Homemade Beach Wheels

What do you think of this approach?

many have tried - few (if any) have succeeded

you can search this site and other catamaran sites for all the dozens and dozens of people whom have tried to build a better mousetrap (or cheaper) - in the end ... most fail

most fail

The tires on the beech wheels for $700 or so shipped are 20 x 12 x 8. So is there any explanation where 2" more in width of tire works, and where a 10" tire would not work? We are only talking about 2 tires and and a steel rod.

They say, 20" ATV tires comprise beech wheels. Problem with ATV wheels, the rims are not what is needed. Hence, the beech wheels people came up with their own rim. Tires are common.
I say, simply use a common rim, with a common tire.
There's not too many that have made wheels here from any search and even include: ATV tires are what is needed.
http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=forums&func=viewtopic&topic=2037

Since I'm in need of wheels for another boat project, not as wide an axle than what is used for cat, I'm inclined to buy a set to experiment. I know these wheels will work for my other boat. It is unknown if they'll work for cat. But I'm thinking they'll work. Next time you are in tractor supply, look at the 20 x 10 x 8

This is the tire needed, same one on cat trax but, try and find a 4 x 4 8" hub for it, is the problem. Might take more research. Perhaps a golf cart rim would work. This tire suppler had no idea where to get a rim. You need a rim that will accept a 1" bearing bore for your axle.

http://www.tires-easy.com/cgi-bin/rshop.pl?dsco=135&details=Ordern&typ=R-169485&ranzahl=4&nichtweiter=1&Breite=21x12.00&pk_campaign=sortpricecom&wt_ref=&ID=sortpricecom&wt_t=1426201200000&wt_ga=&wt_kw=&wt_mc=sortpricecom

You need 9.5" WIDE x 8" dia rim with 4 x 4 bolt pattern for this tire. These tires are also used on J cub aircraft for tundra tires. the matco aircraft rims would be too heavy/ expensive.. etc. There are 7 and 8" wide rims, that MIGHT work.

Edited by goodsailing on Apr 02, 2015 - 08:01 AM.

I will be impressed if you can create a product as good for less money
but it is possible (maybe) 🙂

you seem to have a lot more time to dedicate to this project than i would - i am cheap but my time is the most valuable thing to me.

will you sail in salt or fresh water?

With googles help and knowledge of terms (idler hub etc) I'll spend an hour to save $500 any day. That's almost a price of a good fixer upper cat or a whole season worth of gas to and from the water. Salt so Sealed bearing hubs. Switch to 1" OD aluminum tube. In fact, if I post supplers/products here via links, one might only spend 2 minutes getting materials and 30 minutes drilling holes in the tube to put the cotter pins... not to mention getting the rubber on the rims :-O

added: That any lawnmower place could do if you can't do that yourself without those motor cycle tire wrenchs and goo and that big strap to wrench around the center of the tire to compress the sidewalls up against the rim so that it will hold air to fill it.

Edited by goodsailing on Apr 02, 2015 - 10:22 AM.

Split this off of the "Plastic vs Rubber" beach wheels topic.

Please do come up with a recipe for easily building cheap beach wheels.

Damon: You are a saint!

rattlenhum wrote: Damon: You are a saint!

More :teufel: than saint :lachen:

But I really am interested to see if someone can come up with a homemade beach wheel recipe that would perform the job of the real Cat Trax on soft sand. If I had the money I'd put up a prize like the Jules Verne Trophy awarded to the designer that can come up with a successful recipe.

Trophy Requirements:
1. Cost of ALL parts and pieces involved no more than 50% of equivalent Cat Trax.

2. All materials (parts and pieces) must be commonly available to the public at a hardware store or through online purchase.

3. Time to assemble complete set of wheels from above no more than 8 hours for the average (not professional mechanic) sailor.

4. No special machine tools needed beyond what can reasonably be expected for a sailor to already own. (things like power drill, screw drivers, wrenches, saber saw, tin snips or most hand tools are OK, drill press, table saws, hydraulic press, welding equipment etc. are not)

5. Performance must be on-par with real Cat Trax when used on a 400 pound catamaran on deep soft sand for effort required to roll, loading/unloading, and turn radius.

Here are some issues I see over and over that make homemade designs fail. (there are others)

1. Weight, home built beach wheels tend to either be too fragile or way too heavy.

2. Cost, the rare cases of reasonably performing home made beach wheels cost as much or much more (especially when considering they usually require machine tools) as the much disparaged price of the genuine article.

