Heelychat, the forum for heelys, the shoes with wheels - View topic

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

WARNING: Long Post. If you have the attention span of a goldfish, feel free to look at the pretty pics Laughing

On the other hand, if you're a heely fanatic like me, and love to know all the little details of how I made my own super special wheels - read on my friend Smile

OK, this is another of my little projects that I've been working on for a couple of months. Until now I hadn't spoken of it because I wasn't sure if it was going to work. But now I am Smile

I have designed, built, and tested the ULTIMATE in Heely Wheels! Smile

At every stage of the production I measured and remeasured every dimension with digital callipers which were accurate to the micrometer, so they run TOTALLY true - and are probably the most perfect Heely wheels in existance. Smile

They started out as a type of aggressive inline wheel the style of which is called "Old English" which I thought most appropriate. The color is called "Forest Green" and as someone who lives right on the border of Robin Hood country, I also thought that was fitting, plus I love green anyways Smile

These wheels took 2 days to transform from a set of 4 "grindrocks" into the ultimate pair of heely wheels, at a total of about 4 hours a day: I used the facillities of a local engineering firm where they had all the tools and machines I would need to make the perfect wheel work first time: micrometer accurate milling machines, lathes, etc.

Then to be sure they worked, I skated on them as hard as I could for a total of about 100 hours (2-3 hours a day for about 6 weeks) to make sure they worked perfectly. Much of this was on the roughest streets I could find to be sure they would not break, and of course some vert whenever I could get to a pipe.

As you will see in the pics/vids below, they are still solid. Most of the roughness to the rolling surface was added during production, in hopes of giving them a little more grip on smooth surfaces, only some of what you see is from the heavy street use:

It's got all the benefits of a megavert wheel and more!

1. They're Megavertz:

It's ULTRA hard and unlike normal Heelys Mega's will never get air bubbles: In fact, on the type-A durometer scale used to measure hardness, Heely wheels score 86, the harder skate wheels usually score 101 hardness, but this one is even a little bit harder than that: 102-A durometer hardness! Smile

Also, as a megavert, it's 1mm wider than my standard Mega wheels, with a very wide flat rolling surface for extra stabillity, and yet still fits perfectly into the bay due to there being easilly enough room spare in normal mega-wheel bays - no modifications needed. Smile

2. They're improved freespins.

By simply unscrewing the coin axle (no tools needed) and flipping the halves over, the wheel changes from being an ultra-hard "megavert" type wheel, into a perfect, fully functional freespin type wheel! You see, in the gap between the two halves of the megaverts are where I store simple little spacers, that when they're in "freespin" mode keeps them separate, but in megavert mode they just sit there and are kept safe in the centre of the wheels until you need them. Smile

So you can switch from Ultra-hard Megavert to Ultra-hard freespin in the middle of a skate session in seconds, without even having to carry a spare wheel bag or any tools - all you need is right there in the wheel. Smile

Here's a little vid to show how the wheel converts from Megavert mode to freespin mode:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PD6E5NdlEQY

It differs slightly from the usual freespins in that it takes standard 608 skate-bearings, which with the easilly removable coin-axle are easy to maintain/clean and replace. Smile

Here's some pics of one of these wheels dissassembled, to show all the parts - two halves, axle, and one of the spacers used for freespin mode.

The remaining graphics from when it was an inline wheel still boldly declare the wheel's impressive specs: 47mm, 102a hardness. Smile

Here's a few little vids of me demonstrating that they really work - as anyone who has made their own wheels will know, this is the true test - it's easy to make something that LOOKS like a Heely wheel, but making one that actually runs true and holds your weight perfectly for hours and hours, without breaking or rubbing on the wheel well, that's the hard part. Luckily after 100 hours of skating on them I can now officially declare these wheels PERFECT. Smile

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=lwp6erR1iu4

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=u0yGiMa_RZU

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ypzWPkPfuOk

So far I've only made 2 pairs of these wheels. I'm afraid I can't sell them because they're such a labour of love, and to cover the costs of renting the use of the machines at the engineering place where I make them I'd have to charge like $150 a set, but I just wanted to let you guys in on my (until now) secret wheels. Hope you like them? Smile

green fat freespins?

i mean...

GREEN FAT FREESPINSSS!!!!!!!!

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Hehe, yeah. You reminded me of something I didn't put in my post, (bet you thought I'd said everything and then some eh?) Laughing

You see, so far the only problem I have is what to call them?

Ultivertz? Mega-Freespinz? Uber-vertz?

Merriespinz? Smile

Or yeah, I could just go with

GREEN FAT FREESPINSSS!!!!!!!!

Joined: 10 Jul 2006 Posts: 533 Location: London, UK

Those are amazing.

You should get loads made and then sell them Very Happy

. I know I'd buy some Smile

Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1548 Location: Ohio

Now THIS is the stuff I want to get into as an engineer lol

btw

call them Freevertz Smile

Joined: 03 Jan 2007 Posts: 469 Location: Ol' Virginny

Wow d00d. That's some pimpschitts right there. I had talked about pouring my own or cnc'ng some raw u-thane (very familiar with the stuff... we use it/mill it for custom motor mounts in race VWs) but I've never really seen the benefits of going through all the trouble. That right there is a freakin amazing idea!! Flip-flop hubs (kinda), perfect hardness, now throw some dope graphics on em and sell em underground!!

Have you worked out a jig for them yet or are you doing it all from straight cnc programming or using manual mills and measurements?? I suspect if you tooled up a jig to produce, you would have to open up that center gap a tad to be more mass product friendly.

Nice work!!

Joined: 15 Jun 2008 Posts: 1391 Location: UK

Team Heelys - SoCal Joined: 26 Dec 2006 Posts: -123845

they is green. h4ls favorite color is green. h4l wants some.

Joined: 22 Feb 2007 Posts: 1548 Location: Ohio

Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 348

Team Heelys - Northeast Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 1803

Hey - that's pretty neat!

MDHZ

Funny talkers make Hulk's brain hurt! Hulk SMASH funny talkers!

Joined: 02 Feb 2008 Posts: 348

Joined: 07 Jun 2008 Posts: 166 Location: Toronto, Canada

Joined: 18 Mar 2008 Posts: 291 Location: Washington, USA

you should post the plans (if you're not going for patent) and let other's have a crack at making some! Those are awesome!

WC