No Lathe Trike Hubs - Page 2 of 5

My "poor man's lathe" is of course, my angle grinder! If you take your time and work around the discs, it does not take long at all to get them almost perfectly round. I think the angle grinder is like an artist's paint brush - learn to master it, and it can do a lot more than you might think. Since the discs get quite hot while doing this part, I work around half the disc, and then switch it for another one until they are all rounded.

The disc on the right of the photo has been rounded, and is so close to round that it looks like it was machined. Hey, if a person can carve out a beautiful sculpture from a block of wood using a chainsaw, a skilled garage hacker should be able to make precision parts using an angle grinder!

Once all four discs are rounded and checked to be the same, the edges and mill scale is cleaned up using a flap disc, which is a grinder disc with sandpaper strips attached to it. The discs are now smooth, clean, and perfectly round. The punched centers have also been drilled using a 1/8 drill bit.

Like I said before, I love to work with minimal tools, and do not own a lathe, chop saw, or even a drill press, so I do my drilling in a vice using a hand held drill. To ensure that all four discs have the hole in the same place, I placed them in a vice as shown in the photo so they could all be drilled at the same time. Doing this saves time, and keeps errors to a minimum.

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You can build it yourself from our easy to follow DIY plans!