TOPIC:

Each thing in its own time, and the time will come at some point... 

As I found some tricks for the Big Bear tires, I modified my Ninja tires...


What to should I do with this? That's the question

While working in the Big Bear tires, I learned a lot, and I got a lot of ideas... 

While I don't need Ninja tires for the time being, it's not the case for the Shogun and Coors. I have this silly idea it would be great if I can do something with injection molding, with a target to be able to work out a tire in one single action from a mould. That's the new step of this tire challenge. The Big Bear tire is still mainly conceptual, but I believe it should work but it is likely too big to work it as a test case. I need to work with a smaller tire first.

I decided it would be the Shogun/Coors tires. I would need 8 of them, and they are the same for both cars. Their format is quite standard, and this model can be used i quite a bunch of cars I have due to the rim size. Well I could probably use Tamiya Manta Ray or Hotoshot tires, but that is far too easy approach. I love challenges, and that's the way I learn

So first step, I got my model reviewed to include lettering.


I wanted to put the model on the side, it will be a nice touch if I succeed to produce those, no one will ever have the same tires on a Vintage event, unless I decide it to be this way

But since this tire is targeted to be used on both Coors and Shogun, I decided to put something else on the other side


Once this done, I started by doing a square extrusion from the center, and cut the tire body inside that square and started to look into the profile.


I had a look at many videos, tutorial and readings over the last few days. They've started to flow in my brain, and it fuels lot of ideas :-D

IWhat I had in mind this night was :
- injection at bottom point
- central mould part will be a 3 floors tower with a central key used to lock those floors. each floors will be 3 or 4 parts. And the middle floor will be used to lock the first and third floor. and for unmolding, it will be used to unlock the mold.
- external side would be in 5 or 6 parts : 3 or 4 for the tire thread, on on a bottom, one the top. bottom and top will be locking the center key. and bottom will have injection ports. and top part will have to include air vents and provision for air channels (I may have to add another part for this)

NB: I did not even considered the foam tires of the Coors for this exercice. I'll tackle that later, but that will be far too easy for what I need now   

12 tires are needed Marc. 
 

Well, that will be complex

Working out the center mould for a buggy tire, taking into account that once the center key is removed, each parts should be able to move freely through the cylinder which was removed.

and put the elements in a sketch. 8 parts are required for the middle floor to make the principle work.


And actually, it is probably less than this, as once the first part is removed there is more space.

Next : I will need to understand how many parts are required for the other floors.

Another Thunderbird Coors arrived today.


And it has the parts which were missing on my first one: Bill Elliot, and the 2 wheels sets. And the Wheels sets are like new.

And by the way, another news. As I visit "Loisirs Creations RC", I saw a set of onroad rubber 1/10 vintage tires on the desk, and I thought it could be a very nice fit for a Coors runner. The caliper confirmed it was the right dimensions.
As the Coors arrived today : I can confirm they would be a perfect fit for a Coors runner


This is very good news for those in search for tires...

I love it. Congrats Marc. 

Today's printing test has two objectives: confirm lettering would work. I'm printing this test in 0.2mm per layer. There should be a way to do better than this... And it should work.


Next objective is to make sure spikes can print properly as there is bridges and no support, and this will be the difficulty.

The first row of spikes seems perfect, even on the bridged part...


on the second row the overhangs are harder... A few degree of angle can change a lot. That being said: I've not done a single cooling optimisation yet on the printer and all is set to default. I have in mind he fact I want to change the extruder by a direct drive extruder and improve the cooling... But for the first test, it is not really bad.

I will print the full mould over the week-end. This is good progress and also good insights for the Big Bear mould which should be much easier to print than this one...

But that was not all what I did today. I decided to test something else once the mould was printed. Took one of the old Shogun tires, and pushed it in the mould.

The spikes fit in the holes. Both rows. It tell me the model is not far from the reality...

Wahooooo🙌🙌🙌

As mentioned in the postman thread, another Marui Thunderbird Coors joined the crew today...

It came with the box, Bill Eliot is brand new, new rims and tires (not even glued), chassis is new but missing the central shaft (I have one somewhere), and there is as well the manual.



The 3 Coors are not in a project box yet (Ninja and Shogun are each in a box waiting for next steps): the Coors were easy to access, so I took them for a family picture


Let's detail this...


Left N°1, Middle N°2, Right N°3

There At least 3 different versions of the kit delivered by Marui. The first version was like N°1 and N°3. The second version was like N°2 and the third version is N°2 with a different battery door.
Version 1 was basically a Ninja spec chassis in grey with added settings for the suspension height.
Version 2 had 2 small difference, likely introduced at the time the Shogun was introduiced.

First differernce : Front hub carrier is having an added extrusion with a hole to allow for more horizontal shocks fixation (left on the picture), like it is on the Shogun, while the V1 don't have that (right on the picture).


Second difference : Rear Arms have 4 holes in V2 (top on picture) versus 3 in V1 (bottom on picture).


Version 3 is having ribs on the battery door. I don't have a V3, but I had confirmation by someone who had a Coors with V2 plus the battery door with ribs and who built it.


At least I have some clues of the difference. They might be some other minor differences, but I'll see them only when I tear those car down to parts...