Dwight and Kim Neely came over yesterday to help put tires on the wheels for my
Traveling Forge. Photographs may be seen on the photo album area of the BGCM
discussion forum at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BGCM/photos/album/348323920/pic/list

Each wheel weighs over 200 pounds. Dwight did an heroic job of helping and was
at my shop for over 7 hours to accomplish this task. As you can see from the photos we heated the tires the hard way, by rotating the tires vertically in the forge. Building a bonfire in the driveway was not an option due to local codes.

The second tire needed to be cut and re-welded in order to both change the size of the tire, and to correct the weld. The old weld created a flat spot causing the tire to be oval rather than round. An oval tire acts like a spring, and wants to jump off the wheel rather than slide onto the wheel.

A wheel of this size is definitely a 2 or preferably 3 person job to tire.

To finish up the wheels, 1/2" tire bolts need to be installed, soaked in linseed oil, the edges on the fellows tapered, and then painted.

Edited April 27, 200917 yr by UnicornForge

I tried to check out your pics, but I'm not a member to that list, and was denied access to the photos. How about posting in the IFI gallery if you want others to view them.

Same story. No access to the images :(

I have posted the images to IForge Iron gallery. The photos may be seen at:

UnicornForge Gallery - Blacksmith Photo Gallery

I hope that fixes everyone's ability to see the photos. Sorry for the confusion on my part.

Awesome looking wheels you've made. Can't wait to see pics of them installed on the forge. That setup should be awesome to use and take around to demos. Good work.

Looks nice. Do you have step by step photo's? I would love to see the whole process.

These are the same wheels that were used on Civil War canons. Building them has been a very educational experience that pushed the limits of my abilities. It has been an long-time desire to build a Traveling Forge as it will be very appropriate for presentations at the museums that the local blacksmithing groups support, as well as art and craft fairs, and just about anything else. A Traveling Forge is a complete shop carrying coal, bar stock, tools, bellows, fireplace, vise, and anvil.

I am in the process of documenting the process of constructing the wheels, other Civil War era blacksmithing stuff, as well as the evolution of military traveling forges. So far I have 139 pages of information.

Edited April 28, 200917 yr by UnicornForge

Wow, what a job of work.

Frosty

It has been a lot of work to build the Traveling Forge, and the wheels have been amongst the biggest challenge. I made a bunch of tooling to construct the wheels. It has been a good learning experience as I had to make a wide variety of parts for the project.

The picture is perhaps a bit misleading. I am 5' 8" tall standing next to the wheels, but Dwight makes me look like a super-short person. The wheels are 57 inches in diameter; almost 5 feet high!