DieHarder

I've decided I need to step up my game with the G6 that I built almost a year ago. Starting from a kit and being an inexperienced crawler in this thread: http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-e...ectronics.html , I've come a long way, spent a lot of time in the woods, on the rocks, upside down, underwater, and online checking out other hobbyist's builds. I think I'm finally ready to do the last major mods and upgrades to my rig and I'll be posting updates here.

RustedRC

Cool can't wait to see it.

DieHarder

So I decided to save some money on few things I thought I could build myself. First I began on some winch accessories. Using a scrap stainless steel angle, some JB Weld, and two 1/8" chain links, I designed and built this:



The ends are ground sharp to bite into wood and give high pressure points on hard surfaces. I also came across this interesting tool on RC4WD for pushing into the dirt and winching to:



So I went ahead and made my best attempt to build my own. This time I used some hardened 3/32 steel rod, more JB Weld, and a large cotter pin w/ a piece of shrink tubing.



I was pretty happy with the set.



But it wasn't complete... I needed a Pulpal like the real Jeeps use! So I took a scrap steel L-bracket from a parted out dishwasher, some 1/4"x1/4" steel bar from an old door handle assembly, more JB Weld, and another cotter pin w/ shrink tube. This is the result, completing the set:



I needed some tow straps too, so I picked up some flat shoe laces, and a few of those hooks for hanging pictures that have that wire hanging setup. I sewed the straps and put shrink tube over them. These straps are for wrapping around trees/other large objects and hooking on themselves. I made them in three lengths, 40", 25", and 10". As for extension straps for use with the winch accessories since the hooks on these won't fit the cotter pins, I'm still working on those...



And that covers the winch accessories!

Mike Flea

Those are really great ideas, kudos, I like the straps with the picture hanger for a hook.

DieHarder

RustedRC - Lots to come, stay tuned!

Thanks Mike! I found the strap idea from a guy on rccrawler.com.
I'm figuring I saved about $35 by making these accessories over buying them.

RustedRC

They came out great. i like the wood anchor the most.
you may have given me a few ideas.

DieHarder

Go for it RustedRC! It's really a lot of fun building these functional miniatures.

Time for some scale accessories, starting with a sleeping bag. This one is pretty popular but it's a good idea and I liked the look. I just cut out a rectangular piece of brown felt, folded it in half, rolled it up, and hot glued it to keep it from unraveling. Simple, fast, and scale.



And then to hold the sleeping bag to the roll cage along with other accessories like the ones I made for the winch, I bought a large pack of colored hair ties and some assorted colored paper clips. Thanks to more ideas from the internet and a nicely done YouTube video, I made scale bungee cords. I started with just a couple but ended up making 4 lengths and two of each color in each length (14), for a total of 56. They took about 4 minutes a piece to make.



Next was making a snorkel. I see online how some sites sell special snorkels that fit certain models and charge a fortune for them. I know they also make some universal ones. I wasn't really interested in those. Like the whole purpose of them is to look scale but that's it. If I bought a universal one and it was 20 degrees off from being inline with my windshield and didn't look right at all, it would be pointless to have it on there. So from a black plastic coat hanger and the use of a lighter, I made my own that is a perfect fit for my G6.



I even drilled a 3/8" deep hole in the end and cut it on an angle to make it actually look like an exhaust tip. Also drilled a hole for an M3 screw in the end that goes under the hood so I can ream a hole in the body and tie down that end of the snorkel. I'll be tying down the upper part of the snorkel with a small zip tie that hooks into the light bar/windshield mount.

More to come, will post as I find the time.

Neil2704

That's some pretty cool scale mods you have there. I like the ingenuity.

RustedRC

Looking awesome love the snorkel.

DieHarder

How about a license plate? Yes, I need a license plate. This is my very own design by the way, although an idea from the internet lead me to where I would find a program to make the license plate and the right material for a license plate frame. So yeah, kinda my idea but not really... I took a DVD case and cut out a two-piece frame set from the thin plastic on the inside of the case. I then drilled four holes in each piece that lined up. I'm using M2x10mm screws that will eventually screw through the frame and into the bumper that I will be making. After only one prototype, I had a plate frame.



