Building the Marmon Wasp

[TuscoTodd]

That is one COMPACT gear set! :o
Great solution to the situation though!
:text-bravo:

[Audi1]

Those certainly are pretty fancy inserts!!

Went back to check things over before I started down the soldering iron path - good thing I did.

I ground as much of the resin out of the inside of the body as I could; until I could start to see the yellow paint color coming through (that's why I gave it a coat of paint......), but was still not able to drop the rear axle down much below the plane of the motor armature. So, the idea of mounting the front axle carrier on top of the frame rails went down the drain; I didn't want to have two different tire heights, since the original Wasp had the same heights. Time for plan B.



So, I decided to shorten the frame rail a little and go for a pseudo-suicide front end (why not - it's a Marmon Wasp!). This should let me get the front and rear axles on the same plane, which will make equal height front and rear tires work.



Looks like it might work............



We'll find out tomorrow. Marty just handed me my pitching wedge and putter, I think she thinks I've had enough of slot cars for today............and she's right!

Allan

[Audi1]

I'm still not sure, Dave. With the suicide front end, although there's a lot of surface area for soldering, there's not going to be a lot of up/down stiffness in the front axle carrier. I may have to rig some additional bracing since I know that those resin front spring extensions are headed for the toaster early-on in this series and what will be taking the hits in the front end are the front tires, and hence, the front axle carrier................. For me, this is not an easy build. We'll see.............

Allan

[Audi1]

I have a roller chassis. Everything looks even and flat, so far...........



The main frame is held to the rest with solder on the rear axle carrier and in two places on each side of the motor. The front is soldered all the way across the bottom of the U-bend in the main frame, seems stable................

The fit with the body is OK and will get better as I take some resin out of the two front spring extensions.



With the heavily profiled tires the height is a lot more reasonable now.

I'm working on the guide tongue. I need a lot more weight in the front, so I may run the tongue almost all the way back to the front of the motor, we'll see how that goes.

Still working on it.

Allan

[Audi1]

A little more...........

Reverse bending 3/4' brass is not the easiest thing to do (for me). I decided to fashion the guide tongue from this stock because I wanted some more weight in the front. Here's how the first attempt turned out:



...........anyone have a need for this piece...............? :lol:

Second time was a little better. I bent both angles at 90 degrees, then progressively flattened them to get the height that I needed to work with the ScaleAuto 1604 guide. I decided to put the tongue completely on the bottom of the chassis, instead of putting it between the rails, just to get it down a little lower. With the motor sticking down in the rear, it's really not noticeable (to me) in that position.



Installed; almost a runner now; just need the wires and a means to keep the wires down low on the guide:



Today's projects are: take down the front spring extensions to allow the body to fit flat on the frame; build, size and attach the mounting posts to the body (with the open set-up in the rear, I decided to put both mounting posts in the front - see the two holes in the upper body of the guide tongue); contour the guide flag and build a new floor in the driver's cockpit. With that, I should be down to painting, decaling and tuning the car.

So, having the Wasp to SGD by the end of August deadline is looking doable now. Will be gone for the next 10 days in Maine, so getting this ready for paint/decal is what I needed to do this week.

Allan

[CJR]

Have been following this entire thread and it is epic. Great build. Fantastic creativity and problem solving.

[Audi1]

Thanks CJR; I'm sure that I still have plenty of problems/challenges ahead of me before I get to the end of this build.

A little more progress. Wires attached and I found that the ramp on the guide tongue offers a nice conduit for the motor leads. So, I glued in a short piece of shrink tubing as a wire guide and everything seems OK at this point (the rear axle turns when the car is on the track............).



Next, it was time to construct a new cockpit floorboard, since I had to cut out the old one to make room for the FF-050 slimcan motor. I used white 1mm styrene:



Next, the body posts. I use the tube-within-a-tube approach with styrene tubing. This pic shows the height of the front and rear tubes when fit to the inside of the body. Think there's some difference between the resin thicknesses in the adjacent part of this slosh cast.....................? :lol: I think that one post would have done it, but two gives you more opportunity to tune the body to the chassis, so.......



Finally, the front spring extensions were thinned on the bottoms to allow the front axle carrier to ride slightly above the wire frame while the body rests on the frame rails:



Ready to glue in the body posts tonight, then epoxy them in tomorrow

I also sprayed up Matt's wheel inserts and used 000 steel wool to smooth up the resin body as best as I can. It will get a final coat of paint later today.

Then..........what's left is trim and cockpit painting and decal/clear.

Allan

[Retro Racer 44]

Great work Allan. I have to admit that when I saw the early parts of this thread, I thought, he's never going to get this done. BUT HE HAS! All that is left is the trim.

Well done!

Cheers,

Keith

[patwa]

Nice work Audi,
Persistence,persistence. I used some left over 1/24 kit leaf springs cut in half and doubled over for the rear. They worked quite well.
Just a thought. Cheers.

[Audi1]

Hi Patwa, Thanks for the idea on the leaf springs. I had not considered placing the motor under the driver until you posted the details of your build; so that was very helpful, as I doubt that I could have made the front motor/driveshaft arrangement work.

I'm going to leave the rest of the details to the paint brush, I'm just about tapped out on fabricating pieces now.

We'll see how it shapes up during the week of the 21st.

Allan

[BARC 1]

Wasp looks very nice Allan. The work you guys do with wire looks awesome.

Cheers

Dan

[Audi1]

[Audi1]

Well, we have a complete Wasp. Just a clear coat to do tomorrow, then in the mail to ShotgunDave on Wednesday. Here are a few pics of the car:

















Check out the inserts; courtesy of Matt at Changine Gearz - really highly detailed and the fit............well, it's a press fit - no glue. And, they won't be coming out anytime soon..................... The decals are also courtesy of Matt; his decal person did a special run for the Wasp.

I'm not a modeler, so the details are not as crisp and clear as I'd like them, but the car runs pretty well....................for an FF-050 powered car................

Allan

[Z-carfan]

Allan, that turned out awesome!!!

Great looking car.

[bdsharp]

You did a great job! I love it.

Took a real man to pilot that thing. 1/32 is much safer. Good luck at the race.