How do you make toy excavator/tractor tires?


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I read an article about a year ago on a jig to make some really nice looking excavator tires. I think it was in one of my Wood magazine issues, but I am not certain. Does anyone know of a good article or online tutorial/video that outlines this process? I would like a V tread profile

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I've done it.  I just attached a block of wood to a table saw sled at an angle with something for the wheel to rotate on.  I marked off the tread locations and would align them with a mark on the block.  The spacing wasn't perfect but close enough.  Depending on the size of the wheel you'd either use a regular blade or dado set.  It's not that hard, just takes a while to do it.

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I've done it.  I just attached a block of wood to a table saw sled at an angle with something for the wheel to rotate on.  I marked off the tread locations and would align them with a mark on the block.  The spacing wasn't perfect but close enough.  Depending on the size of the wheel you'd either use a regular blade or dado set.  It's not that hard, just takes a while to do it.

 

this is how i recall the jig being set up in the article i read, but they had some way of incorporating positive stops or indexes to create perfect spacing.

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Draw the circle with a compass on a piece of paper, leaving the original compass setting, pace off around the circumference that dissects the circle into six pieces of pie measure half way between two of the marks than pace off around the circle again now you have twelve pieces of pie do this as many times as you want. Attach the paper to your wheel blank add a pivot point to your miter gauge with a wooden fence make an indexing mark directly above the blade with the miter gauge at the desired angle now with the first mark on you paper template aligned with you indexing mark run your pieces through rotate to next mark etc. until you've have all your notches (now your only doing half of the wheel when complete glue both halves together using the axle for alignment)now I've never done this or even thought about it until last night but, this is how I would attack this problem.

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