Baby Bugatti (T52)

April 2018

Bending the eyes on the front end of some stainless steel 3mmx20mm flat bar to make the front 'springs', machining the cast aluminium wheel rims, making the front portion of the body and floor pan. Stuffed up the bead line going down the bottom of the scuttle and sections under the body which should have been just above half way up the chassis rails but I put it at the top of the chassis rail by mistake. This step is so the top section of the body can go over the floor and then the body screws go though both.

March 2018

Using the bead roller put a 3mm step in the 0.9mm stainless steel of the radiator to allow for the leather and the bonnet. Didn't get a perfectly straight line so will need to try again using a guide as harder than expected to keep it going straight free hand.

January 2018

Making custom Bugatti style nuts and bots out of 316 stainless steel for mounting the rear axle to the chassis and holding the two halves of the rear axle housing together. The pattern I made has the brake drum diameter about 15mm too small and the wheel about 5mm too small in radius. Will use these until I remake the pattern, next time using proper jelutong pattern making wood as really don't like the MDF swelling if it gets at all wet.

July 2017

June 2017

Bought a small lathe/mill/drill combination machine. After having to fully dismantle the machine to remove the old grease which had dried rock hard and replacing with new grease and making a motor mount this is the first chips I have made with the mill portion of the machine. Machining the steering 'box'.

April 2017

The wheel pattern.

February 2017

January 2017

Making the rear housing for the forward/reverse switch. The core is made from sodium silicate bonded sand which hardens when exposed to CO2. The bottom half of the mould is made from the same sodium silicate sand which enables the core to be glued to the bottom half of the mould as I am using an overhanging core with nothing supporting it at one end the core must be glued in place. The top half of the mould I made out of petrobond casting sand like the rest of my moulds.

November 2016

Purchased some foundry sand and bentonite to mix up my own green sand, have been using Petrobond so far for my moulds and now that my muller is nearly ready it's time to give green sand a go. Wooden patterns for the break leavers for the front an rear which go on the brake backing plate and attach to the hand brake leaver by cable. Also the star of the next section of the pattern for the wheel rims.

November 2016

Brass casting for part of the steering box and one of the two parts that goes on the handbrake leaver with the cable brakes running over it from front to back. The first attempt I didn't have thick enough risers and the brass part ended up with a few holes in it due to shrinkage. The next one had much larger risers and worked well. I didn't clean out all the dross properly so had a slight imperfection for that, but otherwise worked well. Found that bras appears to shrink a lot more than aluminium.

September 2016

Instead of having a really thick base on the steering box I made a second piece which gave the steering box the correct angle. The drawings have a line where I have the join between these this piece and the main steering box casting from the section below. This saves having a solid cast slab about an inch thick which seems nicer.

September 2016

Making a pattern and casting the steering box.

February 2016

Cutting a sheet of aluminium to make the floor pan, the edges will be folded up in a bead roller and special body bolts will be used running along the chassis half way up the chassis rail.

Casting the front axle. The pineapple tins are to get more aluminium is the risers to feed the casting as it cools, this will also provide more pressure to force the aluminium into the mold as it cools.

September 2015, Making the eyes on the front springs. These will eventually be made out of stainless steel, but for the moment just getting the correct shape and size using mild steel.

August 2015, casting the aluminum rear spring hanger for the front springs.

May 2015, making the chassis and the wooden buck, covered in newspaper to get an idea of how the shape will come out. The aluminum skin will be made to fit over this wooden buck, then the buck will be removed.