Bob, you obviously just bolted your tank together and did not craft the individual pieces, had you started from scratch I can assuer you it would have taken far longer.
Also as you can possible see from my avitar I have been known to mak ethe odd traction engine wheel and they are not "cast". The rim will need to be fabricated as rolling tee section is not that practical, spokes will need to be cut either manually or water/laser cut. The hubs machined as again it is not really practical to cast the spokes into the hubs although I have seen it done on models, then there are the strakes to be cut, bent to the helix angle, drilled and rivited on. You can then build a jig to assemble the weel and finally rivit it all together.
Having spent probably in excess of 1500hrs on each of my traction engines I do know what it takes sto build a model from scratch not bolt together a kit. ( no offence to kit builders) but its a different ball game.
J