Crzyivan13 wrote:26" Goodyears on 6" wheel. 8 psi i was guessing. Worked fine lightly loaded. Not so much with a load.

Mauleguy wrote:Quote from above: "Yeah...I worded that very poorly. I'm talking about a wheel that is one piece with a bead locker. If I had a set of 10" wheels I could modify them to add bead lockers but since I don't why not have a set of wheels made. A local machinist I've deal with on some jet boat stuff is about $60/hr. Based on my perceived complexity of a wheel vs the past projects I ballparked 10hrs per wheel. $500/wheel for material (10" diameter 12" long extrusion). $60/hr x 10hr + $500 = $1100/wheel; pretty much the same cost as a 10" ABI wheel but my estimate could, and likely is, way off."


I can tell you from my own experience that your estimate is way off. The materials to do a set with 12" billet 6060-t6, bearing, dust seals, washers, bolts for the wheels were around 850.00 if my memory serves. The labor was well over your 10 hours because I was charging that same rate in 2005-2006 (60 per hr.) when I was building the wheels and I was just making shop rate. You can figure out the hours by subtracting the cost of materials.

C185D wrote:I think the Bead Locks are unnecessary for aircraft, you could just put screws in the stock wheel bead. Or glue the tire to the rim. Before the ABWs came out a lot of guys here in AK would screw 29in Airhawks to GarAero adapters. There are still a few planes up here with aluminum car wheels with Hoosier racing slicks.

Mauleguy wrote:I already had the programs for the wheels because I had made them for myself, so that does not include the time to design and program the parts. 4 CNC Lathe programs and 4 CNC mill programs. Your machinist will have to work pretty hard for his money to come in at the pricing I gave for 1 off wheel set.

A185F wrote:

Crzyivan13 wrote:26" Goodyears on 6" wheel. 8 psi i was guessing. Worked fine lightly loaded. Not so much with a load.

When we run 26's on the Cub we won't go lower than 14 psi.

Crzyivan13 wrote:

A185F wrote:

Crzyivan13 wrote:26" Goodyears on 6" wheel. 8 psi i was guessing. Worked fine lightly loaded. Not so much with a load.

When we run 26's on the Cub we won't go lower than 14 psi.

Admittedly, I was too low. I think I was normally running 10-12 psi. Ew on that airplane was around 690 lbs in that configuration. It worked pretty well at that weight and pressure but the goodyears were too stiff for an airplane that light. When I switched to 29" Bushwheels I was in cushy pillow heaven at 4 psi.