Wheelchair Construction - Step by Step

Step 1: The Chair

For a wheelchair, you need a chair. He selected the least expensive chair he could find - a molded plastic patio chair. Perfect! It's waterproof. It's durable. It's comfortable to sit in for long periods. It's washable. It's made in many countries. You can drill holes in the arms and legs so it can be mounted on the frame.

Step 2: Wheels

A wheelchair needs wheels. He selected 24 inch bicycle wheels. For added durability he selected bicycle tires made for mountain bikes. The difference between the ones we use and those on millions of bikes made around the world is a special wheelchair hub. Ours is considerably stronger. The mountain bike tires allow our chair to traverse rocky, uneven, and even muddy terrain that would be impossible in a regular wheelchair.

We are frequently asked about using inflatable instead of hard tires. Inflatable tires allow movement over terrain that would be impossible with a hard tire. There is almost no place on earth where the tools to repair a flat tire aren't available.

Step 3: Castors

For a wheelchair you need castors for the front legs. Don found
8-inch diameter castors that are inexpensive but rugged enough for this wheelchair.

Step 4: Frame

For the frame, we started with steel conduit because Don could bend it himself. Once we got something close, he took it to a steel fabrication company in Los Angeles called Mark VI Metal Products (www.markivmetal.com).

There, Gonzo Viana used his creativity and his years of experience to turn this crude design into something that could be mass-produced. The bends in the single piece frame follow the contours of the molded plastic chair. At the same time, the frame is something that can be made relatively inexpensively.

Step 5: Assembly

These parts, plus a simple footrest, a few dozen nuts and bolts, and miscellaneous pieces is all that it takes to make one wheelchair.

Another benefit from this design is standardization. There are relatively few parts, so there is little to stock for repair.

The plan is to ship the wheelchair in a kit - for two reasons. One reason is that they take up less space that way. We can pack 550 kits in a standard 40 foot container. The second reason is that in most countries the labor to assemble a kit will be very low. With little training, someone who is good with his or her hands can make three wheelchairs in one hour.

Step 6: Worldwide Availability (Success!)

Don made assembly instructions with photographs so someone who cannot read English can learn to assemble these kits. We supply an assembly tool kit (5 simple wrenches and one air pump) with every 20 wheelchair kits.

We verified that volunteers in developing countries can easily manage wheelchair assembly. We shipped 43 wheelchairs in kit form to Luanda, Angola. Our assembly team consisted of 16 young Angolan volunteers using simple hand tools.

We have shipped about 23,000 wheelchairs to date; to 33 different countries.

This verifies that volunteers can indeed assemble the wheelchair kits. 

Design improvements

2006 is such a year of celebration for Free Wheelchair Mission and one of the best reasons is because we've found a new wheelchair supplier and they've made upgrades to the wheelchair, making it more effective and comfortable for a larger number of users.

Among the improved design features are side panels placed alongside the seat of the wheelchair, giving more protection from anything thrown up from the ground by the movement of the chair. 

The wheel has been fitted with a hand-rim to make the propelling of the chair easier and cleaner; the footrest has been repositioned for easier entry into the chair and more comfort while in the chair, the brakes are better, and the axle is larger, creating more strength and durability and propulsion once the chair is set in motion. The wheelchair is still relatively lightweight and is now more rugged and suitable to the locations where it's being utilized. The most exciting part about these new features is that they do not cost more and we can still deliver a chair for $41.17 and ALSO include a bicycle tire pump and a couple of tire patches with the wheelchair.

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