It's been way too cold to work on the wheels in the garage - glue dust in the house is most definitely NOT a good idea, so I've made a start on the chassis, ironwork and assorted gubbins. Used mum's lace making awl to prick through the drawing onto the card beneath, which gives me an eminently repeatable method for getting each layer of the chassis.
The first two layers. I'm going to need six of these. Oh, and I've nicked some card from mum's stash of lace making supplies, because I've run out of cereal packets!
The first three layers all laminated together. And yes, I *did* have a gluey mishap with a sheet of newspaper...
You can see where I've put reinforcing sections of wire at the stress raisers where the mount points for the ironwork meet the chassis "rails". That was done by carving out a channel with a knife and then glueing the 10mm sections of wire in. It was less faff in the end than running the wire all the way across, and just as effective. (Also, my supplies of suitable wire is limited, so I can't afford to be wasteful.)
I've also started making the bumpers and side irons - this is front bumper and left hand side iron. Gives me something to do while I wait for other bits of glue to dry. It was easier to use an awl to make the holes that fit over the wire pegs than to use a drill, as I had more control over the process.
All the wire pegs to take the bumpers and irons are in. Method was the same as for the reinforcing sections. The wire was pre-bent before fitting, but will only be cut to size at the assembly stage. You can see how the chassis platform compares to the drawing, as well as seeing where I've made modifications to the front of the car after getting my mitts on some better photos. I figured I'd rather take the pain of laminating the pegs into the structure at this stage, rather than drilling holes later on, as I didn't want to risk breaking something and then possibly having to start from scratch again. Although this, in its own way was also a fiddly process with the potential for things to go very wrong, but bonding the pegs directly into the layup is inherently stronger anyway, so was worth a few squeaky bum moments along the way.
And yes, it all fits together!
Well, so far, anyway. A mock-up with a completed wheel just to see how things are looking.
The next stage with the chassis is to cut the other three layers, laminate those together, then carve out the channels on the inside layer of that half before glueing the whole shebang together. And I need to finish the wheels...
Both are different styles of composite material, but that use the same fibre type i.e. cellulose.
