FREE TO CASTER
Since F to C Steering relies on the Direct Tilt Control to operate freely I more or less designed and built various tilt control mechanisms and caster steering arrangements simultaneously, and multiple times over. As I muddled through the build-test-rebuild process I began to appreciate that while F to C Steering relies on DTC, in return it also assists Tilt Control by providing a "hands free" kind of steering which allows me to actuate the tilt control levers efficiently and forcefully without any conflict between tilting and steering.
Caster Wheel and Hub.
The wheel and hub design is largely the outcome of necessity. Once I made the decision to incorporate a hub-centered wheel as detailed in " Rick Wianecki's Leaning Trike Project", I began looking for an alternative to the embodied rotating-hub because I did not have a metal lathe at the time.
My solution was to replicate a rear axle setup in which the axle shaft rotates. I located and ordered bearing-sized solid round aluminium for the axles and bearing-sized pipe for the outer casing. After a few modifications, I settled on what you can see in the previous video of the front swingarms tilting.
The pipe/casing is simply inserted laterally and fixed within a rectangular tube. The pipe and tube serve as a kind of a non-rotating hub to which the swingarms are pivotally attached creating a zero degree steering axis. And because the wheel-axle trails the steering axis, the hub and wheel function as a caster wheel.
This construct survived the test of time because it not only allows for the steering axis to be vertically aligned with the center of the tire ( as in Rick's design), but it also allows for the axle bearings to equally straddle that center-line, permitting a more shallow dished wheel to be used which facilitates the F to C action of the front wheel within the single-sided swingarm of the Delta model.
Now for the lay-up, centering, and truing of the fiberglass wheel.
WHEEL MOULD
The mould is made from MDF and covered with fiberglass+ bondo.
While this male mould produces a smooth finish on the wheel's inside, I eventually plan to put the smooth finish on the outside of the wheel using a concave /female mould.
CENTERING the WHEEL
A router is fastened to a two-way cross-slide vise. I hand-spin the wheel and mould ( bolted to the shaft of an old washing machine motor held in the vise ) to center the hole for the wheel flange.
I also used this setup to make the MDF mould.
CLOSE UP of Centering
I think this centering method will provide more precise outside-round results when I convert the present mould into a female one embodying a rim-mounting lip and use new rims of equal width.
( currently, 2 are the same width and 3 of the 4 preowned rims are slightly out of round )