Boat Wheels project complete
Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 2:15 pm
My Porta Bote is real nice, but there is a lot of stuff to move the water before using it. One way to make this easier is to put the boat together at the car, load it with gear and then roll it to the water. Complete boat, motor, life jackets, fishing tackle, cooler, minnow bucket, everything goes in one trip to the water. And when you are done, every thing goes to the car in one trip. Now Porta Bote sells wheels, but at $250 – ouch!
So the Boat Wheels Project came to be. The boat wheel assemblies are modeled after the ones sold by Porta Bote, only made form wood instead of metal. A bracket holds a wheel at each side of the boat. The Boat Wheel Project has basically 3 parts or sub assemblies for the wheel bracket: an upper bracket half, a ;lower bracket half, and an axle mount. The axle mount is fastened to the lower bracket. The upper and lower bracket halves are put together with bolt and nut/wing nut sets sliding in slots, 2 sets toward the top of the brackets and 2 sets toward the bottom.
After determining the angle needed for fastening the mounting the axles, the axle mounts were made.[ATTACH]18143[/ATTACH][ATTACH]18142[/ATTACH]
Yes that is the bevel cut that was discussed in an earlier thread.
In the second picture the lower bracket, with its foot removed, has screws in place to attach the axle mount.
The next picture shows the upper and lower bracket halves wit the axle mounting block attached to the lower half of the bracket.
[ATTACH]18141[/ATTACH]
Next are pictures of the assembled bracket. These “dry fit” assemblies were mounted on the boat to check out the wheels' angle when mounted. The angles were fine, but found that the slots needed to be lengthened and the lip of the upper bracket half narrower.
[ATTACH]18140[/ATTACH][ATTACH]18139[/ATTACH]
The whole thing was disassembled, corrections made, and put back together...this time with glue. The axles were epoxied in the axle mounts and the bolts (machine screws actually) going between the bracket halves were also epoxied into the upper half brackets. (continued in next post).
So the Boat Wheels Project came to be. The boat wheel assemblies are modeled after the ones sold by Porta Bote, only made form wood instead of metal. A bracket holds a wheel at each side of the boat. The Boat Wheel Project has basically 3 parts or sub assemblies for the wheel bracket: an upper bracket half, a ;lower bracket half, and an axle mount. The axle mount is fastened to the lower bracket. The upper and lower bracket halves are put together with bolt and nut/wing nut sets sliding in slots, 2 sets toward the top of the brackets and 2 sets toward the bottom.
After determining the angle needed for fastening the mounting the axles, the axle mounts were made.[ATTACH]18143[/ATTACH][ATTACH]18142[/ATTACH]
Yes that is the bevel cut that was discussed in an earlier thread.
In the second picture the lower bracket, with its foot removed, has screws in place to attach the axle mount.
The next picture shows the upper and lower bracket halves wit the axle mounting block attached to the lower half of the bracket.
[ATTACH]18141[/ATTACH]
Next are pictures of the assembled bracket. These “dry fit” assemblies were mounted on the boat to check out the wheels' angle when mounted. The angles were fine, but found that the slots needed to be lengthened and the lip of the upper bracket half narrower.
[ATTACH]18140[/ATTACH][ATTACH]18139[/ATTACH]
The whole thing was disassembled, corrections made, and put back together...this time with glue. The axles were epoxied in the axle mounts and the bolts (machine screws actually) going between the bracket halves were also epoxied into the upper half brackets. (continued in next post).
Couldn't figure out what happened to them until we looked at our slides from the trip and saw them laying on the beach.