Monowheels are nothing new, first being patented in the middle of the 19th century, but never really went mainstream due to, well, quite a lot of obvious issues. We’ve got problems with forward visibility, stability, steering, especially at speed, and the hilariously-named ‘gerbiling’ where the rider can spin around inside the wheel akin to a gerbil in a wheel. Fun times! But obviously that didn’t stop [The Q] from adding to the monowheel corpus by building one out of wood.
Sometimes people take on these projects simply for a laugh, like this bright orange one we covered a while back. Sometimes they’re powered by a motor, be it electric or internal combustion. Some are hand-cranked, some are pedal-powered, its all been tried.
[The Q] is no stranger to interesting wooden builds, and this video from a year ago shows him building a very simple direct-pedal-drive monowheel. The vast majority of the structure is wood, glued and screwed the old-fashioned way, with a bit of metalwork where necessary. We particularly like the simple counterweight solution which doubles up as a parking brake. It may look a little ungainly, but we can’t think of a simpler solution that would make much sense.
The build video after the break is six and half minutes of well executed videography for your viewing pleasure.
Awesome build, I wonder if it will turn if you tilt/lean to the side? looks quite heavy..
Me: “I’m pretty busy, not sure I can spare 6.5 minutes right now… I’ll watch the start and then skip to the end”
Me, ~6.5 minutes older: “Wow, that videography was good”
Those two boards extending out front could be an attachment point for a pony.
But the passenger/driver would risk getting “rained on” by the exhaust falling off the wheel.
Instead, the boards could be extended out the rear of the conveyance to attach a pony and avoid that problem,
but that would be putting the cart before the horse.
When I first saw it I thought if was a monowheel rickshaw, and that might be the way to go with it, you could lighten it and no worry about ponies doing what ponies do.
+1
Odd methods of construction, not apparently symmetrical or particularly simplified
Reminds me of the old spool racer:
http://toymakingdad.blogspot.com/2010/08/making-spool-racer-aka-spooldozer.html
Cut an angle into those front pieces. Squared off like they are, they’ll catch on anything and cause an abrupt stop.
Cut up old tyres into long strips and nail them to the outside circumference for added tread.