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nicherotors

Wild Willy’s 3d printing adventure - by NicheRotors

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Although it was based on a similar thought, I went a different direction after more than 20 original WWs - going for diversity in the color scheme, with the same individual custom details, like with this bunch...

 

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@simensays Looks good.  I have one M38 in a semi-sand/drab camo, but historically these MC’s were used in the Korean and Vietnamese wars where there were no deserts or sand dunes.  :lol:  

So I may end up making it into a dull red CJ3A later on.. not sure yet.  

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The chassis parts from Shapeways arrived today and am very pleased - I went for black natural versatile plastic. 

 

It only took a couple of hours to transfer everything from the FDM home printed version to this Shapeways SLS version. 

 

All the little adjustments we recently made to the front and rear camber attachment points are now spot on.

 

Still a couple of little jobs to do - like designing a new mount for the front bumper - I’m keen for it to stick out in front of the front axle and be at the same height as the original.

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On 8/17/2021 at 6:07 PM, simensays said:

Although it was based on a similar thought, I went a different direction after more than 20 original WWs - going for diversity in the color scheme, with the same individual custom details, like with this bunch...

Have always really liked the winter camouflage version.

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Myself and @Jamesssb have just spent a couple of hours making some changes and talking about places to reduce the weight - the SLS version from Shapeways is approximately 20% heavier than the standard Tamiya items.

While the chassis feels incredibly strong that’s probably because we’ve got some aspects thicker than they need to be. 

So we are going to go on a diet - which means that the current price from Shapeways should be proportionally less than the current price of USD290, EUR250, GBP210.

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For those lucky to have owned an original you will know that the chassis was jam packed just below the body - the rigid hump of the battery pack for example was tightly nestled within the faux racing fuel cell. 

Ever since the introduction of Wild Willy 2 in 1999 there has been an abundance of daylight between the body and the chassis.

So, I designed a rear inner wheel arch to block out this light which can be bolted to the underside of the Wild Willy 2 body using existing holes and no glue.  Given it serves no structural purpose it is thick enough but light.  

On the WR-02 chassis it does a neat job of concealing all the wires. 

It has been designed so that when used with my custom GF-01 SWB chassis a floor can also be used that seals up the unit nicely.  The floor is held in place by strong magnets which means that nothing is permanently glued in place.

Given there is space, when used on my custom chassis, we will go ahead and design an item to fill in the drivers footwell as per the original 1983 model.

Footnote - the sand colored WR-02 isn't a reflection of my painting skills - its a friends model:lol:!

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@nicherotors Great idea, I do this all the time on the front.   I just use hard felt which is very similar to the material  used on 1:1 Euro cars.

 

(left chassis is my GF01)

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WR02 and GF01 

 

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Great pictures @Willy iine,  the orange Toyota looks a lot of fun.  We all owe Yasuo Ōtsuka a debt of gratitude for his original inspiration of the Willy character who has now appeared in a few models.  

I enjoyed building my TR chassis too but hadn’t thought of doing an olive drab one - matching wheels is a nice touch!

Felt seems to be a good choice on our 1:1 cars because it helps suppress some of the road noise that comes from the tires. 

 

 

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@nicherotors Thanks!  And yes, Otsuka-san’s animations with Lupin the Third has been one of my favorites of all time.  I paint my Willy and Billy’s faces inspired by his characters (of course Monkey Punch, the actual character creator).  I see a lot of his comical cues in the M38 and Willy’sWheeler designs.   He is and will be missed.  

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@nicherotors That plaque looks fantastic!   Very nice.  

I should get one made too.. Kind of like my authentic M38 plate I display with my M38's.  

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Really appreciate the enthusiasm @Willy iine - we have just been playing around with the design of the front end to get the bumper correctly positioned relative to the front axle.  The prototype needs a minor adjustment and then I'll get another complete set printed from Shapeways before being confident enough to let anyone else order a set.  Will update with progress soon.

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The parts to make a complete set of wheels recently arrived from Shapeways and everything seems to fit as planned.  There were a couple of objections with our original design due to some walls being too thin for Premium Versatile but we got them fixed and the parts are now in my hands. 

