I'd asked this question over at SE Bicycles but they think this is more an engineering question.
The flange on my hub broke and I'm having to get one fabricated. The part is actually a cage that houses an internal gear hub. It will go from looking something like this:
to something like this:
Where I'm at, 5-axis machines are hard to find, and the process will likely involve lathes and drill presses. One engineer even offered to laser cut the flanges and weld them to a tube.
In trying to meet the essentials (number of holes, inner diameter, hub width, cflange width) what are some consierations for keeping this simple yet strong? Do the geometric cut-outs in the center seem to serve a structural purpose such as to allow this cage to expand when tightened as this user suggested ? Or will simply drilling large holes serve as a suitable weight-saving measure? I noticed that the orginal flanges are titled inward ever so slightly and there are similar lip and notches here and there that will have to be plain old 90° angles on mine.
More pictures of the Kindernay Swap Cage can be found here. You'll notice it's bolted on one side and pressed up to a beveled edge on the other side (it will be hard to replicate the angle I'm told).
