Vintage London Transport Bus
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2005 2:01 pm
Well it's finally finished . Not in time for the"Keep on Truckin' " contest but I'm afraid light nights and sunny weather (yep even in england) have meant I've not been pimpin' lately.
My father in law is into model trains, trams and vintage buses and when he saw my bit collection last christmas he asked if I would be able to build him a RC model bus. He sourced a suitable resin model & I set to work. The body was heavy so I knew I'd need something powerful to haul it around, NKOK crossfires are avaliable cheaply in the UK and they haul a diecast body around and are dual celled so I started with that;
The external charger appealed at it would be a large body & a bit cumbersome. To lengthen the body and get rid of the crap NKOK steering mech I butchered a bit clone & just retained the steering mech. Then a bit of plastic card later the NKOK chassis & the bit clone were joined together.
I then attatched the steering wires to the PCB put the NKOK wheels (which are a good match for vintage bus wheels) onto the bit hubs and then had a running chassis.
I had to then butcher the inside of the resin body to get the chassis to fit (including cutting out the front radiator area) and got the chassis to fit;
Then the body was sent to my father in law for painting and when I got it back I glued the body to the chassis & then set about remaking the front radiator area with car body filler;
I used etching spray on the windows as I ditched the interior as it was too heavy & wouldn't fit over the PCB. A bit of paint & attatching the radiator & front bumper & hey presto... It still needs London transport decals and a bit of tidying up but that's for my father in law to do.
So how does it drive.....Well it's turning circle is crap (just like the real thing) but you can do handbrake turns!!! I'm in the process of editing a few seconds of video to go in my gallery. So watch this space. I've enjoyed this one, lots of problems to overcome but I think the result is OK.
Update: movie is in my gallery but I don't know how to link it to this
My father in law is into model trains, trams and vintage buses and when he saw my bit collection last christmas he asked if I would be able to build him a RC model bus. He sourced a suitable resin model & I set to work. The body was heavy so I knew I'd need something powerful to haul it around, NKOK crossfires are avaliable cheaply in the UK and they haul a diecast body around and are dual celled so I started with that;
The external charger appealed at it would be a large body & a bit cumbersome. To lengthen the body and get rid of the crap NKOK steering mech I butchered a bit clone & just retained the steering mech. Then a bit of plastic card later the NKOK chassis & the bit clone were joined together.
I then attatched the steering wires to the PCB put the NKOK wheels (which are a good match for vintage bus wheels) onto the bit hubs and then had a running chassis.
I had to then butcher the inside of the resin body to get the chassis to fit (including cutting out the front radiator area) and got the chassis to fit;
Then the body was sent to my father in law for painting and when I got it back I glued the body to the chassis & then set about remaking the front radiator area with car body filler;
I used etching spray on the windows as I ditched the interior as it was too heavy & wouldn't fit over the PCB. A bit of paint & attatching the radiator & front bumper & hey presto... It still needs London transport decals and a bit of tidying up but that's for my father in law to do.
So how does it drive.....Well it's turning circle is crap (just like the real thing) but you can do handbrake turns!!! I'm in the process of editing a few seconds of video to go in my gallery. So watch this space. I've enjoyed this one, lots of problems to overcome but I think the result is OK.
Update: movie is in my gallery but I don't know how to link it to this