MTFCA Forum

Who makes nice round fellow wood spoke wheels for a 1913? Did Ford ever sell the car with natural wood wheels or was everything painted body color in 1913?

https://mtfca.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=22885

no, painted only

Gleaner wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 20, 2022 9:17 pm

Who makes nice round fellow wood spoke wheels for a 1913? Did Ford ever sell the car with natural wood wheels or was everything painted body color in 1913?

Noah Stutzman
Baltic Ohio
330-897-1391

He won't answer the phone, but DO leave a message and he will call you back usually within 24 hours.

Talk to him about what you need and go from there since you're a bit of a distance. But he's worth the shipping!

Welcome to The Forum Gleaner Ed!
Yes, click the link that Mr Conger put in his post. Good information and an easy read.
Johnson's would be good for you as they're in Kansas IF they still do wheels.

Not to argue with Scott. IF I understand correctly, later on the dealer could take the black paint OFF the spokes.
Spoke color is your choice. The rebuilt wheels on my '18 were varnished only in the 70's and even tho not correct, they're still gorgeous.
To me.

OT: I'm the guy that ended up with the Hey brothers 20-35 green Twin City. That sentence is so OT (off topic) it's nearly in code.

Painted? Absolutely! Color? As yet still argued about.
1913 was a transitional year for Ford color. Were they all blue? Certainly not. Were all of them black? Clearly, no. Fenders were almost certainly black on all standard production cars. Probably most all of 1912 as well.
Early 1913 Bodies may have been blue. Or not. Sales literature and other records disagree a bit. Were some of the cars all black? Probably, and maybe even most of them were all black, maybe even most of the year. Records are not clear and do not all agree with each other, no need to post the quotes all over again. Many of us have read them before.
Sadly, MOST surviving empirical evidence from sixty years ago has been "restored", cleaned and painted over so that it no longer stands as a testimony to what was done originally. General consensus seems to change every few years. I quit try to keep track of it twenty years ago.
There is good reason to believe that blue wheels may have continued well beyond the point of the bodies being all black. It is likely that during 1913, hundreds, maybe thousands of model Ts, may have had black wheels on blue cars, and blue wheels on black cars! How much it matters to this question or not? I do not know. However, a considerable number of era photographs have been found showing pinstripes on the wheels well after pinstripes were dropped from the bodies.
So, more questions than solid answers perhaps. Do what works best for you, with an eye on correctness. Early 1913 cars I would lean to painting blue body and wheels. Really late 1913, I might go all black. Mid 1913 could go any combination I mentioned.

Since Duey mentioned it.
The hobby for too many years has followed fads. Natural finished wheels is one of those fads. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not really against natural finished wheels! Even during Ford's brass era, many dealers would strip the paint and give them a natural finish to please a customer. IT WAS DONE! And some other automobiles did offer some models or options with natural finished wheels. And many after-market wheel suppliers also offered natural finished wheels. So there is the argument that it was done, and therefore isn't really wrong.
It WAS done. But it was NOT common on model Ts.
Me personally? I prefer model T wheels painted the proper color for the year of the car.

Johnson's would be good for you as they're in Kansas IF they still do wheels.

Steve Johnson was in Oklahoma. He hasn't been to Chickasha in several years. Last time I checked his website was still up, but I tried to contact him a couple of times and got no response.

You can't go wrong with Noah Stutzman. I sent him rims and hubs I had picked up at auctions and swap meets and he made nice new wheels for my 1915.

As Wayne says, "natural" wheels are a modern fad. Yes, you could get them in the teens, but they were strictly an after-market thing. I prefer my wheels painted body color, as God and Henry intended.

Do you know of any other Model T's in Sumner County? I think
Cowley County has maybe a dozen, but mine is the only one I ever see being driven.