Rebarreling and Home-Shop Machining

Panhard Bar Mounts for an RC car

Work continues on the 3-link Radio Control Car with Panhard bar.  The second photo shows the location of the Panhard bar and the current mounts which work just fine but need an appearance improvement.  I had made these out of tear away material to protect other parts of the car in the crashes.

The third photo shows a second prototype car with minor improvements without the Panhard bar.  Testing has shown that the low left frame rail extension to which I mount the Panhard bar is plenty tough so the mounts can be aluminum.  My nephew James has started machining new Panhard bar mounts in T6 Aluminum.

The fourth Photo shows a piece of half inch stock which we milled a 1/2 inch plus .050 inch slot.  The part will be .70 inch long with a .2 inch thick ear hanging down on the left side of the car.  We will produce four parts.  We have set a .032 inch slotting blade up to saw the parts length wise.  Use paper to set the cutter to height then we will downfeed .25 inch plus the width of the paper  and the blade for the second cut.  We had to Dremel a flat on this cutter's arbor to make it hold securely in the 3/8 inch milling cutter holder.  The cutter worked fastestest and produced better chips with a standard shallow milling cutter cut followed by deeper cuts rather than taking the cut it all in one pass. 

Cutting G10 and Graphite plate

All the G10 (phenolic fiberglass laminate) and Graphite plate on the back of this car is cut on a scroll saw and then sanded.  I made some progress in finding a blade that would actually do the job.  The problem is the material is very abrasive.  I took a rod saw blate from my Hacksaw and cut it in half.  This made a great blade.  I could run the saw at full speed and it lasted a good while.  Dremel makes a similar tungsten carbide coated rod blade for the scroll saw if you have time order these ahead of time.

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