Can you make the spokes on a lathe, and a hub too?
The hub needs to be large enough to drill holes for the spokes.

Then you need a rim, do you like bending wood, or would you rather take a block and cut out a curved section? You can make the rim in sections and join them to make the complete rim.

If the wheel is decorative, keep the rim in two halves, so it is easier to assemble the spokes, hub and rim.

Once you have a wheel, it may be off centre a bit.
Mount it on a dowel in the vice and you can turn it around while holding a sander against the rim. Hopefully you can get it more centred.

 

VE, Segmented is the way they did it, joining several shaped sections around the rim, wagon wheels would then get a metal band that a Blacksmith would make a bit undersized and then expand it with heat and drop it over the assembled wheel then quench it by dumping it in water and the cold water would get the rim to contract around the outer rim and the exact steel rim contracting would also pull it all together, what you say about the spokes and the rim is correct, if I only wanted two wheels for a tea trolly then the easy way to do the rim is to laminate it, that is use a router to make a circular former the correct size, then cut and thickness the strips to a bendable thickness, say around 1/4 to 3/8ths of an inch, then layer about 4 strips around the inside of the former and clamp and glue it up but the hub would have to be made in two parts so it could be assembled however a tea trolly wheel has no load so that would be fine, 4 x 1/4 would give you a 1 inch rim so work out for yourself how thick you would want the rim/wheels to finish, there are some spectacular new glues, the wheels and rims would never come apart, I would go with segmented myself as that is the proper way that construction would be put together with all the spokes and hub in one go, use a giant compass to draw the rim as well as the entire spoke and hub detail and then decide how many sections you need for the rim, make a shaped jig so each section can be made with a router, you may need to make both an inner jig to cut the inner section and an outer jig for the outer section, if you work hard on the jigs construction the the created sections should just fit together, then assemble with a band clamp while it is all fixed to an exact circle so that when the glue is dry then you do have a circular wheel, drawn on a flat sheet of ply or just on your workbench top, making this type of a wheel is time consuming but very satisfying and is the same as making the wheels for a spinning wheel, all of this is work I wish that I had the time to do. I have wanted to make some spinning wheels for a long time and doing that is on my bucket list. NGM

 

VE7TCC gave a very good overview. I agree with building up wood to make the rim/wheel rather than bending,unless your shop is set up to bend. I would only add to cut out both rims at the same time and sand together for consistency.

 

All it takes is a simple search. how to make a wooden wheel with spokes - Bing

 

Welcome to the forum, Ken.

 

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Hi Ken ……. a bit of a different approach;
If you’re looking for ideas on doing it different, I can usually figure out a backwards, hard way to do things. My wife wanted a roll able serving cart / tray that could handle heavy stuff when we had the kids and grand kids over for turkey dinners and stuff. We have a nice “small” house that we enjoy but it’s tight with a gang for dinner ( hence the oak hit rails protecting the walls ).

Long story short :
Strong / foldable / roll able with easy rolling wheels = make a NOT delicate or elegant tea cart !

I had Miller’s Millwork ( my favorite wood shop hope you have one 1/2 as friendly and good in your town ) do me up some oak. I left with it chopped up and milled to four 13” long, milled to 5/8” thick and two 13” pieces 3/8” thick. Also pick up 3/8” Oak doweling and then picked up some ¼” press board at one of the big box stores, to use as sacrificial material.

I made a simple jig that had a guide rail along the back, end stops the kept the router from going off the jig and cutting too far out to the outside of the wheel and two hinge stops near the centre to act as guide stops to produce consistent depths of cut into the wheel hub.

Ultimately you want a 3/8” centre wheel and hub with 3/8” spokes notched into the centre and the outer wheel. You then want 5/8” wheel and hub laminated cross grain of both sides of the 3/8” centre. Size the hub and inner diameter of the outer wheel to produce an overlap which hides the fact you are gluing a round pegs into a square hole

The whole idea is to glue sacrificial material to the squares and drill a centre hole so all pieces are worked from the centre, before cutting the circles the jig I made allowed me to rotate and clamp the 3/8” wheel core piece to stop at pre drawn spots, then cut a slot for the doweling to pocket into the hub and into the outer wheel. When the spoke slots are cut then cut the inner and outer circles for the wheel and the hub not going all the way through the sacrificial material. Lining up the pieces with the cente point make it all easy.

Glue one thick outer portion on. Once set tear off the sacraficial press board on the thin piece, you will be able to drop the dowel into the hub and outer wheel slots in the 3/8” piece on the ledges made by the 5/8” thick piece which has a hub dia 3/4” greater leaving a 3/8” ledge all around. The inside dia of the outer wheel 3/4” less so there is a ledge there of 3/8” install the spokes with a light coat of clue on the ends so you don’t get squeeze out later and glue the last thick piece to seal in the spokes.

Let dry and set then knock off the rest of the press board and sand up .

I used ¼” id copper pipe and drilled the oak hubs out to fit the OD of the pipe, a ¼” rod with those aggravating but handy pound on grip caps ( hidden under a glued in hole plug / cap ) to make the axle with a bushing for easy rolling and no wear on the wood.

If anyone is actually interested I can dig up the jig I had made and take some pictures of it and measurements.

 

I was thinking about it today, and I could make a rim by laminating thin layers of wood. I did this for some curved hand rails. I cut thin slices from a 2x4, and then bent and glued enough layers together. I could do segments that way, and then join them together.

 

Laminated hand rails

Here is a pic of the hand rails. I could use the same approach to make rims I believe.

 

Here is a pic of the hand rails. I could use the same approach to make rims I believe.

great garden bridge, I take it you have an outdoor fishpond or a garden stream.

 

I think that would work well.

 

No, I have kids. I made some cardboard fish with paper clips on, and a small rod with a magnet to fish them with. With no water, they fish for hours.