Hockey Puck Wheel for Cutting Edge Craft Cart

In this article I'll show how you can use a hockey puck as a replacement for a 3-inch wheel. That's how I repaired a really nice craft cart that was missing a wheel. Here's the finished repair:

We won a craft supplies lot in a local estate auction. Included in the lot was a rather nice Cutting Edge collapsible roll-around tote, which has an extending handle and lots of pockets. My wife was eager to use that for storing craft supplies.

The tote looks to be in fine condition,right?

Sure it is, until you look at the other end of the axle.

This model has been discontinued for some time, and if replacement wheels were ever available, they aren't now. My first thought was to 3D print something. I figured I could make a pair of identical half-rims (using PLA or PTFE filament) that screw together, capturing a tire made from TPU. That would have been an interesting project, and I'm pretty sure it would have worked well. It would have involved a lengthy FreeCAD session at the computer, though.

One day I decided I would work on that project, but first I'd make really sure I couldn't just buy a reasonably-priced wheel. To that end I pulled the axle and brought the wheel to where my wife an I were having our morning coffee.

I took some measurements, and did a whole bunch of web searches. The wheel is three inches in diameter and just about an inch thick.

As I was doing that my wife said "You know what... I think that wheel is the same size as a hockey puck."

As a self-respecting Canadian (though admittedly not a sports fan) I should have thought of that myself, but I am thankful she did. It turned out to be a GREAT idea. I had a few old pucks in my workshop, because just like plastic cutting boards they make good raw materials for a lot of projects. Sure enough...

Perfect!

I figured the project deserved a new puck, but just to try it I knocked a 5/16" hole in the one I had. That's about 7.9mm, and the hole in the existing wheel is 8mm (axle is 7mm diameter).

The puck I drilled fits nicely on the axle, but I figured over time there would be abrasion in the hole, so it needed bushings. Skateboard bearings would work really well (search YouTube for "hockey puck wheel" and you'll see people doing that), but hey let's not get completely carried away. Bushings will be plenty strong and smooth enough for this little tote. It turned out I had bought some nylon bushings on eBay for another project, and they're a good size for this project (10mm long, 8mm inside diameter).

Now i just needed the clip that holds the wheel on the axle, a washer, and of course a nice new puck.

Well obviously, I thought, the cheapest place to get a new puck is going to be Canadian Tire. SKU 083-0032-6 is the one, for $1.99 CDN. Not so fast, though... Lee Valley Tools sells pucks too, as it turns out, with suggestions for ways you can use them around the workshop. It's item 88K5902, and they're cheaper than Canadian Tire, only $1.40!

Since I was heading over there to get some pucks, I figured I should also get a measuring tool to center the hole accurately. Their center finder item 60N2015 is $7.50, so I picked that up at the same time.

The instructions for the center finder say to draw two perpendicular lines and drill where they cross. I think it's better to do three lines, at about equal angles (60° apart). That way if the lines don't all intersect at the same point (within a very small tolerance) you'll know something missed. Then you can add more lines until you get three at a single point.

I got close enough to a single point with the first three lines, so I guess I did it right.

Before drilling it's best to use a center punch. Otherwise your drill bit will wander, throwing away some accuracy.

Now we need to drill nice and straight through the puck, right at the intersection point of your lines. First we'll drill a small hole all the way through, with the puck sitting on something reliably perpendicular to the drill bit. I used the jaws on my drill press vise.

That way you can drill in from either side later and not miss. That's important because we need to inset the nylon bushings by a fairly controlled amount. To that end I dug out a step drill.

The outside diameter of my bushings is 14mm, which is near enough 9/16". Some day all tools will be metric, but I only have the ones with American units. I put some blue painter's tape on the 5/8 part of the bit, so it would be easier to see when I'm on the right step while drilling.

I was a bit concerned that this particular bit has shallow steps, but that didn't seem to matter. Some people say you should freeze pucks before drilling them. I didn't do that (and in fact the temperature was on the high side), but the step drill did a nice job. The holes turned out pretty clean.

For this particular project the idea was to get the outboard bushing nearly flush with the puck, and let the inboard one stick out a bit, to match the original wheel. Incidentally I found the trick for inserting the bushings is to use a bench vise, inserting one and then the other. That way things stay parallel, whereas if you try to insert both bushings at the same time everything wobbles. In retrospect trying to insert them both at the same time was a pretty dumb idea.

At one point I thought a genius idea would be to put the original and fabricated wheel in the vice, to judge when the bushings were protruding by the right amount. Then I realized that the rounded part of the original wheel has a hole in it, so the washer on the axle is set in about level with the tire, not the peak of the hub. So that wasn't a great idea. I could have used just the right shim for that, but really just eyeballing the protrusion was good enough.

Now we're ready to install the wheel. I put the original wheel back on the axle, and inserted the axle back into the channel in the cart.

That box on the left side is an assortment of "E-clips" I bought on Amazon (ASIN B079B9X3KC, $16.20 CDN). I figured they'd be handy for future repair projects. The 6mm size was a perfect fit for the slot in the axle. I needed a washer too, but that part was easy.

The clip was easy to install using pliers.

All done!

i put 30 pounds of weights in the basket and drove the thing around for a while. The wheel is working nicely. It runs just as smoothly as the original one. Time will tell, I guess, but so far so good. My wife is happy that she can now use it for its intended purpose.