I Must Be Lucky!

I bought all the things I'd need to make the brass hoop for the wheels and came home.  I bought extra brass strips because I knew I'd have to fiddle around with it and a couple would be trashed.  First bit of luck is that the brass strips are exactly the width I need, so I don't have to trim them down.  I carefully soldered a lap splice after measuring three or four times to be sure I had the right length marked.  The splice was made to make the hoop the tiniest bit smaller.  I cleaned the surface and applied the patina. 

Unfortunately, the patina rubbed off as I slipped the hoop over the wheel, ruining the paint job.  With a bit of light force, I got it secured around the bamboo.  It looks great!  Now I don't have to worry about the bamboo splice coming undone.  I do have to strip the new paint off of the wheel and repaint it.  But that's a small price to pay for fixing a problem like this.

Funny how the techniques from plumbing (soldering the brass), stained glass (the patina), woodworking, and knowledge of how wheelwrights applied the iron hoop all came together to make this work.  Now only three more to go.