And then I searched for "acme license maker" on Google and found a site where you can custom make license plates as a .jpg image. So I came up with 15 different cool plates and printed them out to the size I figured would look good and still be visible/legible from a high up view. Then I laminated all of them. Part of the design to keep the plates securely mounted in the frame was some fancy scissor work. Tightening down the screws will also clamp the plates in there nice and tight. Check it out!



Another scale accessory I'm interested in is tinting the windshield. I read up on it a little and some guys were using Tamiya PS paints whichever # is 'Smoke'. But they complained of it being blotchy. I couldn't find any other very good ideas that reviewed well, so I came up with one. I went to an auto detailing garage and asked for a scrap tint piece the size of my windshield. The guy gave me a nice piece fresh off the roll, enough to do an entire front window of a 1:1 car for FREE! Nice guy he was. It's peel and stick style so I'm hoping this will stick to the Lexan. If not, I don't HAVE to have window tint. If this doesn't work out there is no way I'm spraying it with smoke paint. Blotchy tint is something I won't tolerate on my baby.

Neil2704

i used the smoke on my body and it turned out good. the key is small thin coats.

DieHarder

Yeah? I'm pretty sure my LHS stocks PS-31 Smoke, so I could pick it up anytime. If the car tint idea fails or is much too dark I MIGHT give it a shot. I kinda like the car tint idea because it's removable, but feel free to post up a pic of your tint though, it could be what I end up going with in the end if the car tint doesn't stick.

DieHarder

So I mentioned in my previous update post that I plan on making a bumper, a rear bumper to be specific. Normally I'd pick up one from ScalerFab. But at $40+ shipped to my house with the license plate option, I just can't spare that kind of cash from my budget for this build. Once again, I'll make my own! I looked at a few bumpers online and really like the Rock Armor G6 rear bumper (I would buy it, but with the excessive metal between the frame rails, it would interfere with another upgrade I'll be doing later in this thread). With that as my inspiration, the build began!



I took a piece of 1"x1"x1/8" aluminum angle and cut down one side of the angle to look like this. I also drilled two 1/4" holes for LEDS.



Next I cut down the other side of the angle to 5/8" of and inch, forming the top of the bumper. The back of bumper is shown here, where I cut out some side panels and JB Welded them on. In order to set them up to dry, I tacked the panels in place with super glue to exactly where I wanted them before applying the JB Weld.



In order to make the panels seamless where they were JB Welded to the bumper, I also applied JB Weld to the seams on the outside acting as filler. Shown in the pics is a before and after of sanding. If you also notice, there is hole in the bottom of each lower panel. I put those in for rear under-glow lighting later in the build.



Here you can see the sloppy JB Weld on the backside of the panels. Moving on, I went ahead and drilled holes for license plate...

BTW I had my first day of school today so feeling a little worn out. I'm heading out to the shop though, will update tonight hopefully with some more progress.

RustedRC

Very cool DieHarder. looks fantastic. does the JB Weld bond with the aluminium well?

DieHarder

Thanks!

Not generally. But what I've learned from using JB Weld with aluminum on other projects is that most of the bonding strength has to do technique. One thing I do is rough up the aluminum with some like 100 grit. Very rough stuff, but I just use it lightly. The other technique I use is that I apply the JB weld to edges when I can. If you just put the stuff on a smooth, flat, aluminum surface, it's not going to hold much at all. So if there are edges or seams nearby, I extend the weld to grab those edges and strengthen the whole deal.

RustedRC

It looks good though. just as long as it can take a few hits and hold together.

DieHarder

Thanks to this post I did some strength tests. Couple taps with a hammer, prying with pliers, and a chuck across the garage proved that it's strong. I admit, I was worried and it was rather difficult to try and break my work. lol

So I built some mounts for it and gave it a good wet sanding with 400 grit. Also JB Welded some plastic on to the back of the bumper to act as nuts for the license plate screws and countersunk the LED holes to make some LED retainer clips fit.



And then I put together a simple piece to hold a couple LEDs near the front of the rig. This is coming up later in the build.



