Minneapolis maker Frank E. Yost shared this beauty of a project with us back in MAKE Volume 11, and it was a definite favorite in the MAKE Labs from the get-go. I mean, who doesn’t love sheet metal and pop rivets?
Frank loves R/C toys but doesn’t love plastic. He was on the quest for a metal toy racer 10 inches or longer to make into an R/C car, but the best ones he found were all collectibles. In true maker spirit, he decided to build a custom metal body and based his design on tether cars of the 1930s.
This illustration (by the talented Nik Shultz) shows a closer look at the suspension and body from below:
The project is not only sweet because you end up with a beautiful custom Retro R/C Racer, but you even get a built-in mini primer on sheet metal modeling. Check out a bigger view of the illo above and a peek at the whole project in our Digital Edition. Make sure to pick up your copy of MAKE Volume 11 from the Maker Shed if you don’t have one already. Volume 11 also includes a special “DIY Wheels” section, with plans for making a mobile drive-in movie theater, a cool chopper out of an old bicycle, and a pedal powered iPod charger, as well as how to make a remote control bird feeder to take amazing photos of birds and a vacuum-former that lets you create molded 3D parts out of plastic.
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