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!

Alphatig 200x TIG Welder #3- Welding Steel Sheet!

Haven't had much time to play lately.

Decided it was time to practice a little. Tried something different this time though- switched it over to DC to weld on some steel. With my old welder, this was NOT an easy process. It involved unplugging the high frequency box and taking leads out of it and then re-routing the leads to the correct lugs on the main welder. Might not sound like a big deal but trust me, it was a royal pain.

The Alphatig- Click two switches. Wow, that was easy...



I changed the AC to DC, and the pulse to direct / flat / whatever it's called.


This thing welds steel BEAUTIFULLY. I'm a sucky welder as you can tell, but I was astounded by how easy it was to kludge pieces together. I didn't burn ONE SINGLE HOLE through the 18g sheet I'm using here. Compare that to using my little 110 wire feed where I couldn't run a bead longer than 1/4" without having to stop and let the metal cool, this TIG welder is AWESOME!

First nasty welds, getting it figured out.



Once I understood I could actually put some heat to it and not blow holes the size of Texas, I made some progress. Top is a lap joint, middle is a butt joint, and the bottom is just a bead ran on top of the metal.



The lap joint turned out really nice. Was giving a little forward-back motion as I went and it seems to have worked great.



Time for a little project! This would have been impossible to make on my wire feed welder. Cut a bunch of 2" squares out and tacked them all together. I should also mention tacking things like this together was a breeze. LOVE having the foot pedal.



Not real pretty, but all welded up.





Wish I could spend some time practicing, 'cause I really need it. Got a couple of bigger projects in mind if I can ever get caught up on everything else!

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!

Awesome home for sale!

Heck, you don't even have to buy it- if you tell someone about it and they end up buying it I'll give you $500.

We are moving two whole blocks. Getting a new shop and an olllldddd house. Have to sell our current house first though. Won't say much about it here other than its in pretty darn good shape, is in an awesome location, and we love our neighbors. You can read more about it here:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/17...19386442_zpid/

3 bed, 1.5 bath, on .35+ acres. 2,400 sq. ft. Price just reduced to $145,900.   Located just outside of Blackfoot, ID.

And here are some pics.









New floor.





Old Floor.





Lively neighborhood.

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.