These are the plans that we were sent so that we could build to 1790 era French cannon wheels.
This cannon will be on display in a museum so we did not want to use laminated hubs,
but we wanted solid, one-piece hubs, as the originals would have been.
So I brought in a 10-foot length of red oak tree
and this is where we started to build our hubs from.
I then found the center of the hub and marked off that which was out of round.
So we took the chain saw and we cut off the excess,
so that when these hubs were finished
they would be actually centered around the core center of the tree itself.
Once we had the excess trimmed off,
the next step was to remove the bark,
which we did here.
And then I was curious how much these weighed so I put them on the scale.
One block weighed 390 pounds
and the second block weighed 365 pounds.
So our next step was to put them on the lathe.
This is the 390 pound block
and we use a 24 inch boring bar
that we can reach halfway across these blocks. so I've speeded this up a bit and this
So I've speeded this up a bit
and this is the process of turning these rough oak blocks down to hubs for these cannon wheels.
What we're marking here is where the steps need to be in the contours of the hub.
With the first half done, we can turn the block in the lathe,
then we can finish the second half.
Much of this can be done with the carriage on the lathe itself,
but much of it has to be done by hand also.
We want to fit the steps where the hub bands are going to go.
Then much of it is just paying attention to the plans that we have been sent
and matching the contours and steps so that this looks like the original 1790 hub.
Because of the weight of these large hubs,
the mortising jig that we have is designed to accommodate a doughnut on the end
of these hubs.
It makes them more secure in the mortising jig.
And we go to the mortising machine and begin to mortise out
where the spokes will fit into this hub.
This will show us the mortises that are cut.
So now we can go back to the lathe
and we'll actually remove the excess from the center of this hub.
Because these hubs have such a high moisture content,
we're going to put them into a tank,
under 70 pounds of pressure, in a mixture of ethylene glycol.
These will actually help these hubs become stable
and help minimize any shrinkage that might occur.
So while these are being cured one of the steps we need to do is to make the
bearing surfaces inside these hubs
that will allow these hubs to run on that cannon axle itself.
These do not have boxing's
like an American-style wheel would have,
but these have two rings that fit one on the inside one on
that fit one on the inside one on the outside of the hub.
These are what will run on cannon axle.
The ring for the smaller outer end is five eighths by two and a half,
while the larger inside ring will be five eighths by three.
While I started these on my smaller 160 pound anvil,
I actually like the larger horn of my 217 pound anvil
to finish out to the curves where these two come together.
Having the small ring completed, this is now completing the large
ring that will go into the larger end of the hub.
Once I have these completed, I'm going to weld them to the circumference length that I need,
and then I'm going to put them on the mandrel and try to make them as round as possible.
Then, once these have cooled, I'm going to take them through
the metal lathe and actually true up both the inside and outside diameters.
While the outside diameter is lathe true,
the inside diameter has a 1 degree taper to match the axle spindle.
We also need to make the spokes
and you see them on the left side of the drawing here that they have a curve and an hourglass shape to them.
Once they are sawn out we're going to cut the Tenon's in. These are two inch thick.
And then we need to put the hourglass shape into the sides of these spokes.
And we'll bandsaw these in to get them kind of roughed in.
And then we've made a pattern underneath the belt of our belt sander to
to match the shape of these hourglass, and we'll sand them all to where they are uniform.
Now the felloes don't have a round and mortise in them for common style of the spoke,
but they have a rectangular mortise.
So we are removing the bulk of the wood with a round wood bit.
As you can see here where the spokes will go,
but then we're going to take them to the mortise
and machine and actually straighten them up cut them rectangular that will match the tenon's on the spokes.
So this is what they will look like.
and we see Calvin in the process of cutting these out.
Now that our hubs have been treated, and we have our races inside and out made,
we can actually go ahead and lathe these hubs to the correct
diameter to receive the bearing races.
The next step is to make the hub bands and get them all set onto the hub,
so that when we drive the spokes, and put the bearing races in, these hubs will be secure.
On these large hubs, we've actually gonna undersized these hub bands a little bit,
so we've heated them up a little extra warm
to get them to expand properly
and so there's a lot of heat on these bands as you can tell with the smoke here,
but there's also a high moisture content which helps.
Now that we have the hub bands on, we can go ahead and press
the bearing surfaces in.
The hub bands will keep any split fracturing of the hub to occur.
This is a small outer end
and this is the larger inside bearing surface.
These rings are now what will run on the spindle itself on the cannon axle.
Now that the hubs are built, the spokes are prepared, the felloes are built,
we can go ahead and start to assemble the spokes into the hub.
and here you can see the unique style of spokes on these French cannon wheels.
So this just continues to be a process of spoke by spoke,
fitting them into place,
putting each felloe section on to the spokes.
The felloes are made out of four inch thick ash.
The spokes also are made out of four inch thick ash.
And eventually we get down to the last two spokes
that will take the last felloe section.
They almost look like a flower with this style of spokes.
These wheels are headed to Florida where they will
actually finish putting the tires, or the strakes, on when they get home.
So these are what they look like when they're finished.
They ended up weighing in at 360 pounds apiece.
All these little joint works will be tightened up when they put the strakes on.
So now we need to ship them to Florida.
And so we recruited some help.
We have two young boys in the community here that helped us pick these wheels up
and put them on a pallet so they could head to their home.
This is where the wheels are now. They're in Yorktown,
in the museum, with his 24 pound cannon on them.
Stop by and look them up!