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June 6th 1998: |
Time for the most important
event in the construction of the Panda....the kick-off barbeque!!
The weather held out pretty well, although
it wasn't the warmest of occasions, it must be said. The picture here shows
Chris with the sacrifical sausage. This is the sausage which must be sacrificed
to the god of barbeques before real cooking can take place.
Following a few beers and burgers,
design seems to come so much easier! |
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June 7th 1998: |
Following the social events
the night before, Sunday is straight back to work. As we all know, Sunday
has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with car boot sales!
That is where we headed. The first one we headed to was a bit of a wash
out, but the second one was a bit better. We got hold of an old chest expander
which may have some useful components.
Next, back to the workshop for more cutting,
grinding and bending. The twisted metal is slowly starting to look more
like the design we first produced. We spent most of the day working on
the Panda. We finally got to the time for welding, starting with the front
forks. Neither of us has done any welding for some years, so the first
few welds were strong, but rather messy. |
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June 8th and 9th 1998: |
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The following two days were
just more of the same. Our welding has got better and we now have the grinding
and bending down to a fine art. The next thing was to attach the base plate
to the skeleton.This is done making use of the hinges which were already
on the back of the frame. This should mean we can raise the body like a
car bonnet to get to the electronics.
The last thing of the night was to cut out
cardboard body panels to be used as masks for the real polyprop. panels.
This has made us realise that the frame is not quite equally dimensioned,
but it shouldn't matter.Having finished the skeleton, we celebrated by
climbing on it and jumping up and down.....amazingly it held!! We also
tried pushing and pulling the chassis in different directions, and it works
exactly as we had discovered from the model. This is very encouraging! |
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June 13th 1998: |
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Went to Brighton to collect
a couple of motors and loads of batteries. This finally starts the electronics
side of things. Chris is in Cheshire getting the body panels. We've also
had ideas for more weapons. I don't want to say too much, but you would
never think a Panda would have a sting in it's tail!! |
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