A wheelwright is a craftsman who builds or repairs wooden wheels. The word is the combination of "wheel" and the word "wright" (which comes from the Old English word "wryhta", meaning a worker - as also in shipwright and arkwright). This occupational name became the English surname Wright, and also appears in surnames like Cartwright and Wainwright.
These tradesmen made wheels for carts (cartwheels), wagons (wains), traps and coaches. They also made the wheels, and often the frames, for spinning wheels, and the belt drives of steam powered machinery. First constructing the hub (called the nave), the spokes and the rim segments called felloes, and assembling them all into a unit working from the center of the wheel outwards. Most wheels were made from wood, but other materials have been used, such as bone and horn, for decorative or other purposes. Some earlier construction for wheels such as those used in early chariots were bound by rawhide that would be applied wet and would shrink whilst drying, compressing and binding the woodwork together. After many centuries wheels evolved to be straked with iron, a method of nailing iron plates onto the felloes to protect against wear on the ground and to help bind the wheel together. Straking was considered to be a less skilled practice and could be done with less knowledge and equipment, this made the wheels easier to service without the need for a blacksmith.
