Sorry for the lack of update last week, we did do stuff but for some reason I didnt get around to making an update! I was quite surprised by the amount of enquiries I had from people missing an update :-)
Anyway, here's this weekend and last weekends updates. Last weekend we spent a lot of time cutting up sheet steel! Not much to show for it really but it needed to be done. Some of this sheet steel was for the 'wings' on my sheet steel tub and the rest for the second chassis.
Here we see the chassis tub inverted and fitted to the fibre glass top to measure the size of the 'wings'.
Howard uses one of his favourite toys, a plasma cutter, to cut the sheet steel to size. This is so easy with the cutter and makes a pretty good straight edge fit for welding more or less straight away. No jigsawing or hand sawing for us!
Another new toy, a TIG welder, being used to weld the 'wings' onto the sheet tub,
And cleaning up the welds afterwards. With this picture...
...and this picyou can see the shape of the steel tub. This then fits round the outside of the steel skeletal chassis to form the completed chassis.
Another little job was making the bushes that fit into the towing holes in the chassis extensions.
I bought some shackles from one of the shows that I went to last summer. I thought a shackle was a shackle, but typically German, no, they had to do things slightly different! Anyway, the biggest problem we found was that they were too wide and would look silly on the chassis extensions and I wondered how we were going to overcome that. H said "We'll cut them in half and make them narrower and weld them back together" Er, yeah, of course, just what I was thinking!!! Anyway, before on the left and after on the right. Obviously the thread needs cutting back a bit but you'd never know the modded one was anything rather than original :-) Note also the modified end to the threaded bolt to make it more like the real thing.
And here's how they look on the chassis. As you can see, if they were left at the original width they'd fit like a whatsit in a well lol
This weekend its been all about painting :-( Not the best of weather, flipping cold and the odd bit of rain which meant we had to spray in the shed and hope the overspray would find its way outside. On Sunday we made a bit of a lash up spray booth outside which was reasonably successful.
I sprayed the chassis frame with silver hammered Hammerite. Covers a multitude of sins! Note the paper towel sticking out the Oilite bushes which the stub axles of the swing arms fit, to stop paint getting into the bushes.
And the masking tape over the frame extensions front and rear. These will be sprayed in green as these bits are seen!
While I was Hammerite ing, Howard was spraying red oxide primer on various bits! Some of which are hanging up from the travelling crane rail (yes, I have a travelling crane in the shed!)
These bits are mostly for the motorised rear idler adjustment in lovely silver Hammerite again.
Kaths whirly line was pressed into service to hang more bits to dry :-)
The wheel caps in red oxide.
The assembled rear idler axle. The green and silver bearing housings will flank the rear chassis.
The steel tub finished in red oxide...
And now in green on the outside and Howard spraying the inside with Hammerite. Note the adhoc tarpaulin between the two outward opening back gates to give us a spray booth!
The finished steel tub, with some green wheels and sprockets below.
And here's our two helpers for the weekend. They only wanted to come in once we had all the doors shut and the heater on to help the paint go off!
Next weekend we hope to assemble the chassis (finally and for the last time) and give it a proper test run. Watch this space :-)
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