The front axle hub takes 14 BA x 1/4” brass hex head screws (snipped to length). The 12 BA x 1/4” steel hex heads simulating the 5 wheel nuts were glued into the hub (retained by magnets) that covers the M4 wheel nut.

I don’t feel this level of detail is out of keeping with the rest of the model given the brass hex heads on the axle hubs are the same size as some of those moulded elsewhere on the body.

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I forgot to mention that our inspiration for these wheels came from studying the full-size.  Referencing parts diagrams provided much guidance - for example here: https://www.kaiserwillys.com/front-axle-wheel-connecting-parts-7397

We didn’t know how the hex heads would be replicated so we used brass hex head screws - we will experiment with 3d printing them on the next batch to reduce some of the complexity.

Despite the different offsets front and back on the model we have managed to provide the illusion that the wheels are the same front and back - as per the full-size.

Appreciate the use of magnets to hold the hubs in place may seem complicated but they do a great job of covering the traditional M4 flange nuts that hold the wheels on.  The magnets are so strong that to facilitate their removal we needed to provide access holes in the back of the wheel to allow an Allen key to be inserted to push the hub off.

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While waiting for a number of new prototype parts to arrive from Shapeways we turned our attention to connecting Willy’s helmet to a small servo. 
 

A square cut in the seat is a price worth paying to bring some animation to the model. 
 

The original 3mm hole in the body used to screw the head on was expanded to 6mm to accommodate a flanged bearing. A second bearing is seated within a 3d printed L shaped bracket that was permanently epoxied into the chest cavity.

A caphead screw goes through shims and the two bearings to hold the helmet in place. The cap head, serated in this case, is connected to the spline of the servo with some tight fitting silicon fuel tubing (shown in pink). 
 

A Y lead connects the two servos to the same steering channel.  Given the helmet is very visible on this model it is a lot of fun to see it animated.

Am now working on a computer programme to sit on a microchip that will receive both the throttle and steering signals to subtly change the output signal to the servo connected to the helmet. For example - reverse the signal when reversing plus a few random moves when he pops a wheelie or gets bored after a period of inactivity.

Will continue to update as progress is made. 

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That's cool.  I was thinking some day I'd make a simple setup where Willy would turn his head towards the turn.

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Nice idea of adding something new to this, like the various idle movements/reverse/wheelie functions - finally some original thinking. So not cutting the body is no longer a selling argument? Why that massive servo? A micro servo does the job just as well without all the cutting - many people have done this already.

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Maybe the picture is deceptive - we used a micro servo; a SG90 9g micro servo which is approx 22x11.5x27mm - the same as in the first post in the link you shared (which I hadn’t seen before - thanks for sharing). 

Thankfully the hole in the seat back is completely concealed when Willy is in place. 

Although, given the transparency of these little servos it is easy to see how much empty space is inside so we have started to think about redesigning the servo case so that such animation could be possible in models that do not allow for these traditional micro servos - but we’ll see.

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This might sound a bit out there, but speaking as a M38 collector, cutting up a M151 (or whatever the WW2 is based on) imho is completely fine to modify it to your heart's content.  I think the WR02 and GF01 were meant to be modified and altered.  It's relatively cheap and readily available.. 

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A few parts arrived from Shapeways this week.  Not sure if this is an original idea or not - but couldn't find anything similar with a cursory search of the internet but here are two enhancements to the re-released Willy's Wheeler that are work-in-progress:

1) a new front wheel hub, and

2) turbofan wheel covers - produced in the smoothest fine detail plastic - shown here with a light dusting of white primer so they could show up in the pictures.

When the Wheeler was re-released there were some grumbles about the minimal clearance between the front tires and wheel arches.  This new hub, printed in black versatile plastic and doesn't photograph well (hence the CGI), reduces the track by 1mm each side and is just enough to ease the problem. 

 

 

 

 

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These two parts for my Wild Willy project also just arrived:

1) footwell - which requires no glue to be held in place; produced in smoothest fine detail plastic and dusted in white primer to show up in the pictures, and

2) an experimental roof design in versatile white plastic - I understand it's called a bikini roof - unfortunately its fitment will require the spot lights to be permanently cut off (just folded over in the picture) which I'm not sure about.

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