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JennyMo

SRB Cage Racer - aka. Mjolnir (the heavy metal Hammer)

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Jack is back working on Desmond now, but he just wanted to show you a couple of little tweaks he made to the Cage Racer this week...

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photo. Nyloc front wheel nuts replaced with acorn-head M4 nuts (with blue thread-lock)...

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photo. ...same at the rear - we like things that match ;o)

 

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photo. spare wheel spinner (originally an M3 wing-nut) beefed up with short lengths of alloy tube, filled with solder...

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photo. ...and then painted black of course!

 

And finally (for now):

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photo. Jack was particularly pleased with his rear lamp lenses painted with Tamiya translucent red.

 

Plus a couple of photos I hadn't added before:

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photo. underside of the custom aluminium chassis plate.

 

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photo. Kelly can still drive even without the body/cage fitted - this was the concession I made so that battery changes and other servicing was more simple - the body is simply held on with 4 x M2.5 screws through the chassis floor.

 

It's all in the details right? ;o)

Jx

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On 22 February 2018 at 9:51 PM, NameUnchanged said:

Lovely build 

any interest in building a bumper for the front ? 

Hi Name' - not really to be honest - I've always preferred my models not to have a traditional bumper on the front (other than the shorty ones on the WR-02 chassis), and on the SRB especially, I love having the tube-work on display...

That is not to say I couldn't perhaps incorporate some sort of scale 'nose' on this build, but it wouldn't be a full width bumper - more of a narrow skid-plate/nose cone perhaps - in fact early on in this build I did wonder about fitting a scale [working] winch behind an angled skid-plate, much as you can get for the regular Twin Hammers?

I might play with that option in the future, we'll see ;o)

Jenny x

 

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16 hours ago, JennyMo said:

Jack is back working on Desmond now, but he just wanted to show you a couple of little tweaks he made to the Cage Racer this week...

i-nz7g5cL-XL.jpg

photo. Nyloc front wheel nuts replaced with acorn-head M4 nuts (with blue thread-lock)...

Yum!

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Just a very quick update to this thread (while I busy myself juggling three different crawlers at the moment!) - these scale bake discs just arrived in the post, and they are too good not to share with you all!

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photo. pukka aluminium brake rotors designed to fit the 6-bolt SLW hubs I have fitted on the Cage Racer for the 1.9 Vanquish Method Roost wheels.

 

Unfortunately the Cage Racer is currently boxed up for storage (on a pallet in a warehouse in the UK) so it might take me some time to get these fitted on - together with a selection of Tamiya decals I've been amassing over the past few months (from both the Re-re Buggy Champ and Hornet) - so stand by for a showroom and thread update in the new year!

Jenny x

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Just a quick follow up from the post above...

Once I got back to the UK I dug the Cage Racer out of storage, hoping to fit the new disc rotors on - only to find they were about 1mm too large in diameter to clear the internal bolts that hold the two halves of the rims together.

Fortunately I know a guy with a lathe who could skim them down - although due to the fact they were already drilled with vent holes, I had to actually take 1.5mm off the radius (therefore -3mm diameter) to get a smooth edge again, and forfeit one ring of the vents:

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So what were technically 360mm discs in 1:1 scale are now 330mm discs - they still look great from the inside (where you tend to see them anyway on this open-wheel buggy), but the solid centre of the Method Roost wheel design means they are not quite as visible from the outside now:

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But then that is unfortunately the compromise having bolt-together (internal bead-lock) wheels means in this scale I suppose...

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They still look killer, and that's the main thing of course!

More soon - the car is all boxed up again for shipping, so hopefully by the end of February (back in the US) I'll be in a position to finally cut and fit all the decals I've amassed.

Jenny x

PS. It's worth noting that had I elected to fit the Vanquish centre hub covers that came with these wheels, then the discs would have fitted on without the need to modify them - as the thickness of the hub flange was enough that the edge of the disc then cleared the bolt flanges inside the wheels - however, this meant increasing the track width of the car by 10mm (5mm per side)* which I felt was too much. This way, the track is only increased by the width of the discs themselves - 1.2mm per side.

*plus I would also have needed to buy correspondingly longer scale acorn bolts too.

 

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Now that my collection is unpacked here in the US, I've been slowly working my way through a series of updates to my existing builds, as well as juggling two news ones (three if you count the only recently finished YJ Jeep too of course) - and with my classic Tamiya trio* installed in what has now been dubbed "Tamiya Towers" (an Ikea Fabrikor glass cabinet), it was time to look at each one in turn...

*note. Having decided to sell various vehicles from over the years before moving house, I elected to keep just three Tamiya [chassis] based vehicles - the ones I considered were 'classics' of the brand - an SRB of course, an M-series (in this instance the M-06 RWD) and a WR-02 wheelie.

Ta-Mater has already has hidden/magnetic front body mounts fitted, together with wing-mirrors and some lovely scale number plates (sorry, 'licence plates' now I'm here in the USA ;o) - and which I finally consider is finished now, so the next in line was the SRB Cage Racer:

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photo. I also bought a set of engraved plates for the SRB too - turns out this one did scrape through the CA DMV inspection! ;o)

 

Although I've been happy enough with my custom alloy chassis and the eventual 'tombstone' rear shock mount, I did feel the chassis might benefit from a little more stiffness, so bought a genuine Tamiya SRB chassis brace plate, and fitted that too:

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photo. this brace plate effectively sandwiches the rear gearbox assembly between the alloy chassis plate above, making for a very rigid structure.

