I was thinking how you could build your own 50" unicycle. The parts:
-36-hole Wide Chromoly Hub (flange-flange 10 cm)
-rim of bended iron tube, welded at the edges, drill holes for spoke nipples
-spokes: bending bar in z-format and cutting thread with a tap at the other end
-frame: just cut an old frame and weld a tube in between to increase the fork length or by the clamping mechanism and build the frame myself.
-tyre: cut a water tube along the length and attach it to the rim with bolts (I don’t want to crash like the penny farthing guy).
Anybody has better ideas? Especially for the `tyre’ and rim.
What about a 24 inch rim on the hub, and drill more holes in the rim and use it as another kind of hub for the bigger 50 inch rim?
that way you could still use regular spokes and nipples–36 from the middle 24 rim to the hub using regular spokes for a 24 inch wheel, and then however many from the 50 rim to the 24 rim using spokes for a 26 inch wheel.
I think Skippi means two 24" rims. Think about it. One for each side. Then you have all the holes you need for double the number of spokes coming in. It would look really cool, but tensioning and truing it would probably be a nightmare.
You can use steel bike rims to bend outward like Tom Miller did with his. He preferred the old Schwinn tubular rims, which were double-layer and could take lots of abuse. Aluminum might not be able to bend outward the way you’d need it to. Whatever you do, remember rim strength is very important. As the wheel gets bigger, the strength of the rim effectively gets smaller because it loses the structural qualities of the curve.
You can use regular wheelchair rubber, or whatever the penny farthing guys use, for your tire. The guy in that video didn’t have his tire tight enough, is all. Something he might have checked before heading down that hill…