In the last post I introduced myself, in this post I’d like to introduce the project.
I have a real soft spot for the raw nature of roughly 1930’s era, often single seat, open cockpit race cars. The crazier the better. I don’t really consider myself a “car guy” but I love cars that evoke an emotional response, and to me there is nothing quite like a set of wheels strapped to a Merlin V12 to get the pulse racing.
As it happens, there really aren’t (m)any RC cars in this category, and as far as I know, no 3D printable ones. I aim to correct this travesty! My goal is not to build a specific replica, but a believable and functional model, built around component designs that we will be able to reuse in future models. Since many of the real cars like this were one-off builds, such as Jay Leno’s ridiculous(ly awesome) 1917 Botafogo Special, this seems totally reasonable.
As with a real car of this nature I will let the functionality direct the form to some extent, and so I begin the process with sketches.
First I decide on some rough dimensions, and do a side view and top view sketch on graphing paper, before scanning those and importing them into Fusion 360 at the correct scale. While I plan to design all the parts, including wheels and drive-train, for printing, I want to keep them to a size where standard RC parts can easily be swapped in too.
Next I make a simple pose-able mock-up of a human figure at 1:10 scale and pull in RC components that I designed for my 1:10 rat rod build, this allows me to check that the scale is feasible.
Things look ok, but a rough body shape shows a bit of a problem, these narrow bodies don’t have nearly enough space for a regular-sized battery, which I would really prefer to use, so it may need to grow a little.
Raising the motor slightly is undesirable from a center-of-gravity point of view, but might be a solution, alternatively, does our driver really need legs, he has a sweet car to get around in anyway…
Before spending too much time of these problems I will start with design work on the mechanical components: transmission, front and rear axles especially, because they will dictate everything else. Tune in next time and keep an eye on Ossum in the meantime for behind-the-scenes posts!
You can follow along here if you like:
