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JennyMo

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

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OK then, finally the Cage Racer is up and running, so I just had to snap a few photos to celebrate, even though it's still not 100% finished yet...

First of all though, there were a few details to address - Kelly needed a new hat, and since the buggy has no wind-screen, I thought some eye protection would be a good idea too... poor old Jack can't see a thing now of course ;o)

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I then had a few body details to finish off - mount the spare wheel securely:

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photo. Bracket is an odd Tamiya part, plus some 3mm hardware and the base of an aerial mount - perfect to locate the wheel hub.

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photo. spinner was made from an M3 wing-nut, ground down with a Dremel to look a little less 'wing-nutty'.

 

As I've said all along, ideally I wanted to keep this build 6-cell stick-pack compatible as a homage to Tamiya's past - and fortunately there is enough room inside the Twin Hammers Cage for the stick pack to sit snuggly behind the seats:

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Of course it was going to need a cover of some kind wasn't it?

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I'm not saying this is the final version, but it works pretty well and looks suitably scale I thought? (I might incorporate a pair of fuel-filler necks and caps, one on each side). Fundamentally, by being secured to the suspension tower, it means the body can come on and off easily without having to disassemble the seat-belts each time - making battery changes/charging a case of just undoing the four screws in the base of the chassis.

cont.

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cont.

So with the battery and ESC in place under the deck, I hooked up the receiver (in the passenger footwell for the time being) and re-fitted the body - and it runs!

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Nice eh?

Let's have a few more photos!

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Ultimately I will also be wiring up the head and tail lights, plus will have to commit to chopping the wiring and re-soldering everything to try and keep things as tidy as possible... I'll also cover the motor wires with some braided sleeving, of course ;o)

One thing I'm considering is making up a tail for the battery that exits between the rear suspension tower and engine - that way I could charge the car without having to remove the body each time.

I may also replace the current rear deck with a stepped one to give a little more space to the interior under the seat-belt mountings, and maybe add a NOS bottle too ;o) - plus those fuel filler necks I mentioned above. Whether it remains aluminium (foil) or carbon is another consideration...

Oh, and you'll notice that I included a rear number plate holder... hmmmmmmmm, Kelly needs a personal plate I think*

Jx

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*ok, so I couldn't help myself - so far I've come up with three alternatives:

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photo. A little obvious perhaps, but then this is a combination of an SRB and a Twin Hammers...

 

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photo. this one should particularly appeal to the geeks amongst you ;o)

 

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photo. while this one just made me laugh... don't read it out loud ;o)

 

More soon!

Jenny x

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  • Haha 2

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Awesome build!  And I must say thank you for some inspiration to do something similar.  Except I am going 4wd and it won’t have all the fabulous details as yours.

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I love how nerdy everyone on here is - looks like Mjolnir is the clear winner then!

Jx

 

ps. The four thousand dutchmen (ahem), may just have to go on Desmond the 2.2 instead... which is probably more appropriate given it's monster stance ;o)

 

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Tweaking...

OK, so having stared in wonder at my creation for nearly 24 hours now (ahem), I've started to make a few refinements...

I wasn't entirely happy with how the rear load/battery cover was sitting a little high over the battery and above the cage line:

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It isn't terrible of course, and from this angle (above), the gap is similar to the folded up corners/rear wheel arches of the chassis plate, but I felt it would look better if the deck could be dropped below the horizontal tube-work of the cage - not least to give a bit more space around the seat-belt mounts...

Fortunately a bit of jigging with the ESC wiring (and primarily moving the battery connector round behind the suspension tombstone), meant the battery could now sit lower and more horizontal - turns out every mm counts!

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This way I could construct a new cover (out of 1.5mm styrene this time, rather than the 1mm plus 0.5mm chequer-plate pattern sandwiched together), and effectively flip the mounting bracket so the deck cover is now around 7.5mm lower than before - neatly dropping it below the tube-line. Result!

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Now I have to decide whether to cover this in checker-plate (either the plastic stuff I have already, or spring for some pukka aluminium), or else cover it in the carbon-fibre vinyl I used for the roof - which I actually think would not be out of place here? Either way, I'm tempted to add one of Willy's NOS bottles too ;o)

 

I'm also waiting on a set of alternative internal springs for the OME shocks - according to RC4WD, the stock springs are 0.7 weight, and the new ones offer a range including two sets softer (0.3 and 0.5) and two sets appreciably stiffer - so I'm hoping the 1.5 or 1.9 versions will keep the rear end from sagging too much as it does at the moment... (it's not too bad without the battery, but once it's installed, as mentioned in a previous post - the back end squats down and doesn't return to anything like the original ride-height).

 

More soon!

Jenny x

 

edit. The new shock springs arrived earlier, and the 1.5 version are looking promising! - appreciably stiffer (obviously) and they return the rear end to just over horizontal on the wishbones, so leaving plenty of travel for any rear-wheel landings ;o)

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Are you planning to feature the checker-plate finish anywhere else in the model? If not, I'd go with a carbon effect deck, as the carbon vinyl would tie in with the other carbon pieces already present on the model, and a single piece of checker plate would probably look a bit lonely and out of place. However if checker-plate is going to feature in other areas, might as well use it on the rear deck too.

