More spoke work

  Another good day at the forge...

  Today's goal was to prepare the spokes for placing them into the wheel.  The first step is to split the ends of the spokes.  This starts with cutting a slit using a hacksaw.

    

After the slit is made with the saw, the end is heated and the split open using a chisel followed a wedge then hammered open.

     

After splitting all four ends, I did some filing on the inside of the wheel and with a bit of hammer tapping, the wheel has a new set of spokes.



The tabs on the end of the spokes will be heated and bent over to grab the wheel.  This will create a very firm connection.

I decided to hold off on bending the tabs over.  I want to make sure everything is nice and centered.  I measured with a ruler and from the center, the variance is no more than 1/8" from what I measured.  This means a minimal amount of filing to get the circle trued up.  However, using a ruler to do this is not the best check.  I need a large pair of dividers to confirm that everything is okay.  I thought I had a larger pair but could not find them so I am going to hold off securing the spokes until I can buy a new divider.