for the big wheel that doesn’t hit into the side support frames. The column doesn’t have much pressure on it but it is holding the entire front of the BigW up and on hard turns, it will have a lot of force on it. This is becoming quite a challenge – so much easier if I was making this out of metal where one 6 mm sheet of stainless steel would be stronger than 10x 6mm plywood.

I figured-out how to make the streering column strong enough, I split-up the wheel into two parts so that there is a very strong central column with two side arms. They will be locked into place in the upper parts of the steering column while the wheels and pedals will keep them in place in the bottom around the wheel. This is by far the best solution I’ve been able to come-up with and although it makes the Big Wheels look a little weird, it also makes it look kinda cool as well. The wheels are solid disks with cross-members inside of them so they won’t be going anywhere and will have quite a bit of momentum built-up into them. The pedals now have a 30 cm circular diameter in movement so plenty of leverage to move the whole thing.

The steering wheel is half way into the column and half way out to give it strength, once the entire assembly is glued together it should be plenty strong especially after I add some internal guides supporting everything together.

I’m now going to finalize the pedals, add internal supports across the front as that won’t change then get the frame working.

The front wheel is looking good and solid now with all the internal supports, next-up is getting the frame up to spec. I’m thinking of having the steering column slide into place then have it locked into place using guides that go on either sides which will require some extensive frame modifications.

The arm in the front is now solid, it should pivot easily and be plenty strong, the bottom where the axle is will be held in place by the wheels and pedals. Lots of intersecting parts to add more strength to the entire steering column.

I’ve almost doubled the thickness of the frame that goes under the seat to make absolutely sure it will not bend or break under pressure. This included thickening-up the back axle supports. Next step is getting the platform done that will hold the seat in one of two positions, one forward, one further back to accomodate people of different sizes.

I’m going to have two levels of doubled-up board for the seating, this should introduce plenty of strength when interlocked with the frames and more importantly, prevent the seat from moving around as it will be inserted across two levels of board so it won’t be moving without needing any clue to keep it in place. As you can see, the old board positioning no longer works right but this hallowing-out of the center area is on purpose… I have a cool idea I want to try and it needs the room under the platform. While building this, I realized that having a hand brake on the back wheels isn’t the most efficient placement for it… maybe stick it in the front instead to stop the big wheel up front instead.

I now have my two levels of doubled-up board figured-out. Now I need to make the holes for the seating, by making six holes in the board but a seat with only two pegs it would give me three different positions for the seat if done right.

I now have the platform that will support the seating sorted out. I want to add a board slightly lower for storage and a basket in the back for additional storage options. I don’t expect this to be driven to work but it is nice to empty your pockets onto some trays on the Big Wheels instead of the road all around you while driving this.

Now that the storage is over and I’ve refined the front block to prevent rocks from jumping-up from the wheels and heading right for your face, I really have to get the seating modified to fit within the new parameters I built into the floor’s holes which will lock it in place.