Wide Hub

showard · February 2, 2004, 5:03pm

I’ve been making hubs again …

This time I’ve been working on wide Coker hubs. They (hopefully) are the same width and dimensions as the wide hubs that have already been made. I’ve got some pictures in a gallery here:

http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/wide-hub

As always, making this stuff is a lot of fun. Keeps me out of trouble on these long winter nights.

SH

Frank_A · February 2, 2004, 5:13pm

The hub looks great. Thanks for posting the process, as always, it’s great seeing your creations step by step.
Will these be available for the “masses” anytime soon?

Frank

john_childs · February 2, 2004, 5:35pm

I like the look of the hub. What kind of steel did you use?

Now I’m ashamed that I have an old style wide hub (made by cutting a Suzue hub in half) on my Coker. It feels so inadequate now.

andrew_carter · February 2, 2004, 5:52pm

That looks great, does it still fit in a regular sized frame? Could you please explain the bent-inwards flanges in the diagram? It’s really interesting to see the differwent stages of production.

Thanks,
Andrew

johnglazer · February 2, 2004, 6:48pm

Yes, I’m curious about the dished flanges, too.

john

Sofa · February 2, 2004, 6:52pm

what does heat treating do? I know it strengthens it, but how?

forget_your_life · February 2, 2004, 8:12pm

all but absolute cheapest hubs are dished,it helps with the spoke line.go look at your Profile a little closer A_C,its dished.

showard · February 2, 2004, 8:45pm

I’ll probably make a couple more … that should satisfy the world wide market for these things!

I used my most favorite metal in the world: 17-4 ph stainless steel. It’s really good stuff because it’s easy to machine (as far as stainless goes), simple to heat treat and is very tough. The flanges are just common 304 stainless steel. Another nice thing is that it’s stainless so all it needs is a good bead blasting and it’s finished … not other finishing is required and it’ll never rust. Naturally, it can be powder coated or chrome plated but it doesn’t need to be.

Dishing the flanges inward lines them up to the angle of the spokes. This helps prevent the outer spokes from having to bend where they exit the flange.

“Heat treating” is the general term for changing the molecular structure of metal by heating and cooling it in a controlled way. Usually raw metal is purchased in an “annealed” state. This means that the metal is soft and easy to form or machine. After the metal is worked into it’s final form it’s then heat treated so it has the desired properties - usually stronger and/or harder.

Some heat treatments require heating the metal to a high temperature then cooling in oil, brine or water. Sometimes more than one heat/cool cycle is required. Knife making is an area where heat treating the blade is as much an art as a science. Different knife makers have their own “recipies” for heat treating so their blade has some unique or desired characteristic.

17-4 ph is really nice because it’s easy to heat treat. After machining (and welding in this case) it’s heated to 900 F for one hour then allowed to cool in the air.

SH

andrew_carter · February 2, 2004, 9:39pm

Thanks Steve and Jagur.

paco · February 3, 2004, 12:13am

so whatever happened to your Stainless Steel KH hubs you were talking about a few weeks ago? Did you ever make any of them? Just curious.

john_childs · February 3, 2004, 1:23am

Well Steve, you know what this means? You’re going to have to build yourself a custom wide hub Coker. Send one of those hubs to U-Turn to build you a wheel. Build yourself a special SH Coker frame to fit the wide hub. And experience for yourself what it is like to ride a real man’s Coker.

U-Turn · February 3, 2004, 6:14am

Oh yeah.