Next I hit both parts with a couple light coats of Rustoleum Self-etching Primer:



And painted the parts Semi-Gloss Black.



Lastly, I mounted up the license plate and put a couple LED retainers in, mocked up for pics. I colored the retainers silver with a Silver Paint Sharpie.



So that concludes my scratch built bumper. I'm pretty happy with it. Also, I finished up some more straps tonight but it's getting late, so I'll post them up with the last of the scale homemade accessories when I get the time.

RustedRC

That turned out great. i might give it a try. the license plate gives it a killer look.

Mike Flea

Real pro work there, looks good!

DieHarder

Thanks guys! I really appreciate the support! Just about anybody can build one with a little JB Weld, some aluminum stock, a little creativity, give a go man!

DieHarder

Moving on, I decided to make a scale wood bundle like I've seen other hobbyists do. It looked fairly simple so I decided to give it a shot. I went out and clipped a couple of dead peach tree branches:



Then I cut them to 'scale log length', about an inch and a half.



Next I used a hammer and chisel to literally split the wood like the real deal.



I split some in halves, some in quarters... Then using a hot glue gun, I assembled the wood into a bundle. I left a space out so the bundle can be secured to the roll cage easier. I'll be using the bungee cords that I made to hold it on.



Earlier I mentioned that I would be working on some extension straps. I went and bought some chain at Family Farm and Home (love that place) to make hooks from:



The hooks are sewed on and then a piece of shrink tube was slid over. They work great for the winch accessories and tree-strapping as well. Then I tried putting the window tint on the windshield. I had a perfect piece cut out. But no matter how hard I tried, with a sponge and all, I couldn't get the bubbles out. It looked awful. So I used an adhesive remover to get the super sticky residue off the Lexan. BAD IDEA! It made the polycarbonate all cloudy. After a quick panic session I looked up online some solutions. Let me tell you...



This stuff is amazing! If you ever get in a situation where the Lexan goes cloudy, this stuff brings all the shine back. Very happy with the results and my windshield looks like new. Just like what it's supposed to do to your headlights. lol

DieHarder

Over the past couple of weeks, $650+ in parts and upgrades have came in the mail. One of those things was a light bar, and even though some people really like the G6 light bar setup, I hate it. So away with it! I cut some of the light pods off of the assembly, drilled holes in the bottom of them, and bolted them to the roll cage where the old light bar braces used to attach. I plan on lighting these up with blue 'flat angle' LEDs so that instead of shining a beam, they will glow blue instead.



Oh, I also took some of those blue Nerf darts and made them into scale roll bar cushioning. I bought the Vanquish 5" Rigid Industries light bar. I was going to get a Mad Dog 120mm Ultra, but it just didn't cut it scale-wise. I don't drive a lot at night either, so the scale looks kinda outweighed functionality. However the Vanquish bar is still really bright. So what I'm getting to is that the stock light bar mounts aren't big enough nor the right shape to hold the light bar, the windshield gets in the way. I can't bring myself to blow $30 on a set of Vanquish light bar mounts (this light bar is my first Vanquish product. They're just too expensive for general stuff when there's cheaper and sometimes better options), so I started building my own. I made a paper replica of the mount I needed and traced two of them on a scrap piece of 1/16" thick aluminum that dad brought home from work (thanks dad).



A little saw work and I had them cut out.



A little file work and got the holes drilled. I messed up on one hole as you can see it's the wrong size. I made it bigger than it should have been, but hey, it still works and allows a little adjustment for the light bar so I don't mind too much. Not worth making another one. They're a little beat up in these pics, but the wet sanding and primer filled most of it. I won't have pics of the final product until tomorrow, just put the final coat on tonight.



Also got the Gearhead windshield banner on.



Lots more to come!

RustedRC

looking good man. your scale goodies will be amazing on your rc. i never tried that plastx. thanks for the tip.

DieHarder

Thanks bud! Yeah, I'm pretty excited to get it all together!

Mike Flea

Cloudy plastic? use toothpaste on a soft cloth, apply like wax, and polish off! I use to use it on the gauges for my old Harley all the time.