As I've mentioned a number of times earlier in this thread - it was always my intention to keep this build 'raw' - ie. without any paint wherever possible, instead letting the high metal content of the chassis (and body panels) speak for themselves - and while I've incorporated a number of what can be considered 'scale' details such as the Knight Customs engine, Yeah Racing seatbelts, Vanquish Method wheels & BFGoodrich MT tyres, detailed OME shocks, and not least an animated Krazy Kelly as a driver who actually steers with her right arm - I've always felt this vehicle was still more a homage to the late 70s/early 80s SRBs than a true scaler build?

However, while I love the bare industrial nature of the aluminium body panels I fitted to the [plastic] Twin Hammers cage-work, I couldn't help but wonder what this might look like graphic'd up like a genuine desert race buggy - so my quest began to find some suitable decals, the only proviso is that they had to be genuine Tamiya ones to maintain the theme of this being my 'ultimate SRB'...

I'd had a set of Hornet and Super Champ decals in the cupboard for a while now, so finally took the plunge with some scissors - and was pleased at just how well the Super Champ decals could actually be made to fit the panels after all - not least as this would tie-in with the whole SRB thing rather nicely of course...

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photo. ultimately more beach-buggy than Baja racer perhaps?

However, while this eventual layout still allowed plenty of the aluminium panel-work to remain visible (which I considered important), something was bugging me... perhaps it was the curvy nature of the stripes in comparison to the otherwise rather angular body styling?

If I'm honest though, it was because whatever I did, I kept on comparing it to the set of Mitsubishi Pajero Wheelie decals I had left over (from my niece's CW-01 build), which seemed to fit almost perfectly along each flank!

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photo. the Sonauto logos even worked well on the bonnet too, plus the blue & red combo matches Kelly's jacket and seatbelt!

I'm always of the mindset that if/when something looks right, then it probably IS right - and so there was only one thing for it, dump the beach-buggy stripes after all, and go for the retro 1983 Dakar look instead!

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photo. trimming the original Pajero Wheelie decals down to fit the Twin Hammers side panels.

cont.

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cont.

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photo. to try and get as neat a finish as possible around each mounting screw I used a hole-punch to cut a perfect circle, and also trimmed the decals very close to the edge of the printed colour.

 

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photo. similarly for the bonnet stripes, I modified the Sonauto rear wheel-arch [on the Pajero] decals, and cut my own additional thin blue stripes from off-cuts of the side panel stripes.

 

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photo. I do like these Hardman Chassis Bodyworks decals you get in the Wild Willy 2 kits - I have one on the front of Desmond, and had one on the Fro-Sco nose cone too.

 

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photo. the overall effect is racy, but not too fussy... however, with those French logos, this particular buggy is now a long way from Baja of course!

 

I've already wired up the head and tail lights too, so all that is left to do now is tiding the wiring routing in the cabin and fabricate a transmission tunnel (probably using styrene covered in scale checker-plate) to hide the cables as best as possible...

More soon!

Jenny x

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Well done! I thought the use of the hole-punch was particularly clever.

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5 hours ago, Grastens said:

Well done! I thought the use of the hole-punch was particularly clever.

Thank you - yes, I was wondering how to do that, particularly on this build that has a number of surface mounted screw heads - and considered that a typical hole punch hole would give enough 'jiggle' room to lay the graphics down, while still looking neat.

for info. I used the single pliers kind of punch, so you can see exactly where you're cutting the hole through the ring - and found the thickness of the Tamiya backing paper and vinyl produces a lovely clean cut too - very satisfying!

I'm still debating whether to add a couple of sponsor decals - particularly on the front wheel-arch return panels for example - but I am thinking less-is-more on something like this?

Also, Lisa mentioned that the leading edge of each side panel graphic (in front of the race number boards) looks like part of the Union Jack... I like that ;o)

Jenny x

 

 

 

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A couple more photos I forgot to include in my showroom update originally:

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photo. This shows the one-piece alloy chassis I designed and [hand] cut - including the folded rear wheel-arch liners, and the added SRB chassis brace to increase stiffness between the rear sub-frame/gearbox and chassis mount.

 

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photo. The chassis can actually be run without the body, with Kelly driving/steering (and even the headlights still work!) - just four screws hold the body to the chassis, and the rear lights have their own connector to the main loom.

 

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photo. I was so pleased when I realised just how well the Tamiya Pajero Wheelie decals would not only fit the side panels, but also tie the existing colour combo (blue, red and yellow) together!

Jx

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Any chance of getting a video of the car running? Would be great to see it throwing up some dust or even sand rooster tails :)

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1 hour ago, Tizer said:

Any chance of getting a video of the car running? Would be great to see it throwing up some dust or even sand rooster tails :)

 

Whaaaaat?!!! - and get it all dirty - you must be mad!!!

Hee hee, more seriously, yes - it would be fun to get some video of my builds in action I know... so I'll see what I can do about rigging up a camera (I like that method some people have used with a monopod/stick attached to the bottom of their transmitter, so you can get a GoPro mounted at essentially 1:10th scale eye level footage for example), and find a suitable spot.

Jenny x

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13 hours ago, JennyMo said:

Whaaaaat?!!! - and get it all dirty - you must be mad!!!

A clean buggy is not a buggy :D:lol:

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Just for your Tizer...

The SRB Cage Racer also got a quick outing at the RC4WD West Coast Scale Challenge this past weekend:

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note. for some reason the forum appears to display the YouTube link in mobile [device] format, but you can click full screen to display it properly on a desktop.

Jx

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On 5/2/2019 at 5:11 PM, JennyMo said:

for info. I used the single pliers kind of punch, so you can see exactly where you're cutting the hole through the ring - and found the thickness of the Tamiya backing paper and vinyl produces a lovely clean cut too - very satisfying!

I thought I was the busdriver???

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