Prototype Buggy, The Theory
 

Since I was a little kid in elementary school I dreamed about designing a building an RC car from scratch. Unfortunately I never had the equipment or skill necessary to do so, until now. I am finishing my final year of technical training to be a high school shop teacher and finally have the equipment and basic training to build a car. I am taking a CAD / CAM (Autocad and Mastercam) class where we have to design things and cut them out on a CNC machine.

I told myself I wasn't going to do an epic project but here I am after 200 -300 hours on Autocad and countless hours agonizing over the tool paths in Mastercam, I have finally started cutting out my parts for an 1/8th buggy of my own design. Last Thursday (April 14/2011) I finally cut our my aluminium parts. They are rough and still need to be finished (filed and wet sanded). And I still have the delrin arms to cut out as well as the wood vacuum mold for the body.

Here are a couple of pictures of my progress:

Picture of the alu sheet in the CNC machine. Coolant is flying everywhere so you can't see much!
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0414-00056.jpg

CNC Machining done. The blue color is layout ink, this will be cleaned off later.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0414-00059.jpg

Chassis with flashing removed and a quick file run over the surfaces.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0414-00063.jpg

All the pieces removed from the sheet. Lots of flashing to still remove. This is because I didn't set my cut depth low enough....oops. And the bit I was using (1/8th flat end mill) was VERY DULL.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0414-00062.jpg

Later in the evening I was doing a little mock-up.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...14-00064-1.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0414-00067.jpg

Should have some more pictures up soon.

Thats pretty cool:nod: wish I had the knoledge and acces to a CNC machine,I'd be making my own parts out of titanium :sneaky:

Nice job! Looking forward to seeing it when its all done.

That is bad azz bro!

Looks pretty cool to me. But man that's one hell of a chassis brace.

Ummmm... can you make me a part that I need for my Durango... I'll pay you for it... :D That is awesome work man. Good luck with your buggy...

That is awesome. I am going to school for CAD right now.

Very interesting, Looks Beeefy. :nod:

Very cool. With equipment like that and knowledge you can easily make mock chassis, towers, and braces of any car out there.

Very Nice! you should really think about building/designing parts for nitro to electric conversions.

Theory build
 

Got another full day to work on the buggy (April 21). I continued to clean the flashing of the aluminum and did a little file fitting. Here are some more pics:

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...00075-Copy.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...00076-Copy.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...19-00077-1.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...19-00079-3.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00087.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00086.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00085.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00081.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00092.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00091.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00093.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00094.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00095.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00096.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00097.jpg

Picture of the CAD file open on my laptop. I will try to get a screen shot later with better detail.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00098.jpg

The Theory sitting beside my 8ight with CAD drawing in the back ground.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0419-00099.jpg

More pics to come soon

Theory build
 

OK I am finally up to date with my posts after fighting with my photobucket account. This weekend and today I got a ton done on the car including drilling most of the holes that were not easy to do on the CNC and tapped them. I was also able to file fit the diff, diff mount and most of the brake assembly. Unfortunately I became so immersed in my work that I forgot to take in progress pics; so, this evening when I got home I snapped a few pics.

Here you go:

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00124.jpg

Nothing Is counter sunk at this point, and the hardware is just thrown in there to hold it together. Once ever thing is counter sunk I will spec out the hardware properly.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00125.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00126.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00127.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00128.jpg

Oops, here is the first of a few minor mistakes. Somewhere in the endless revisions I must have moved the servo mounting hole and not the servo pocket. This is easily fixed on the mill.
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00129.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00130.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00132.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00133.jpg

http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...0426-00134.jpg

I will try to stay up to date with my progress from now on. Hopefully this Thursday I will be cutting out my vacuum mold for the body, but I have to work around others using the machines; so we'll see.

I have little interest in going into business, I have been running a retail business for far too long. That why I want to be a shop teacher, where I will (eventually) have the time to make stuff like this for myself. The only way I would mass produce my parts is if a manufacturer would get together with me to produce them.

Looks very trick. Are you going to try and run this when complete or shelf it?

Please keep us up on the progress... It is awesome what you are doing.. I bet this wont be your last custom build...