Cat Wheel part 3

Finished base for the cat wheel

When the wheel was completed we moved on to the base. This turned out to be a bit more tricky than anticipated. We had planned to use the big wheels we purchased, on the package it said that they had bearings but this turned out to not be true. The wheels were only rubber wheels with a metal cylinder going through them, meaning they didn't run smoothly at all. We had to head out specially and buy some 9 cm diameter inline wheels to use in the brackets.

We made a base out of plywood to attach the wheels on and then just used some scrap pieces of wood to secure the wheel brackets. We drew a center line and then placed the brackets 25cm apart from it on each side. How far apart you place the wheels depend on how high you need the wheel to be. With hindsight I think we could have placed them a bit further apart possibly.

From the start we didn't space the wheels properly and the wheel would scrape the brackets slightly and

Wheel on base with fixed inner rings

the wheel would "glide" around in a horizontal direction, in the end it even derailed. To get around this we fixed the two inner rings with the stapling gun at 10cm from each side, leaving a inner part of 10cm where the middle wheel is placed at the center line. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get this part right and depending on your brackets and wheels used, I'm sure it will be some "trial and error" to get the wheel stable. The wheel between the two inner rings will make sure that the movement in the horizontal direction is controlled and limited.
All that was left now was the box!

Wheel in action!

We had to sand down the joints