thebeerbaron

In case my excitement wasn't obvious in last night's post, I'm pretty amp'd up.

Though there were several small fires that had to be put out at work and the usual number of projects that need my attention (usually about 1.5x what I can handle at one time, which is prefect for me), I must confess that I spent a lot of time thinking about [i]this[/i] project. And more than a few minutes following the blog comments and GRM and FF forum posts.

And I think people are missing the point. It took me a little while to get there too, but now I'm fully on board.

This is not a [i]finished design[/i] contest, it is a [i]styling exercise[/i].

The winning design will not be magically whipped into production by the elves at Factory Five and Solid Works from your sketches. So go nuts. Or at least realistically nuts. I think Dave Smith's offer of seating and engine hard points is a nice compromise, but honestly, it took me about 30 minutes of googling and envelope math to come up with the basic engine hard points. Here's the most basic number you need to know:

The front of the engine is approximately 24" forward of the rear wheel center.

There. Go nuts. (and because I like you all so much, here is a template I made for myself, with wheelbase and engine location. The engine [i]height[/i] is not right, because I was in a hurry, but the [i]length[/i] is, and that's going to be most important to you. One tiny square equals 1 inch. I'll remove this when it becomes outdated)

[ATTACH]799[/ATTACH]

Now that I've been a bit of a prat to you all, I'll get off my soapbox and talk about my design plans.

I had a bit of a bright idea today about my modeling plans. The clay I want to use is not cheap, about $9/lb. But it's the right tool for the job and one of the ones the professionals use. I plan to do a 1/5 scale model, which will be plenty big enough to get the large curves right, leave room enough for some detail work, and not take up too much of my tiny Manhattan apartment*. If I just molded this out of solid clay, we'd be talking about probably $200 worth of clay. The typical solution is to build an armature out of wood and wire, then add a thin shell of clay to that. But unlike you folk who have houses, garages, or apartments with more than one closet, I don't have the tools to make one of those. And honestly my ideas aren't that fixed yet that I could build an armature first and not have to redo the whole thing immediately (I may be exaggerating slightly). So instead, I'll build a honey-comb style support structure out of this clay as I go along, and if I have to move it as the muse inspires me, I can do that.

I've got some ideas I want to sketch out before bed, so I'm going to sign off. Good luck to everyone, and remember to have fun. I know I am!


*back of the envelope calculation says that the model will take up no less than 1 square foot of my apartment. It owes me $5/month in rent. Doubt it'll pay up, damn cheapskate.