Only having a small lathe I had to find another way to turn off the old boss, so I introduced it to Mr Shaper. The boss is a super cheap Chinese one, the brass piece in the wheel center acts as a lock tab for the bolts. The mottled spoke colour is just a few coats of exterior wood stain slapped on over etch primer quite roughly, which I'm quite pleased with.
[I've a big belly] , so a removable wheel works well... i too use the speedway style... they sell a hex, and a splined... have used both, the hex is much faster/easier to line-up the wheel ... but it gets sloppy after some time, the spline is slower to line-up but stays tighter longer... my $0.02 ...
That's what I found too, I bought a hex type then sent it back and bought a splined one which is much better, if I have the need to be slop free (tech inspection) I just put a polythene bag over the splines before putting the wheel on and tear off the excess, which works quite well.
Great way to use the shaper . Ive not used mine in 30 plus yrs . Ive used a gap bed lathe alot since acquired. Thinking out of the box is what I enjoy learning about . Thanks .
Even if i had a gap bed lathe I don't know how easy it would be to get a sound grip on that wheel center because of the way it's made of folded sheet metal.
The Jalopy Journal
