This past year, I went to Burning Man and needed to create some wheels to deal with the Playa, basically a desert. I'll show you how I designed them and show them in action.
They are 175mm diameter, polyurethane, treaded, and are 80mm wide.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQYdlzkk259/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
At Burning Man there are so many sand pits that regular Cloud Wheels meant that I would eat shit all the time. So I wanted to create my own wheels to have the freedom.
I 3D printed the core and then made a mold, then cast urethane over it. I added tread to help eject the dust.
The key to good mold design is being able to remove the part and to tightly hug the core so that there is no polyurethane flash. I designed it in 4 parts so that I can cast in the tread then easily remove them.
On the bottom, you can see the cone. That centers around the bearings and then holds all the 4 corner pieces with the tread. You can see there are grooves and alignment tabs everywhere.
I have to clamp the entire mold and then inject the urethane. If you don't clamp, then the urethane leaks everywhere.
Whole bunch of wheels!
Here they are finished!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQYePhck0i0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Now that you have an idea of what it takes to make some wheels, you can do it too. This allowed me to try new things, test new things, and figure out the best geometry to extract the most performance. These are the same techniques that I used to create the Hollow Wheel Performance. Which by the way, I am having a big sale soon. Stay tuned!
Doug