Cat Wheel part 1

So we have taken the first few steps to make our cat exercise wheel for our Bengals, Styx and Skadi.

We have had our eyes on a cat wheel for a long time, but they are usually very expensive if bought on amazon (not to mention shipping!) and hardly available at all in Sweden. Since it is a rather big piece of furniture we do not really want it to look too rough. There are plenty of DIY videos on youtube with very simple and functional constructions, along with quite a few very odd ones. I have noticed there is very limited amounts of information about construction of cat wheels, so we will try and do our best to write down exactly what dimensions, wood and construction we use. Our cat wheel will however be made with some quite advanced machinery, however it should be possible to replicate with easier tools.

Our demands on a cat wheel are:

• Safe and functional - meaning a big size to that the cats will not run in the wheel with a bent back, nowhere that the cats can get stuck or hurt themselves and easy to do maintenance on.
• Good design - meaning it will not just be a DIY wheel in a room, but a piece of interesting and modern furniture as well.
• Aesthetically pleasing - meaning it will not look like some happy accident and pile of rubbish, there are plenty of those out there...
• Budget friendly - we do not want to throw money at this wheel since, quite frankly, we do not know if the cats will even enjoy or use it.

Some of the core inspiration for our cat wheel design:

We have decided to not go for the one point suspension that is very popular in most DIY cat wheels, mostly because we think it will be more noisy and less durable - at least as a DIY project.

One point suspension

It should be easy enough, in theory, to make a four point suspension with the cat wheel spinning on the wheels.

Four point suspension

We have collected poplar plywood that were left over pieces or rejects from a woodworking company. Using poplar ensures that the wheel will be sturdy but very light weight.
After doing some research online we decided to make a wheel with a diameter of 115-120cm, depending on what material we could find, to ensure big enough wheel to be safe for the cats. A small diameter could mean the cat curve its back when running and that will end up doing more harm than good.

Our pile of wood before CNC magic was applied!

We have 3 types of plywood in our pile for the wheel:
- One ~122x240cm and 2cm thick piece that will become the outer rim.
- One ~122x240cm and 0.9cm thick piece that will be the two "inner" rings.
- Three ~30x240cm and 0.4cm thick pieces that will be the running track.

For the four point suspension we have:
- Five cheap inline wheels 9cm in diameter, with bolts.

The type of inline wheels we bought

- Four brackets for the wheels. Here we had to buy some cheap 10cm wheels and butcher them to get brackets that would fit our construction. W

The cheap brackets we bought

- Washers to secure the inline wheels in the brackets.
- Pieces of scrap wood to fit the brackets onto.
We also plan to build a box around the wheel as I find a free standing wheel (as shown in the "Four point suspension" picture above) is a bit of a waste of space, if you are limited on space. So we will make the wheel into a piece of furniture to better suit our home.

To be continued... !