3. Performance, real Cat Trax beach wheels roll like magic across all surfaces including the deep super soft sugar sand of the gulf coast. I've never seen a pair of homemade wheels that work in deep soft sand. Some work well on asphalt or hard pack sand.

You want my receipe... 😆
The tire is a given. Source 8 x 9 aluminum rim with hub/ 3/4 or 1" bearing. The problem is getting the bolt pattern of the wheel and hub to match. 1" x OD aircraft tubing is $8/ft x 8ft. I'm 90% there...

Edited by goodsailing on Apr 02, 2015 - 05:54 PM.

Not sure if this was lost or not. I need a 2 ft wide beech wheel dolly for another boat. So consequently, having two axles, one 8ft long and one 2ft long using these same wheels with the same hub would suit my purpose for the cat and the boat I'm building. Buying the cat trax for the cat, wouldn't work for me with my other boat, so is the reason I'm investigating DIY beach wheels that will work for both my boats. Just thought I'd put this in there for reference.

goodsailing wrote: You want my receipe... 😆
The tire is a given. Source 8 x 9 aluminum rim with hub/ 3/4 or 1" bearing. The problem is getting the bolt pattern of the wheel and hub to match. 1" x OD aircraft tubing is $8/ft x 8ft. I'm 90% there...

Forgive me for being skeptical, I'm rooting for you, but frankly don't think you have a chance in H of making the price point.

price point

What exactly is the price point of Cat Trax shipped. I've read $700. Is this correct? I'm seeing tires $85, Hubs and wheels $120 and steel tubing $80. ... with the only machine tool a drill is necessary. Unless of course you buy collets with set screws and then the only tool needed is a scewdriver.

Added: then there's the cost of beach front property where you can even use beach wheels--Priceless! 😆 (I wonder if most cats are owned by people who have beach front property anyway, as finding a beach to launch a cat are few and far between.)

Edited by goodsailing on Apr 03, 2015 - 05:47 AM.

goodsailing wrote:
What exactly is the price point of Cat Trax shipped. I've read $700. Is this correct?

Factory prices of the Cat Trax are here.
http://www.floridasailcraft.com/CatProducts.htm

Standard trax without cradles are $459, the "$700" number comes from rounding up with $579 price of the trax with cradles plus I guess a lot of shipping.

So the target price of the "Homemade Cat Trax" trophy is $230 worth of materials.

FYI, for your H18 cradles are very nice and make the trax easier to use, but not required, I've never had cradles. Most of the modern boats require them to prevent damage to the bottoms but the H18 is built so strong it's not a problem.

Why half the price of Cat Trax? The above pricing is $285 using the nanco rubber. OK then use the Carlisle's tires which are rated at more weight limit that come with rims from tractor supply-- not sure the pulling or pushing differential between a few more inches of rubber on the tire etc. That's $190 rim and tires(20 x 10 x 8), hubs 1" shaft $40, steel tubing $80=$310, plus you have pins and washers.
Or wait for club cadet wheels and tires to come up on CL for cheap, or buy used set the Cattrax--(looked into that but the guy said, cracks in rubber and hardly held air etc.)

So wait for parts nancos/hubs/rims at $285, or drive over to tractor supply and buy the two 20 x 10 x 8's complete wheels. Order steel which you have to order anyway, I'm 1 hr from shop where there is steel.. for $310 total build. No welding or machining parts.

OK I'm not winning any trophy but I might save a couple of hundred, plus get different axle length for my other one off boat I'm building.
I'll defer to other entrants for the grand prize

BTW--what is the prize? --

It's really gonna be difficult to out do CatTrax for less than the real deal. I know a guy who must have spent weeks of work and a lot of money on building a Hobie 18 trampoline when he could've just ordered a brand new one for $220. At some point you have to trust a professional company that's already done the research and development to put out a proven long lasting durable product. If for some reason you can build light weight tough beach wheels that can carry a heavy load for under $300?? Open up a business!! You'll get rich 😉

building a Hobie 18 trampoline

DIY Tramp involves precision sewing, tayloring, setting gromments , grommet tool etc. to get it right. I would not venture with such a project unless I was in the upholstering business and had tools. Bolting on an idler hub to a wheel you bought ready made, and running a steel tube through the bore and inserting a pin to hold the wheel in place is considerable less effort than manufacturing a trampoline. Not the same DIY project. You will note however I did go to junk yard, got seat belt webbing and replaced the foot straps to my tramp. I try to stay positive. If not, what do we have to look forward to. Thanks for all the help and encouragement...

