Advice-Home made car aluminium wheels

[Lars Christensen]

Hi guy's

 

Well 23 year old stepsons birthday is coming up, and he is hot on the idea that he and I are going to spend some bonding time machining him some rims for his new car, I would probably been fine writing him a check and take him out for steak, but I guess it could be cool project.....if I know what I am doing

 

So I got Mastercam level 3, and a Haas VF3.

 

1st. line of questions:

1. What kinda of material

2. What kinda specs. and tolerances

3. Fixtures ? tips and tricks

4. Any specific good websites

 

Thanks

Lars

[Guest]

Lars, a great idea and a cool sounding project but......

 

 

What about legal liability if and only if something should go wrong?

[Chris Rizzo]

There is a DOT bead profile for rims. I'd say look into some forged aluminum blanks to get all that right, and then maybe have some fun customizing them on your mill.

[YoDoug®]

Make sure that after you finish the design that you run it through some kind FEA software like Ansys or Nastran. There is a lot of different forces at work on car wheels. Torque load from acceleration/braking, Radial force from the cars weight/bumps, and uneven axial force when cornering just to name a few.

[gcode]

Can't you buy blanks with the lathe work

already done???..

That would solve the tire bead issues..

Then you can mill some conservative cutouts

do some cool engraving and its a done deal..

[Colin Gilchrist]

I'm pretty sure you don't have to worry about DOT legality issues as long as you aren't selling the wheels. That being said, getting blanks with the DOT bead profile already machined would save you a ton of work and give you peace of mind. I'm with gcode on the conservative cutouts though. Make the rims fairly beefy, but totally custom. If this is going on something your son wants to drive and go fast in, then consider buying some nice racing wheels and doing some engraving on them.

[SydwazShawn]

I looked at doing these for my Mustang. It is really hard to find wheel blanks that someone will sell you. This place http://www.amtcorporate.com/spinning.html

has them. I was looking at building three pc. wheels. You can get the hoops no problem, but when it comes to getting the centers there is a minimum of 50pc. I would buy just the hoops with the backspace then make the center out of billet, as long as its a light car. All the centers are 6061 rotary forged so they can handle the heavy loads.

 

Also if you build a wheel and you want it tested you can get them tested @ a specialty wheel testers like this one http://www.smithersscientific.com/tirewheeltesting.htm

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

I've done custom motorcycle wheels, and you definitely want to start with a forged blank. They're a little pricey, but the appropriate hunk of billet would probably cost more. Our wheels were about .750" thick except for the rim, and our rule of thumb was to leave at least three sections at least an inch wide at the thinnest point. We kept them as balanced as we could, but once the tire is mounted you need to balance it anyway so I don't think it's too big a deal. Depending on what kind of car he has a color anodize might look nice.

 

In case you want an asymmetrical design, Mastercam will tell you the center of gravity of a solid. If your first design doesn't come out balanced when you model it, just tweak it 'till it does.

[Guest CNC Apps Guy 1]

quote:

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...There is a DOT bead profile for rims. I'd say look into some forged aluminum blanks to get all that right, and then maybe have some fun customizing them on your mill...

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+1

 

APP Has them in standard sizes. Give 'em a look/call. I have NO idea about pricing.

[vince cannarozzo]

hey lars,

check this place out.

web page

[Lars Christensen]

Thanks guys I appreciate you thoughts and wisdom, this for sure convincing me that I need to do a lot more homework before I commit to this project (all that safety stuff kinda slipped my mind, don't want the kid to crash his car ).

[Rick46]

legal worries shouldnt be and issue here unless your gonna mass market these things or you worry of your son filing a lawsuit against you.. your making them for your sons car and thats it.. worry about safety issues.. are they gonna hold up when hes going down the road at 90 MPH... lol.. we all have done this once in our lives.. but great project as well as time you and your boy can spend together doing something..

[Guest]

quote:

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legal worries shouldnt be and issue here unless your gonna mass market these things or you worry of your son filing a lawsuit against you.. your making them for your sons car and thats it.

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Actually, I believe you are quite wrong Rick.

 

God forbid something goes wrong and a tire or rim fail and ANOTHER person or persons gets hurt or worse buy an uncontrollable vehicle.

 

It NEEDS to be considered. We're not talking about something that just "looks nice" on car but is a MAJOR functional component.

 

I am no lawyer, in todays litigious society however you had best think something this apparently innocuous through completely.