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On 2/20/2018 at 4:22 AM, TurnipJF said:

Are you planning to feature the checker-plate finish anywhere else in the model? If not, I'd go with a carbon effect deck, as the carbon vinyl would tie in with the other carbon pieces already present on the model, and a single piece of checker plate would probably look a bit lonely and out of place. However if checker-plate is going to feature in other areas, might as well use it on the rear deck too.

Hi Turnip' - I was considering making an interior floor panel in checker-plate too - certainly the footwells and maybe a bulkhead [since I need to hide the receiver somewhere, and next to the steering column on the floorpan is as good a place as any] - and similarly the idea was that the cover behind the seats would be essentially a fuel cell (complete with filler neck/s, each side), or else a simple 'tool chest' style cover, which is typically checker-plate too of course.

But I do like the idea of keeping it simple* and essentially blacked-out a bit behind there - more like a tonneau for example, and carbon fibre would not be inappropriate for that sort of thing on a race car of course.

*Both styling wise and technically, cutting and folding actual scale checker-plate could prove a costly mistake!

I think I'll have a go with the carbon vinyl and see how it looks - I can always make [yet] another cover out of styrene of course if ultimately alloy is the way to go.

Thanks for your feedback!

Jenny x

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Right, a few more little details, and it's finished enough to find a place in my Showroom now...

First of all, the rear shocks... as I mentioned in the edit above, the RC4WD alternative spring set arrived (in double quick time, thank you RCBitz):

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And I selected the second stiffest set (they come in 0.3 / 0.5 / 1.5 / 1.9 versions, with the stock springs being 0.7 according to RC4WD), which, being over twice the 'rate' of the original springs, made the rear end much stiffer - in fact almost too stiff in comparison perhaps - but at least now the rear end returns the wishbones to just over horizontal, giving that classic SRB camber to the rear wheels.

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photo. a photo of two tiny springs - seriously? (the new 1.5 on the left, the original 0.7 on the right)

A quick run outside, and certainly the car behaves well enough now, and ought to have plenty of travel and support for any rear-end heavy landings once I get brave enough to really wick it up - I have to say, it's pretty rapid despite the weight of all that metalwork*!

 

*I weighed it again this evening, and it's now 2.22Kg with a 6-cell NiCad battery fitted.

cont.

 

 

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cont. 

However, other than a wheel falling off (I'd forgotten to lock-tite the rear wheel nuts - doh!), the other casualty of this initial outdoor 'shakedown' was the Axial headlights soon ejected from the slot brackets on the front suspension towers... silly design!

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photo. The solution was to fabricate a proper tab and 3mm hole, using JB Weld.

 

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photo. cured and sanded flat...

 

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photo. a dab of superglue on each tab to help seal the surface...

 

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photo. a proper job!

cont.

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cont.

It was then time to finish off the new battery cover/rear deck panel...

i-58sZSKz-XL.jpg

photo. A 5mm thick brace along the front edge, to stop the deck bowing at all.

 

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photo. Carbon-fibre [effect] self-adhesive vinyl - the same as I used on the styrene roof panel - super stuff!

 

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photo. I'm very pleased with that - it almost looks like real carbon-fibre!  (which I admit I'm starting to like after all now, having used it on this build ;o)

 

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photo. refitted...

 

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photo. I trust you agree this was the right choice [finish] after all!

 

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photo. the rear deck is below the cage tube-line, and being black, visually blends into the background - perfect!

 

cont.

 

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So finally (for now at least), it was time to re-photograph the finished car, complete with new deck, and add some photos to my showroom pages...

A selection (and some alternatives) below:

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Ok, so one more little job is to shroud the motor wires in braided sleeving (it just arrived in the post this afternoon) - then all that is left is to decide on some decals, and to wire up those LEDs... but for now, I'm calling this done!

Toot toot for now!

Jenny xx

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I don't really want this thread to stop! I love to come back here to see what magic you have done. 

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On 2/22/2018 at 3:55 AM, njmlondon said:

I don't really want this thread to stop! I love to come back here to see what magic you have done. 

 

Hee hee - thank you - of course they're never really ever finished are they? ;o)

 

Certainly hiding the LED wiring (especially for the rear lamps) is going to be tricky - so I'll probably just embrace it by using the twisted loom in the Axial lamp kit.

The decals I'm still undecided on... part of me would like to utilise something like the Super Champ red/orange/yellow stripes (I recall I've mentioned this before) in some way, to keep it recognisably in the SRB family, but then it's probably more authentic to just have traditional race numbers on each side and a few sponsor stickers?

Ultimately though, I'm really liking the simplicity of the plain metal panels, and as Kelly is in her civvy garb, this could easily be a recreational desert buggy rather than a full-on racer - in fact since the spare wheel (and mount) is removable, it would be perfectly possible to use that deck area above the engine as a sort of roof-rack, and fill it with scale junk (like the roof of the STUMPkamper), and even include a pair of sand ladders which I happen to have another set of...

Hmmmmmm ;o)

Either way, you guys will be the first to know of course!

Jx

 

 

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Tinned copper wire could be used to form a circuit while following the contours of your chassis mimicking brake lines. Paint the wire black or leave it silver. 

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1 hour ago, Country Mike said:

Tinned copper wire could be used to form a circuit while following the contours of your chassis mimicking brake lines. Paint the wire black or leave it silver. 

Hi Mike - funny you suggest that - I was thinking about something similar for the steering servo and receiver wires (that are currently loose between the seats), and how to disguise them. Hiding them in plain sight is actually not a bad idea - thank you!

 

Jx

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