Making a Monotread Cycle

 Monotread Cycle

Inspiration

I was painting some miniatures last week, and the idea for a new faction for Star Mogul came to me.  As with the monotread robot and monotread truck, I used empty tape spools a friend of mine had given me.

Materials

The hub I used for this project was about the size of a regular plastic hub off of a tape dispenser.  In addition, I used a plastic ornament from Hobby Lobby, which comes in two halves, a large plastic bowl, also from Hobby Lobby, a hatch from a Games Workshop tank kit, the tread from a SGT York AA tank, and bits from my bits box.

In the picture, half of one of the ornaments can be seen - I have obviously cut out some circles from the ornament, two of which can be seen in the picture. The hub for the monotread is shown, as are two of the discs I cut from the large plastic bowl.  The one I purchased was purple, as can be seen.  The hatch from the Games Workshop kit can also be seen - I cut it in half so that I could use half on either side of the cycle.

I had to cut the knobs off of the tracks so that the track would fit flat against the hub.  I used a pair of nippers to accomplish the task.

After cutting off the knobs, I had to grind the stubs down so that the tracks would be flat.  I used a rotary tool to grind with a circular bit.

After I had prepared the tread, I superglued one end of the track to the hub, and cut the track to fit.  I then glued the rest of the track to the hub.











The Finished Monotread Cycle

 The finished cycle turned out like I wanted, but it took me longer to make it than I had hoped.  It probably took longer because I was working on the monotread cycle, monotread truck, and monotread robot at the same time.  On this model, I used the sides I had cut from the Christmas ornament from Hobby Lobby because it was more convex than the bowl.  I will make one using the sides cut from the bowl at a later date.  At $2.99 for either the ornament or the bowls, each is a very good purchase.  These will make a nice change for my gaming table, even though the Salvage Dog Truck is highly recommended.