[Tim Simmermon]

What size Rims are you talking about? Your only limitation would be the size of the rim that you can cut on a VF3. We have an older VF4 that only has 18" of travel on the Y axis.

[Rick46]

quote:

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quote:

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legal worries shouldnt be and issue here unless your gonna mass market these things or you worry of your son filing a lawsuit against you.. your making them for your sons car and thats it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Actually, I believe you are quite wrong Rick.

 

God forbid something goes wrong and a tire or rim fail and ANOTHER person or persons gets hurt or worse buy an uncontrollable vehicle.

 

It NEEDS to be considered. We're not talking about something that just "looks nice" on car but is a MAJOR functional component.

 

I am no lawyer, in todays litigious society however you had best think something this apparently innocuous through completely.

 

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Im no lawyer here either and not gonna argue about it so he can do what he thinks is best.. but I think it is a great idea.. and a guy with machinist capablities and specs and tolerances to go by and surely car isurance to boot.. well I wouldnt worry but thats just me...and correct me if im wrong but arent most custom bike wheels machined out and made by someone on a machine ?? what are the legal liabilities there ?? I didnt know there was a law against making custom wheels.. now if someone was to get hurt I can see your point but if they are done right then should be nothign to worry about.. people do it all the time.. compainies or do it yourselfers..just my 2 cents.. didnt mean to hijack the thread into a leagl dispute.. but this is a awesome idea for a father son project and if done correctly should turn out good..

[SydwazShawn]

I talked to a guy at a company that makes rotary forged wheels. He said if it was a light car and it wasn’t going to be driven hard then a billet center would be fine. He said in order to sell me a center blank I would have to order a 50 pc. min @ 65.00 ea.

 

I can’t remember but I believe the government doesn’t have a regulation on wheel testing, but there are places that test per: ASTM, DOT, SAE, ECE and SEMA. I think for big auto companies to cover there a@#!!

 

If you cant find singlepc. blanks, then I would just buy hoops and go the three pc. route. This is what I am going to do when I begin to build my wheels!! All you need is nuts, bolts and some non acidic silicone sealant to put them together. I also was going to get my wheel FEA tested just for good measure. At http://www.forgeline.com/wheels/accessories.html you can buy the hoops and the bolts if you wanted to. This is at retail but it’s a start if you couldn’t find them else were.

[Matthew Hajicek - Singularity]

Here's a place for cycle wheel blanks:

http://www.allamericanwheel.com/index.html

[crazy^millman]

Can I make A suggestion here. How about making a custom steering wheel? Cool project, easy to make and a lot less risk.

 

HTH

[Karl@CP PISTONS]

Another idea is to buy a complete set with no machining except for center - lugs from somewhere. I know that budnik wheels sells then as smoothy style.(I used to program for budnik) You give them back / front space and hub diameter. You get complete wheels ready for you to customize.

 

+1 for the "y" travel answer. You need to add approx 1.2 inches to the diameter to allow for the bead configuration.

 

+100 to the steering wheel answer. Aluminum steering wheel = much easier to fixture and machine plus stays cleaner inside the car. At budnik I made plenty of 100% custom wheels that looked very cool but were a MAJOR pain to keep clean.

 

Karl

[Guest]

we make all the tooling for the aluminum and steel wheels for the big trucks. we also make the wheels themselves(proto types) the material is constantly checked for stress weaknes and tested until they actually fail.before cnc machines i use to use a tracer lathe to turn these wheels completly. kinda scary when wheel is turning about 50 mph in lathe.i would release the tracer arm and DUCK.

[FAS]

Worked at the above mentioned AMT for five years.

Ran the lathe department, 25 lathes. They make a fairly unique product. Rotary forged, and AutoSpin. Spinning the rims as opposed to forging them changes the structure of the aluminum for added strength. Buy blanks, headsaches gone.

[Lars Christensen]

Thank you so much for all the info. It could be a cool project, I am not going to do it without having the wheels send out for testing. I like the steering wheel idea, sounds like it would be much less hassle.

I told him we will have to sit down over the weekend and talk this project a little further.

Again thank you for sharing idea and knowlegde. If it is a go I will defiantly post some pictures.

 

Lars

PS.Our VF3 has 20" travel in the Y.

[Rick46]

yes definately post pics.. wheels or steering wheel both sound like awesome projects.. and if testin for safety on the wheels then no worries..and again the worries are just my opinion and are no way set in stone..lolol...

[#Rekd™]

Any ideas of what those forgings are worth for a set of car rims???

 

John