Custom Hot Wheels- Rusty Rig.

I have been going through withdrawals- been a month since I've played with any Hot Wheels. Went digging through the scrap pile and pulled this guy out.



Figured I could spend an hour goofing off so here's what came out of it. First things first- gotta take it apart!



Next step- scuff up the "paint" to make it look oxidized. This is one cool looking casting, but unfortunately its PLASTIC. Makes it really hard to work with although this IS the same one I built Santa's Heavy Hauler out of.




Here's where the fun begins. Trying some rust patina, shake and bake style. The marinade is leftover from my 3rd? build- the Army bRat. I found a recipe to speed rust steel using Hydrogen Peroxide, Vinegar, and Salt. I mixed some with a bunch of metal filings in this bag and it sat so long it dried out into a really fine rust powder.

Here's a link to the instructable with the directions on how to rust stuff: http://www.instructables.com/id/Prod...nd-Steel-Safe/





Meh. Looks more dusty than rusty. Lets take 2. Start by crazy gluing a bunch of steel shavings in spots that look like the may be prone to rust anyways.





Apply the rust sauce,





And wait. Re-apply the marinade every 10 minutes or so...

I tried the shake and bake again with it wet still... Little bit overboard.



Eventually, with the aid of a blow dryer it starts to look like this.





Slap it all together and viola!







Fun quick build.  I ended up rubbing a bit more of the lighter stuff off and think it looks better still.  

Throw Back Sunday

From the vaults of Mrs. Punch's Flickr account, one of my all time favorites. This was taken by my at the time 3 yr old son. The world from his point of view!

More to come, but you can see everything else here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_turner/

Busy much?

Stumbled across these two articles the other day.

Why psychologist say you should ban busy from your vocabulary.

and

Busy is a sickness.

If I had to pick one word to describe me, it would be busy.  When asked how I am, or whats been going on- my response:  Busy.

Very interesting read because the last couple of months I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that goes on in life, and it seems like I keep throwing fuel on the fire trying to sneak in a few extra projects here and there.

Just recently, for the first time in a long time (ever?), I turned away some "extra" work.  I still feel bad about having to say no but on the other hand it sure feels nice to not have my To Do list expanding at 5 times the speed that I can check things off.  Since then, I've been able to bring myself to tell a few more people I just can't handle more projects right now.

Has it helped?  We'll see.  Still feel light years behind in trying to get our house sold, and have customer projects left over from last year, but I'm making headway.  The play ends this week and that will open up a lot of time to catch up on everything I feel behind in which will be nice.

The key here I think is to "just keep swimming".  It's like trying to fill a can with rocks, gravel, and sand.  If you put the sand in first, the rocks won't fit.  Stuff the rocks in first, then let the gravel and sand fill in the gaps and everything fits.  Spend time with the family, have some time to do things that keep you sane (i.e.- ride a motorcycle or build a Hot Wheel), and here's the tricky one because it seems so backwards- donate some of your time to help others, and THEN all of those required jobs and responsibilities seem to fit right in.

Is life BUSY?  No.  Its just... Full.  And that's a good thing!

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!

Spring Riding in Idaho...

The morning commute was great. Mid to high 50's. No wind.  Little overcast but sunny. This afternoon, however, not so great...

Getting ready to leave:




Doesn't look like much until you look out at the field and see all the snow swirling around there in the wind.

Finally made it home.  Fair bit of build up on the front but the roads were just wet and the bridges oddly enough were almost bone dry.





The snow wasn't the bad part- the 30 mph winds + gusts made it less than desirable. It's not even that cold- only about 36 degrees but just a yucky trip home. Apparently, we need to get some longer pants for my 11 yr old son who was with me- his left ankle "was so cold it's about to fall off" by the time we got home.

ONCE IN A LIFETIME opportunity!

Because, I hope to never, ever be in another play again!  At least not when life is so crazy and I don't ever see life getting less crazy so there you go.  A once in a lifetime opportunity!

I was drafted / conscripted politely invited by my lovely wife to be in a play with her.  We won't go into details about how I politley but firmly refused for 3 days, but was drug to the auditions with the promise of "Just show up and you wont have to do anything" then "oh, by the way you have to sing a song and read something for them"...  I'm not bitter.  :)

Opening night is this Friday!  The play is "The Pirates of Penzance", showing this weekend and the next.




Couple of pics from a dress rehersal:






It has been a royal pain, all of the practices and whatnot... But it has been sorta fun.  I think it's going to turn out great, LOTS of funny business, swords, fight scenes, etc.  Y'all should come and join us for an evening at the historic Nuart Theatre in Blackfoot!

http://blackfootcommunityplayers.com/

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.

Random "Invention" of the day...

Any guesses!?



Our school Resource Officer came down to my shop the other day and wondered if I could help him make something to wind up really loooonnnnnggggg rolls of paper he had to go through for some case. This is what we came up with.




You can see the roll in the last pic- he had dozens of them to go through.  I think it took less time to cut the bits out than it took for the glue gun to warm up and slap the pieces together!  It must have worked out, because he hasn't been back!

7th graders can break ANYTHING...

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a student... The woods teacher was using at the time!



Obviously the poor hammer has been through the wringer.  Looks like it had started cracking a long time ago- Thinking that this must be the weak spot and it has fatigued over years and years of constant (miss)use.







It's been sitting on my desk for a day or two- Every. Single. Student.  has to ask me how I broke the hammer.

"I got a little upset with (insert students name here)..."

Lego Engines!

Try this on for size! This was built by one of my 7th grade students. It's powered by a Lego Mindstorms NXT and actually runs pretty darn smoothley!



Square piston and crankshaft.



Interesting spoked flywheel and the "electric start".



Intake / exhaust port at the bottom of the cylinder.



Video of it in action!



He said he just kinda started putting stuff together and this is what came out of it. Very impressive!


Now, I could have sworn I posted this one somewhere but can't seem to find it... So here it is (again?).

This was built by one of my 8th grade students that was also building my wobbler air engine.  Same story- he was playing with legos and this sort of emerged from the chaos.  This one even RUNS on compressed air.  It takes a LOT of it though-  lots of leaks through all the gaps.







Kind of hard to see but if you look to the right of the little square lego piece you can see the air intake port.



And of course a video of it in action!