Second rim and first spoke

Number two is finished as well, and so are the hub rings. Here and there the widths are off by less than 0.1 mm, but luckily you hardly notice. Hopefully the colour difference will fade once a coat of varnish goes on. There are also still rings to go on that are 0.2 mm thick or thereabouts. Curious to see whether I can pull that off.

The next job is the notches for the spokes. Apparently that is very fiddly, because any deviation shows immediately. So I’ll take my time over it. As a test I laid the first spoke in the notches in the wheel and the hub. On one side it sits flush with the wheel, on the other it drops in slightly. That will be the outside. There are still a few blemishes in the spoke, but that is simply a matter of practice. I make the spokes from 1x1 mm walnut, left over from the hull planking.

Stephan remarked that I can work more accurately with pear, cherry or even boxwood than with walnut. He found boxwood on eBay, and on Ali they sell it as material for knife handles; cherry and pear are easy to find at model shops. Well, and he says that now, just as I’m starting over. Cherry and pear have since been ordered. On Marktplaats I also saw lace bobbins made of boxwood, but first I’ll go through our own stock of lace bobbins. Who knows what’s in there (we apparently have those things lying around somewhere).