Um.... Trampoline was made out of wood. Hahahahaha

goodsailing wrote: Why half the price of Cat Trax?

Why not? That's the rule for my my mythical trophy, and because if you are saving less than that then why bother?

Just remember, steel pipe is heavy, steel rims and hubs are very heavy, and lawn tires are heavy.

So build your best effort, show us the cost list, weigh your beach wheels, and then use them to move your Hobie 18 around on very soft sand and report back.

Also, the target weight is 40 pounds total without cradles. I weighed my old set with knobby wheels and several cans of green slime inside and they were 43.5 pounds (no cradles).

Anyone got a brand new set and a digital fish scale handy? I could have sworn mine are much heavier than others I've used (they even have a handle welded on) but Murrays told me a new set weights "about" 40 pounds.

Weight on the axle, not weight of axle
Why 3.5 lbs more means failure where 3.5 less lbs means success
Why challenge targets determined after real prices furnished. Seems invitation to challenge is an invitation to fail. Why's that. We were already failing before you decided to start the challenge, which is why I'm not participating. How could I. I was failed upon the start of the challenge.
Damon, you won!

Side note: I'm building a two hull outrigger boat. I need an axle 3 ft long with two wheels to move that hull the reason I'm researching wheels etc. I don't even need beach wheels for the hobie 18 as I'm launching that at a boat ramp. Now it would be nice if the wheels I buy for the outrigger would work for hobie cat but it's not that important at the moment. I already have the tubing for that axle.

All the best.

I must say, I paid full price and shipping for them and they may seem expensive but are worth every penny. I've seen so many bad homemade cat tracks its starting to get hilarious. One of my friends actually has a really good set of homemade tiger tracks, but the wheels leak and they are about 80 lbs. Honestly I the cat tracks I have aren't complicated to make. If something breaks I can source almost every part locally (escept the end pieces and the fire hose rubber, if I need to. However, if I wanted to build a full set and sourced all the parts, the cost would be similar to just buying them from florida sailcraft. Then I would have to spend the time drilling the bits and putting them together. In the long run, I'd rather be sailing. This is one of the few sailboat parts that I would say are not overpriced for what you do. ANdd besides you can use themfor other purposes. I use mine to move my 16' aluminum boat around and float out my rail system for my ski boat. 🙂

If something breaks I can source almost every part locally (escept the end pieces and the fire hose rubber, if I need to.

Where do you get the plastic rims? To fit the nanco 21 12 8 tire? Steel ones are about 8lbs each. Not sure the weight of tire.

goodsailing...just my $.02 for what it's worth. made these almost 10 years ago and haven't had any problems here on our sandy beach.yeah they can pull harder than "official" beach wheels but it works for me

http://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=82521

goodsailing wrote:
Where do you get the plastic rims? To fit the nanco 21 12 8 tire? Steel ones are about 8lbs each. Not sure the weight of tire.

goodsailing, will you be in fresh or salt water? (i asked somewhere else but i can't find it)

Brakish

Mike, plastic dock wheels under consideration...

Built these for my Wave as the full sized wheels rubbed the hulls. Probably could have redrilled the axle and made them adjustable but just wanted to see if I could do it. Got the whole thing done for under a hundred bucks. 22x11-10 ATV wheels and tires off Ebay for 25 bucks (cost 35 to ship), 2"ID aluminum tube...1/16" wall. Wheel hubs were pvc compression fittings. Holes in fittings actually matched the rim. Collars were cutting board material. Wheel mounting bolts were plastic 3/8" toilet seat mounting screws (the rounded nuts actually center the rim to the hub) It went together quickly and I have been pleased with it. The Wave sits on the carpeted 2x6 and the straps are then cinched tight over the top. For my next project I was toying with the idea of a motorized set of beach wheels to move the heavier boats back into our mast up storage area. How about a Rascal motor or wheelchair motor for each wheel controlled by two-way toggle switches for each motor. You would have forward, reverse and toggle steering. Moving a Getaway a hundred yards by yourself takes more balls than I have. So, any ideas?

We have supersoft sand here and I can promise those plastic wheels would sink right down. Even the plastic wheels that Cat Trax makes, with their sweet bearing system, were almost impossible to move across the dune to the beach.

CatsailorMike wrote: goodsailing...just my $.02 for what it's worth. made these almost 10 years ago and haven't had any problems here on our sandy beach.yeah they can pull harder than "official" beach wheels but it works for me

http://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures?g2_itemId=82521