I have cut all three material with a hand held jig saw but a band saw would probably work best. lexan is pretty flimsy if you use that make sure you use at least 1/4". 3MM Carbon fiber would be best though IMO.

Can't you find some sort machine shop or garage that will have 'scraps' laying around, you won't need much for this mod. 1/8 - 5/16 thickness will work just fine.
Where cutting is concerned, I'm currently using a few simple tools to make shapes out of aluminum.

- A nice clamp/vice to hold the material
- A hack saw... great for general shapes and lines (cuts through aluminum with no effort)
- A Dremel with cutoff wheels, a tungsten carbide cutting bits is always nice and some sanding drums.

I draw all my designs in Adobe Illustrator (you can do it by hand if you wish) and print them out... I'll lay a couple strips of masking tape on the aluminum sheet...
Then glue the drawings to the taped side (this to allow for easy removal of the paper when I am done cutting the shape). After making my cuts with the hack saw,
I'll use the cutoff wheels and sanding drums to fine tune the shape.

Carbon fiber is easy enough when you use cutoff wheels.... Just be careful with this material, the dust is not the kind of stuff you want in your longs nor eyes...
make sure you wear eye protection and a dust mask (damp)... Also make your cuts in a well ventilated area... Wetting the carbon before your cuts will reduce
the amount dust flying around too. Use a sanding drum or sandpaper to clean up edges and lines.


Countersinking both materials can be done with a countersink tool you can pick up at your local hardware. With carbon fiber I prefer you an abrasive cone shaped tool...
In stead of cutting in the material, it grinds the surface away smoothly and reduces the chances of delamination... it's also a good idea to apply some thin CA (zap) on the area
when you are done making the countersink (again reducing the chance of delamination)


http://www.dynenco.net/countersink_f...ountersink.jpg


A scroll saw would be so sweet for this too.

Like you saw on the other forum here is my bersion but my FLM chassie isn't cut:sarcastic:
this is a 4s 5000mah with a lexan homemade box
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...DSCF0009-3.jpg
http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/i...DSCF0008-2.jpg

Yeah Quebec I've always liked your truck!

Although I don't see your lexan battery box I do see your homemade spoiler. Nice!

... Bad news:
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/100_1123.jpg

http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/100_1126.jpg

Hopefully I can get this worked out before too long.

Pictures from the mountains should be up 2night.

Alien, great advice! It will certainly be my main point of reference! I can't thank you enough! All this is very exciting! Would any of these make a good tungsten carbide cutting bit?

No problem man... how the hell did that happen to your diff? Let me guess... hmmmmmmm.. too much power? :lol: Hope you get it sorted soon.

:mdr::party::wink:Too much power (i think this may become part of my sig. for awhile)to be landing difficult jumps while hard on the throttle to correct with a locked slipper.

Just got 4 more super shocks, along with a Gen IV servo saver from JD Cruson. You guys should have seen his sale! Im going to ask if I can post some of his trucks here...

Edit: Also ordered the $18 UE 8spider maintance kit with the 2 broken parts plus some. Another fan is coming my way from CC aswell. January or February this project should be almost complete.

-Zack

I think I'm going to do what jordan did except extend (give wings to) the center skid where he mounted the CD(i'm going to do that also)CLICK. He didn't give batt wings(haha see what I did there) to the center skid because he already had a GMaxx chassis.

Very exciting!!!

Alright I finally did it. And pretty much the way I said...

I wanted to see if I could do it without inverting the tire. I managed to and they run amazingly true and balance is no worse than it was, at least.

I was able to get one full run around the center as the profile is flat enough that there isn't much wrinkling with the tape. As for the outer sections, in order to get it to lay flat I used 3-4" sections overlapped at least 1/4". You have to do a zigzag crosshatch type thing to get the tape where you want it.

Major handling improvement, and didn't lose much at all on speed. I was expecting about a 5 mph drop, but apparently the weight on my Mute was keeping the diameter roughly the same on the contact patch, even while the rest of the tire was playing pufferfish. I locked a front wheel to get 2X speed with the diff and got no sign of ballooning, so theoretically they should be good for 60+. Not happening, but nice to know.

Strangely after so long with minimal wear, they are showing wear after 3 or 4 runs with the tires taped:neutral:

Not pretty, but very effective!

Cool cool I'm glad it worked out! I bet it took a while. Strange indeed about the wear. Is that some sort of tubing on the inside lips to hold the carcass open?

Those are the ring halves for the beadlocks. They were a huge help with taping, and I was careful to let the tape down slowly and not distort the natural contour of the tire. The tape made the tires significantly stiffer even unmounted, acts almost like a real tire carcass to some extent.

The beadlocks made things quite a bit easier vs. glued tires, and most of the time was just cleaning the shredded foam out and getting the tires clean inside. The compound of the ZM tires is like the rubber they make those wallwalker toys from, you have to pry it apart from itself, so the tape stuck like crazy. I'm not sure how well some tape sticks to the various compounds, but it worked great for me.

Great, good to hear redshift and good to have you posting here.

I wonder if modding my chassis in this way will prohibit me from racing. I mean the gorillamxx takes this even further and they can race.

Trying a new racing battery setup. I can't claim this setup all to myself as I've seen it done before. Pretty neat I think.
http://i420.photobucket.com/albums/p...a/100_1682.jpg

How safe are they hanging there?

I have seen it done before.
I guess as long as the straps are good the batteries are safe.

esh i dont know about that... id be worried about hitting a rut just right and slamming into the lipo...