VDM steering wheel conversion to wood rim

[speedo]

Interesting as it really is a rebar looking hoop...pretty symmetrical. Looks as though the wheel was torch welded and then placed in a mold and the plastic was injected into the mold. The cross section of the rebar is round, although the cross section of the rim itself is not round. We found that we could get the plastic to come of in large chunks...so it wasn't really bonded to the rim, more like it just encased the rim. Further, the rim had a thin rust patina pretty much over the entire rim.

[speedo]

Fortunately where the spokes meet the rim, the intersection is close to 90 degrees vs a "flared" intersection like on my early 1966 wood VDM wheel. I already own the mahogany, so the plan is to make two bucks out of stacked 3/4 plywood. When comfortable with the exactness of the OD, we'll saw up the mahogany into 1/8th strips and I'll lay up two half-rims of mahogany. We'll treat each piece like a bagel half. Probably use the router on both halves to create the channel for the steel rim. The cnc will come into play when we need to create the rounded profile for the inside and outside of the rim. Plan is to create three wheels for the production staff. We can make changes on the fly, and I have way more mahogany than we need, so if we really screw up...we can start again. Details to follow.

[bob joyce]

The reasoning of laying the strips inside the wooden hoop/buck is that it keeps/defines the "circle/wheel" ...as you proceed with each layer it is force into that circle by clamping. You theoretically wont have any gaps because you will clamp the strips as you add strips. Very simple and very effective if you soak the wood. The only difficult part is that you have to cut the piece (each layer the strip is shorter, of course) to butt end to end.... I did not pre cut the strips. because of shrinking and swelling i left the finale trimming of each piece to the last few clamping's. That way i assured that the cut would butt-up.
obviously if you did it the opposite, way as your friend suggested ... making this finale cut to butt-up each layer would be easier.... however i wonder if you may lose control
trying to keep the laminations tight may be compromised, unless you engineer a way to clamp it as you go. remember you have to laminate one layer at a time so an inside and outside buck would not be practical unless you built the out side buck to be segmented to accommodate the increasing radius.
Also.... you are gluing these laminations..... i used gorilla glue.... it is going to be messy.... if you use 2 piece buck, by the time you have achieved your laminations ,you will have glue every were. you obviously want to leave the buck clamped until glue dries ..... now how are you going to get your wheel out. it will be glued to the buck..... doing it my way ... the first lamination against the buck is free of glue (other than the glue that gets every were). The building up of laminations is achieved by using small "c" clamps. the final layer is clamped as the others were but the clamps are left on for the glue curing..... now to remove , just un screw each clamp and free that clamping foot from the wheel. it was incredibly easy..... BUT IT WAS A HORRIBLE GLUE MESS to do this... so consider........... keep us posted on your method and progress...