Custom Hot Wheels- Lickety Split #4

Back to work. Once I figured out the front end with working steering, my 11 yr old son said I should make it with an actual steering wheel that worked. I kinda scoffed at him and said it would be really hard to do after he explained his idea, but it got me thinking- and I simplified it a lot and came up with this!

The start- steering column with shaft.



Short vid of it sort of working.



Steering wheel cut on the lathe, and the center hub for it made out of a teensy piece of pipe.



The first iteration.



Assembled column.



There was one major flaw with this setup. Anyone spot it?



Guess I should have thought a little more about it before I tried that out... Easy fix. Sorta.

Custom Hot Wheels- Lickety Split #3

Gonna need a great big fat V8 for a drag car, right?  Well, how about a thumbnail sized aluminum block V8?  Will that work?

Block and trans cut / filed from one solid piece.







More engine work. Start of the heads and valve covers.  Exhaust ports were drilled at a bit of an angle so the pipes will sweep to the back.



Some file work done so it looks like there are valve covers.



Start of the blower and intake manifold. Blower was made on the lathe and then cut flat on the bottom.  Manifold was hand filed.



Exhaust pipes.  Made out of 1/8" aluminum tubing.



Still need to trim them down but something along these lines.



Little bit of paint (FORD blue, of course!),





Me likey.





Starting to look like it might show some potential on the strip!

Steampunk Build-off- VOTE!

Couple rounds of voting availble! Right now the peoples choice vote for the "extreme" division of the Steampunk theme are up for votes.

Visit this page and vote by LIKING your favorite! Feel free to share the link and have others vote for their favorite as well!

Vote here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...0078364&type=1

The entries:







Again, just pick your FAVORITE and vote by liking.

The "mild" division will be posted for voting later this week.

Custom Hot Wheels- Lickety Split #2.

Here's where things get really interesting.











Steerable wheels on a 1:64 custom? Sure. Why not!?



On to the back end. Cut some chunks out of some aluminum scrap.



Drill a bunch of holes, file them down, and end up with these.







Frame is starting to come together.  Tricky part is going to be figuring out how to attach the two front wheels together so they actually steer, but I've got a plan for that!

Custom Hot Wheels- Lickety Split #1.

So finally getting around to posting the build I participated in a month or two ago.  The theme this time was "A Day at the Drags".  Wasn't really planning on joining in on this one, but I got to poking around through some Hot Wheels and had a bit of an epiphany one night while eating at Red Robin with the family.  So follow along with the build that was concieved on a napkin.  Pardon the bbq sauce...



Started out with these two castings, but eventually settled on using the yellow one.





And start cuttin.




So I tried something brand new out with this build. Scratch built wheels.









Don't know why but this stance just does it for me.

Santa's Heavy Hauler #4

Here's where the REAL fun begins. Hydraulic rams? Sure, why not.












For the next step I had to break out the wife's sewing machine.



Gotta have a sack for all those toys!



That pretty much finishes this build up.

















And just for fun, here's a short vid of the dump bed in action!



All in all, this was a very fun build. Didn't get to participate fully in the voting- apparently I had too many votes from people that are not in the Hot Wheels community. Meaning people thought I was pulling for votes. I guess I can understand their concern but for me this was really upsetting- I'd like to think I'm not that kind of person. As the French say, C'est la vie. It was lots of fun and I got to try out some new ideas. Live and learn!