The multitude of wheels available on the market today is truly staggering, especially when compared with what consumers had to choose from even 10 years ago. Sophisticated CNC machines are able to make seemingly limitless wheel patterns and designs. However, don't take that to mean that making aluminum rims is as simple as entering some coordinates, plugging them into a machine with a chunk of aluminum mounted, and waiting for it to become a wheel. There is a lot going on behind the scenes, and we were recently invited to take a peek at what goes on to make aluminum rims and forged wheels. Steve Medina, owner of True Forged wheels showed us around the facility in Anaheim that manufactures his wheels. The process is fascinating.
Aluminum Rims: Two-Piece vs. Three-Piece
Two-piece wheels consist of a wheel centersection that is welded to the rim. That's the process shown in these pictures. To make three-piece aluminum rims, the center is made the same way, but it is sandwiched between an inner and outer rim. The assembly then is either bolted or riveted together. The advantage of three-piece forged wheels was that the customer could have wheels made in any offset he specified-the wheel maker would just use differing widths of inner and outer rim sections to come up with the combination that yielded the correct offset. With the same manufacturing process True Forged Wheels uses for its two-piece wheels, you can achieve the same results.
