Disassembling The Wheels

I decided to work on one wheel at a time.  I could tell from the way the wheels were coming apart that Grandpa used a spline or homemade biscuit joint for the outer portion of the wheel.  I also knew that the spokes were held in place by very tiny pins of wood. 

In our family, rightly or wrongly, it seems we had a "thing" for putting rubber bands around the outside of the wheels of these wagons.  My wagon had them when I first brought it home from my Mom & Dad's house where it resided for many years.  My cousin's wagon also had them on the wheels, too.  The unfortunate part of that is that with age, the natural rubber first becomes sticky, and then it becomes brittle, adhering to the wood. 

Before anything, I scraped the brittle rubber off with an Exacto knife, being careful not to gouge the wood.  As I removed the rubber and paint, I noticed that while the whole wagon and the hub and spokes of the wheel are oak, the rim of the wheel was bamboo!  Lucky me, that makes soaking the bamboo to reshape it into a circle much easier.  I also noticed some missing splinters from the bamboo.  Very tiny and very thin.  These are mostly around the holes my grandfather drilled into the bamboo.  This is typical when drilling through bamboo.  I gently scraped out the wood putty too.

Next I soaked the whole wheel for several hours to loosen the glue.  I put register marks on the spokes, rim, and spline so I make sure I get the orientation back correctly when I reassemble it.  It loosened faster than I expected.  I was able to remove the pins, spline, and remaining glue easily.  But soaking swelled the spokes so I cannot immediately reglue everything in place.  I have to let the spoke and hub shrink back to normal by drying out.  The bamboo will remain soaking to further soften it before final reshaping.  I figure in a few days, I may be able to try a dry fit to see how it looks.  So no posts until then