Scratch Build – In Progress TRON Lightcycle - MotY 3rd Place!

Wow nice work on the perfect glow! Where are you getting those LED strips from?

 

I just found out this morning that I screwed up royally on the rib spacing. I had originally designed it to have 3/4" spacing in between the ribs, but later changed it to 5/8" to make more room for the components. Well, I guess I forgot that little detail and went ahead and made everything according to 3/4" spacing. :x And I just glued the main rib to the tubes last night!

So now I have to figure out how to fix it, because I can't continue on since nothing will fit inside now. I'll have to try and unglue the main rib from the tubes and slide it over without ruining it, and perhaps the worst part of this screw-up, I'll have to widen the rear fairing piece somehow.

But first and foremost, I'll need to find some way to prevent myself from feeding this whole project into the wood chipper.

 

Jasus Brian

No no to the wood chipper

 

That sounds terrible, it sounds like you need a little break. But please come back with the project

 

Keep at it man, you'll find a way. Reminds me of how I felt when I spent a week hand filing and finishing my main chassis panel, only to find that it was unusable and having to chop it

 

These things happen, even to the best of us, walk a way for a while, sleep on it and sort it another day.

 

Oh sheet, got my fingers crossed you'll manage to unglue it without messing anything but I'll guess it's a mega srong adhesive, it isn't jb weld is it? , sounds like a job for a razer blade & a lengthy chipping away at the seam session.

It's sooo sheet when adding a change to design & it slipping the mind, quite easily done, done it myself before on air cube, was a struggle to make it right but it just added a minor cosmetic flaw, but a flaw is a flaw & it's never a good thing.

But yeah if it's an essential thing like components not fitting it sounds like it needs redoing as crap as it is, either that or a nightmare chipping the seam session but what I hear of jb weld it sounds like uber strong stuff & if you heated it enough to ease it off it would melt the plastic.

So is it 1 of the tube pieces & 1 panel or both tubes & a panel or even more? a picture might help brew an idea from others, there may possibly be a way to take it a few steps back to re try.

 

Wood chippers are for wood. I missed the part where there is any wood here. So, first mistake ever? I don't think so. I know that time limits are imposed. Sacrifice Bod quality for a deadline. That is not our way. You have won accolades before. Just do it right. You will feel better about it. You got me out of the closet with Mystique 2 and we've both done some winning since.

 

OMG, I thought my little measuring error earlier today with my rads was a major f*uck up, but that took me a couple of hours to fix. This is big, it would be a crying shame to see this project go in the chipper. I just hope you can sort it..good luck dude.

 

Just wanted to say, having gone to college at NDSU in Fargo, ND, have you ever seen the movie Fargo? Wood chippers aren't JUST for wood

This project has some fantastic workmanship in it, I'm sure you'll come up with something that looks fine and functions perfectly out of all this

 

Missed Fargo, but I did Caviler and Langdon and the Pembina ridge doing missiles for the Govt.
Love the quiet expanse of North Dakota.

 

Cheers guys, thanks for all the kind words and lifting of spirits. I stepped away from it, had a beer (or three), and thought about the whole thing for a bit. I realized it wasn't doing me any good to beat myself up over it, **** happens.

There was no way around moving that main rib, so I tried flexing it back and forth on the tube to see if it would break free, and it did! Seems that imperfect, out-of-round tube ended up saving my arse! With all those gaps, the glue didn't bond totally between the two surfaces. So after gently working it for a few minutes I managed to get the rib off both tubes with only one break, at the thinnest spot. I'll get some pictures up later, but for now I'm having another beer lol.

This thing hasn't beaten me yet, and I still just might make that contest deadline.

 

FYI, pictures are worth a thousand words. If you give us a picture you're more likely to ignite some creative responses!

Glad you got things going on the right track.

 

Fantastic news hope it's not a bad noticable break though.

 

Ok, so here is a brief explanation of what happened yesterday, with pics. I got as far as gluing the main rib to the tubes on Saturday, as shown here.


I realized the problem Sunday morning when I attempted to place the fan cross support into the slot on the main rib and it was off center. After going back to the Sketchup file, I figured out what I did with the spacing. In the above pic, the distance between the main rib and the next glue line is only 3 3/4". No way a motherboard with video cards would fit in that depth!

Yesterday I managed to break the main rib free of the tubes, with only one little mishap, shown here. This is the area behind the power supply and will not be seen, so I can live with it.


Upon remeasuring out my spacing, I sanded off the areas on the tubes and re-masked the correct rib placement.


Here you can see how much I was off. The new spacing will add over an inch to the component area.


So with moving the inner main ribs out, I could mark where the outer window ribs will go. Here is a shot of the rear fairing, in between the two correctly spaced window ribs.


It's supposed to bolt to these, and therein lies my next problem. Remaking this piece would be too time consuming, and I only have two more weeks to go. So I will have to widen this one. But I can't just cut it in half and add material, due to the slot in the center, so I'll have to make two cuts, one down each side. You can barely make out my cut lines in blue.

This is starting to get interesting now!

 

Argh bad times , that said one off builds just wouldn't be the same without mistakes and/or failed ideas . I've had many on my build.

 

Me too many many many but we don't have time limits crushing the extra pressure for a date, this is a steep challenge Bod is doing to make a seriously cool looking mod in such a short time, it's amazing. All the best with cutting the lines & joining bits up Bod, fingers crossed for ya.

 

Glad to see its back on track

 

Finding solutions that work is the greatest feeling. Well done Bod

 

Thanks everyone, I think I may be ok now. Check out what I did with the fairing

Ok, so I got the fairing hacked up into three pieces: 2 outer pieces and the center piece with the slot. After remeasuring and marking where the ribs will go, I fastened the two outer pieces to them and eyeballed where the center piece should be.


Then I used some cardboard and duct tape as backing, and to hold it all together.


PLASTI-PASTE TO THE RESCUE!! lol


Next comes more sanding, bondo and sanding. oh happy happy joy joy. :roll: