Molly Mini Manx first test video

It Drives! the mini buggy Moves!

In between rain showers I managed to nail it roughly together and an hour later the kids were whizzing up and down outside!

 

Video coming soon!

 

The test drive highlighted a few issues, the steering is poor, it went twice as fast in reverse, and as yet the steering wheel is fixed on, but otherwise it was a roaring success!

 

Mollys mini manx moves!

This was a bit of a milestone,  for once it managed not to rain for a couple of hours and everything seemed to drop into place/ Things fitted first time. I found that elusive bit of steel that was exactly the right size for the job and by the end of the afternoon I had the steering welded onto the front end and the back end fitted braced and supporting most of the electrics.

 

As you can see the battery tray is just a temporary thing to test everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If  it doesn't rain tomorrow (which seems unlikely) I'd like to refit the body, finish the battery tray and attach the steering wheel so that we can have a test blast up the road :-)  Fingers crossed!

 

Min Buggy Roll hoop stock. (God thats a dull sounding title!)

This rain is a bit of a bugger, not been in the garage for a few days now. Still found this in the metal skip at work today.

 

It might just be me but even when this was assembled into an occasional table and laying on its side in the skip my first thought was "Roll Cage!"

Its not actually as shiny in real life as it looks in the photos but it is the perfect diameter for a scale rollover hoop in the buggy with enough left over for an engine cage too :-)

Molly and Seth love to check the buggy still fits them every time i get the body out!

 

 This weekend I sorted out some of the bits I have been collecting for the project, the headlamps arer old bke lamps I think, and are smaller than they look in the photo :-)

 

I also spent some time re-doing the front end making it bolt in and replcing the front cross bar with a piece of square section. 

 



Steampunk ray gun 2

Right Car is now MOT'd so lets get back on to some updates.  

Picked this up at the weekend at a local boot sale, it was only a couple of quid but it will make a nice Case/control box for the gun. I'm picturing this as a 50's 60's alternate reality piece rather than the victorian/edwardian standard steampunk style. It won't have a lot of brass or gears, but will have some nice early electronics etc.

Steampunk Raygun part 1

Sorting my mk2 polo out for its MOT this week so I don't expect to get much done on the buggy, so here something else I'm working on between other jobs, I find its nice to have at least two prohects on the go then when progress slows on one you can jump to the other.

I have always loved the Steam Punk aesthetic and for a local show a couple of years ago I built a steam punk walking stick (I realise its got no gears on but I see the steam punk style as quite all encompassing. :-)

 Its made from a piece of found wood and various bits of pipe car parts and an old derailleur mechanism from a bike. As you can see it came second, I think the hand made birthday card won :-)

The current project is a ray gun, Its been underway for months, on and off, and started when I found an old model areoplane engine which when taken apart and rearranged looked really cool.

As you can see the handle is from a kids waterpistol and there are a few bits of electronic equipment stuck to it with blue tack to get a feel for the design.

Mini buggy now sitting on all 4 wheels!

 Here we go! I decided in the end to make a subfrane for the back end, I couldn't work out the positioning otherwise so it seemed like the best option, also if  i can keep it reasonably self contained and bolt in we can always use it in something else or upgrade it at a later date if they start racing (there is a tot rod racing series :-))

 I still need to cut the front end off and widen it, at the moment there is not much in the way of steering lock, hopefully an extra inch in width will in make a lot of difference.

 Ill probably push the wheels forward an inch too, which will again help with the steering lock. Ill be replacing the round tube with square section and bolting it in so it too will be removable if needed.

 

Quite pleased with how that looks :-)