Harry: A year or so ago I ordered a set of wheels from Bob Paule. They are a cast iron, British manuf. wheel. I don't know who made them. Raw size: 2.4" tread dia., .350 overall thickness, 17 spokes, .068 thick at the base. The wheels were cast with a "back" on the backside so all spokes were held by this backing. Without detailing every little step, my first operation was to chuck up the wheel in a 3 jaw, machine the back off exposing the backside of the spokes followed by drilling and reaming the axle hole. I then turned them over and performed all my machining tasks on the front face. All front face tasks were performed supporting the wheel on a central "spindle" thru the reamed axle hole and of course the spokes were unsupported. The current discussion about machining Woods wheels without sophisticated clamping is puzzling, I never experience breakage with these unsupported spokes. Have you had one shatter? I don't recall what depth of cut I was taking but I'm working on a 9" lathe so listening to the machine and tool I judged what was appropriate.
Jim
