Is there anyone who knows how Ford or KH manufactured the wire wheel?
It would be very interesting if there were any movies or pictures from the production. Curious about how the welding fixture looked and how it worked!
There is one movie that has a segment showing the wire wheels being welded. I can't remember which one, but I remember commenting on it on here after someone posted a link to the film on youtube.
From what I understand, Ford wire wheels were marvels of design, engineering and manufacture. Here are some links to patent information. Not exactly what you were looking for, but it may be helpful.
There is a vidio on youtube. Titled something like The 1932 Ford V8. If you can find it, it shows the spokes being welded to the rim. It is like a spot welding tecnique. There is a forked piece that goes over the spoke and pushes the spoke to the rim and welds it. It was one at a time and manually fed.
Thank you all for your replies!
Started watching the movies on youtube.
Can not really stop thinking about how they made up the manufacturing, I mean four wheels per car and 32 spokes on each wheel so they must have had a rational manufacturing method.
If the spokes were prefab with the sponge shaped ends before welding, then each spoke has to be rotated to the right position! That does not make sense!
Why do you start thinking about things like this?........