Custom Hot Wheels - Lickety Split #5

I might have gone a little overboard on engine details.  See this? (note the toothpick for size reference) That's the distributor. The shaft is 1/8" aluminum tubing stuck in another piece of bronze tubing with slots filed into for looks.



Engine coming together.  I think the final count was 23 pieces in just the engine.





The belt was made from a small strip cut from vinyl sticker material.  Was hoping to have the belt actually spin but ran out of time.

I'm good at making messes... While I was building this car I also built myself a mobile workshop to replace all the loose bits and boxes I was carrying back and forth.  You can see a few details about it HERE.  I have some more info on how I stocked it, will need to write a post about that too!



Paint on the wheels.



Paint OFF of the body...  I love stripping them down to the bare metal like this.



Working on the interior.  Seat was made by crushing a piece of aluminum tubing, then bending and filing it into the shape I wanted.


Transmission tunnel, even though the trans is behind the engine...  Had to have something to hold the shifter!  The long strip is the gas and brake pedals, still needed to be trimmed down.



More details. Fin mounts:



Getting there!

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.

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.

Valentines.

Yes, March is nearly over and I'm posting about Valentines day...  Made this for Mrs. Punch.







Doesn't really show well in the pics but I managed to get some neat color patters in it with the torch.  A student of mine wanted to try making something a little different.  She got on Instructables and found a copper rose, but we didn't have any copper.  We experimented with some 22g sheet metal and her's turned out so good I had to make one of my own for my wife.  Must have turned out okay, because she was impressed with it.

I used to always think that my dream "job" would be to be "retired" and be able to just putter around in a shop all day and make whatever I wanted.  I've been thinking about that a lot lately.  I really think that teaching has pushed me to try a lot of new things that I would never have wanted to or even known about had it not been for students asking some silly question or wanting to try something new. 

Its pretty amazing, the things that you learn when you teach.

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.

Alphatig 200x Tig Welder #2- Setup and testing.

Well I hauled it in to school and set it up. Right off the bat I noticed this...



Plastic grating was cracked on the back. This is sort of in the location of the dent in the box. Figured it was still superficial, so I hooked it up to test it out.

Random info on the side of the welder:



Only took about 25 minutes to get everything out and hooked up, but I did already have an argon tank with regulator for my old TIG welder. The new one is sitting on top of it...



Yeah, I know, it's a disaster. Temporary just to test the thing out.

Business end of the welder:



Dislike #1- This is the power switch. Its a breaker, and it's located on the very BACK of the machine. ???



Dislike #2- the torch spins in the handle where I'm pointing at it. Very annoying when trying to weld, kept tipping and dabbing the tungsten. Not sure what to do about that yet.



Otherwise it does some pretty cool stuff! I have watched dozens of videos and read from several different sources, coupled with my previous "experience" with the other welder. Here are the first couple of (pretty sucky) welds off of the machine.





Best one so far is the last pic, second from the bottom. Basically just trying to figure out what all of the different knobs do. I *love* having the pedal- even though I don't yet quite have the coordination yet to hold the torch, apply the rod, and keep the pedal at the right spot all at the same time. It's fun to be able to dial back the heat but just keep welding. My other welder I could only do ONE of those beads at a time, then I would have to cool the metal, and re-start. All of these I pretty much did one after the other.

Now I just need practice practice practice...

For reference- here's the regulator that came with the welder-



and the one that cost my $60 through airgas.



Several reviews mentioned the regulator as being "cheesy" although it seems to compare just fine to the one I already had.

Only have about 45 minutes of weld time on it so far, lots more to follow I'm sure!

Alphatig 200X Tig welder #1- a review.

Yeah, one of those "Cheap chinsy Chineese crap welders".



I've been sort of looking to upgrade my wicked old Century 5-star welder for about 2 years now. It's an decent welder- AC/DC, with a high frequency box, but its really a stick welder that I set up to do TIG. It simply will not work for what I want to do- weld thin aluminum sheet metal.

Finally had enough money that I've been seriously looking for a TIG welder for the last 2 months. I was hoping to buy used, get a decent older welder that met my needs- AC, foot pedal, and LOW amps. I have had ZERO luck finding one locally. I expanded my search to within a 4 hour drive and still couldn't find anything that fit my needs. Best I could do was a decent Lincoln squarewave 175, both out of my price range and too far away to be able to pic up.

Crusing ADVrider, I stumbled acrossed a post about the Alphatig. First thought- yup, junk. But dang, the price sure was good. Got to looking around and they have pretty darn good reviews.

Meh, I'll hold out for something good... and another couple of weeks pass by- while I'm still researching the Alphatig. Sounds impressive. Oh, the 2015 model fixed a few of the minor issues (not problems, but added more features) from the 2014? And its on SALE? Why not.

$790, ordered on amazon.com late Friday night and it was here Wednesday.

 
This worried me a little...



But everything looks okay.



Included junk.



From the upper right hand corner, going clockwise: regulator, foot pedal, plug adapter to go from 220 style to 110, ground clamp, pack of cups, collets, and torch parts, stinger for stick welding, TIG torch and cable, and the infamous "manual".

The welder itself- LOTS of buttons and knobs!



So far, quality looks pretty good. No loose anything like you would expect from something bought at Harbor Freight. I can tell I'm not going to like the goofy cover for the knobs- but it pops right off so it'll probably just store it somewhere and forget about it.

More to follow!

Sentinel Bat

This was my entry in the Batbuild 4.0 buildoff a couple of months ago.  I started out with this casting-


Its called "Screamliner", and I think it is one of the ugliest castings ever to come out of the Hot Wheels factory.  The black one  has had a couple of simple mods and looks great- its missing the big shark fin on the back, the wheels are uncovered a bit, and the windshield was changed just a bit.  The green one in the background is bone stock, just for reference.


Time to do some SERIOUS mods!

Pattern, and some time with the jewelers saw.





Engine donor.



Had to chop the hood off to get it to fit though...




Cut some fins and glued them on.  I was planning on building a custom base for this, but found something that worked sooooo much better!



Test fitting.



Cut this piece out,



to fit in here:



Got super lucky, as it turns out the base with the wheels I wanted to use fits the body almost perfectly with a teensy bit of work!




Interior stolen from a Bone Shaker.



Painted the base,



and detailed the interior.



Detailed the motor.



Mock up.



Paint!



Test fitting bits together.


Well that's that.









And the final pic.



This was a very fun build.  Fairly simple- no crazy cutting / gluing but I tried out several new things- the scroll saw work with the bat logo was a lot of fun.  Ended up finding a good deal on a scroll saw and picked it up for future projects.  Came out great!