Making a spoked bike wheel main page There are many ways of making one of these, but I thought I'd try the new weld tool. (Tut done with 0.98.04a) This method is based on the fact that there are (in essence) only 2 'types' of spoke on a bike wheel - and these differ only by the way that they are attached to the hub flange. This basic arrangement is then repeated / mirrored to construct a complete wheel. Changes due to new Wings releases. 1) Multiple loopcuts work correctly - there's no need to do loopcuts on an individual basis.(9-12) 2) Weld no longer requires the objects to be combined prior to being applied - just select the objects and apply Object | Weld. (18,27). The Weld op also leaves selected the verts associated with any faces welded as visual feedback to the user. 3) Face | Mirror now has a RMB option to create a separate mirrored duplicate of the original. (22-24) - no need to loopcut a mirrored object to obtain 2 separate ones. Other related stuff: Bridge and Weld (general comments, issues and examples associated with these commands) (Activate advanced menus via Edit | Advanced Prefs and ticking the box)

Spoked Bike Wheel

1). Make a hub and rim to suit your needs. I decided on a 36 spoked wheel, so created cylinders with these numbers of faces (L click on small square next to cylinder to enter number). Since there's 18 spokes on each flange (9 'innies' and 9 'outies') I selected the relevant verts on the hub flanges (the underside ones will lie in between these, of course) plus all the rim locatons and bevelled them all by an appropriate (small) amount (I didn't take note) 2). Extrude Normal all (newly) bevelled faces (I used 0.03) 3). To create the spoke end rad at the hub, select a face as shown. 4). Apply Face | Lift (must be Hollywood?) and select a 'hinge' edge as shown (you'll soon know if you've got the wrong one and there's 32 undos) 5). I used 2 Lift ops at 45 deg each to produce the shape shown. 6). Bridge between this (final) face and the correct point on the rim (subsequent pix will give some idea of where this is - or look at a real wheel and work it out for yourself)

7). Make a similar (won't be identical) spoke rad on the appropriate (underside) location for the other matching spoke of the basic 'spoke pair' 8). Bridge this to the rim as before (Absolutely essential that there is only one spoke position in between - as shown) 9). We don't want to repeat the above procedure for the rest of the spokes - since we now have 2 that provide all of the 3d information necessary to construct the whole wheel. We'll loopcut these off and use them as templates for making copies. At the hub end, select the edges around the spokes created after the first extrusion (see step2) 10). A close up of the hub end, showing the loop position.. 11). Apply loopcut and separate the whole hub from the 2 spokes.

12). Select the edges around the spokes at the rim - (at the 0.03 extrusion distance) and loopcut here, too - but do them one at a time. 13). Y view showing the spoke arrangement at the hub - underside spoke end goes to corresponding location as the top one. With these 2 spokes selected, duplicate them - in this location, 8 times. Dupe once (I use Free option as on hotkey and constrain to zero movement by holding down shift) - then use shift d to dupe the rest. We've now got 2 lots of 9 spokes, all 'on top' of each other :) 14). Select one of each spoke, Rotate | Y (and use RMB to define a point around which rotation will take place) - click on the end face of the hub (centre shown by blue square) 15). Apply rotate and tab input 40 (360/9 = 40) degrees

16). This fig shows the situation after moving the pair of spokes mentioned in 15. 17). Deselect newly rotated pair, return to original location and select another pair of copies and hit shift d - as many time as necessary to get this fresh pair to fill a 'space'. This fig shows the situation after all 18 have been rotated (last pair left selected) 18). Select everything - except the rim - combine and weld (I used default setting and was ok)  Wheel now looks *similar* to 21.

19). The hub is too long to mirror around at present - so its end face needs to be lined up with the centre line of the rim -select the end face 20). Face | Flatten Y (RMB option - to a point, choose one of the central edges on the rim. 21). Shows the whole wheel (at this stage) with the shortened (now aligned) hub end face. 22). Select this end face and apply Face | Mirror.

23). Wheel after being mirrored - getting closer - but one half needs to be rotated (with respect to the other half) to get all the spokes in the correct place. 24). Select middle edgeloop and loopcut. 25). Select whole of lower spoke assembly and apply a Rotate | Y (RMB option, choosing end face ) 26). Rotate the lot with a tab input entry of 10 deg. (360 / 36 = 10 deg or one spoke pitch) Both sets of spokes should now be correctly lined up with all the rim holes.

27). Select everything - both spoke assemblies + rim, combine and weld - this is the result. 28). Wings 'render'

29). Object exported to Bryce 4 and rendered - nothing fancy

Many other things / issues which will, no doubt pass thro' people's minds :) - but this is a basic method, only - to produce something that looks like a 'proper' bike wheel - using Wings. Since the user only has to model one spoke of each of the 2 types - these can be as accurate as required - unlike these 'basic' jobs. No excuse for naff looking wheels, now :)