Body building advice needed

[spacephrawg]

At this point all i have is ideas and drawings to work from. I have a little experience with 3d rendering in Rhino, a program I like that has been recommended to me for making things that i can get 3d printed. And so I was thinking of making a multi-part pattern for vacuforming an RC body. It would probably be really thick model styrene for the first run, because it is easier to modify that than it is polycarbonate.

The vehicle I was thinking of doing is the Uaz Tigr (a UAZ 469 with a hard top) and i am very enthusiastic about this thing because it is handsome at least to my eyes, and nobody anywhere sells a body of it, despite its internationally legendary status.

Here is a schematic:



The internet is chock full of images of modified versions with lifts, huge tires, strange fender flares, external roll cages, snorkels, roof racks, extra lights, and various kinds of bull bars.

I was thinking of making it in two slightly different sizes - one to fit a CC01, and the other to fit an SCX10 or similar.

What i was wondering is if anyone had any advice on this process or what one would want to see in a body shell. Because of certain undercuts, it would not be a conventional one-piece thing. It would be closer to a model kit; the front/grill end would probably be a separate piece that would get glued onto a flat face (for ease of pulling a vacuformed plastic shell off of the mold pattern, you have to deal with undercuts so you have to work around that.)

I've seen people on here make bodies out of the same kind of styrene plastic sheeting and they hold up quite well. This shell would be thick (a little thicker than a lexan shell.) I was thinking that maybe the hood would be a separate piece as well.

Does anyone have any thoughts? This is still in the drawing board stage so anything can be changed.

Thank you awfully much!

edit:

a couple of people have already made scratch-built bodies and in one of the cases, a scratch built chassis with tamiya axles:

for a CC01:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxvus...m=PL&index=159

The almost completely scratch built full metal one, of which there exist a few videos but this one is as good as any:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLZ9C...m=PL&index=162

[dezfan]

Carve a plug and build yourself a vacuum former.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVE5EHzRnk

[spacephrawg]

Originally Posted by dezfan

Carve a plug and build yourself a vacuum former.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVVE5EHzRnk

Thank you for that video. That is kind of what I plan to do.

Any thoughts about the product? Like, the unconventional nature of it? It strikes me that many people on here and other forums I have seen are as interested in the guts of their 1.9 scale rigs as they are interested in the modeling aspect. That is the gamble I am making. My model would require the client to glue a few parts together and clean them up with bondo or some other filler, and a little sanding. Too much to ask? Way off the mark? I mean, people do it with toy RC car bodies; is it too much to ask for a vacuformed one?

[dezfan]

Options are good IMO.

[TexasSP]

I think it's a great idea. Most people on here are used to a little modifcation and modeling so putting together pieces with a little cutting, gluing, and sanding shouldn't be a big deal. I like the idea of something different as well. As much as I like hilux's it gets old seeing it them in every thread.

[goldmember]

Great idea IMO...but I'm just wondering how one goes about getting copyright approval for something like this, or the bodies that RC4WD, Proline, etc all make?

[spacephrawg]

Originally Posted by goldmember

Great idea IMO...but I'm just wondering how one goes about getting copyright approval for something like this, or the bodies that RC4WD, Proline, etc all make?

Well, speaking of Proline, they made some proportional alterations to the FJ40 form so they could make the Bushwhacker without having to pay for copyright stuff. I expect RC4wd called their things the T-runner and Yota because they could not get licensing or didn't bother to. I do not know what I would call the thing if not "Uaz". Maybe "Cold Warrior" or something.

The Uaz website is, predictably, all in russian. I think they would be as confused by an english language email as i would be by a russian language one. Its worth a try though. Meanwhile, what if they have a high asking price? Maybe I should just go the Bushwhacker/RC4wd route?


edit: as a side note, i looked in the FAQ and they didn't have anything about registering as a vendor, acquiring stars, or obtaining any other form of legitimacy as a seller. Where is this information posted? I understand that once I have that certification and have paid the seller's fee, i cannot post threads like this. I'm just trying to gather info is all.

[TexasSP]

Check out the chit chat forum and look at the sticky "no more vendor feeler threads"

[spacephrawg]

Well the administrators have informed me that since i am not yet a vendor, what i am doing here is kosher. However I really do appreciate being alerted to the rules.

About getting around licensing, if I just changed the name, and altered the proportions a little, the Uaz corporation can't touch me, am i right? The thing is though, I really would like to just call it a Uaz (pronounced OOo-azz, according to a russian TV advert i saw on youtube.)

I just sent the Uaz company an email about it. They do have an english version of their site which is curious since the only western nation they sell in is Italy, where they are extremely popular.

By the way, if anyone is interested, this is their site:
http://www.uaz.ru/eng

Failing that, I would have to come up with a fake name for my product. I think calling a faux-FJ40 "bushwhacker" is a little strange but whatever. its a good product. It would have to be a one-word name, yes?

Maybe I am putting the cart before the horse.

Over on the Scale4x4 forums, where i started an identical thread, one user informed me that the SCX10 is becoming increasingly popular, and is more so than the CC01. Probably I am the last person on earth to pick up on this. I was thinking of making two Uaz body shells - one for a 10.5in wb, and another for something larger that the SCX10 could accommodate.

About the SCX10: I saw in the current issue of "RC Crawler" magazine, there was a writeup of an SCX10-based scaler someone made. What was notable about it is that the suspension was such that the axle articulation didn't put the tires in a position to rub the fenders, where were, at their highest point, quite a lot lower than the ones on say, the TR body. I do not recall how this was achieved but it addresses one of the few complaints I've always had about the SCX10 which is that, because of the way the axles articulate and where that puts the wheels at certain times, bodies or alternately, suspension, has to ride almost unrealistically high or else things will rub. It doesn't look so hot to my eyes. I've seen some users have some luck with that hard plastic D90 body but the result in the end is what looks like a scale version of 4-10 inch lift.

Modified Uaz's don't often have much room between the tops of the wheels and the fender. They have enough room to absorb the normal bumps of a road but at a glance it doesn't look like the sort of lifting that one normally thinks of when one hears the word "lift".

I have seen one good counter-example however:


But in this thing's case, if it were an SCX10, it would probably have to be running on touring car shocks or something, right?

Wouldn't that be an obstacle to saleability?

On the other hand, Pro-Line's Jeep Cherokee seems to do alright, though the end result often looks like a 1:1 scale rig that is designed exclusively for mudding or something.

What do you guys think of this dilema? Would I be commercially shooting myself in the foot to only make something that would fit the CC01?

[spacephrawg]

I just did a bit of research and found out that it will be possible to make a one-piece shell with undercuts, and more importantly that I will be able to use polycarbonate (lexan) at home, without fear of fumes because there are none.

There's this guy on a French forum who showed me some of the stuff he was able to produce using multi-part molds and the detail puts Pro-Line to shame.