Build Diary March 2001

The work so far seems to have gone well although the drive turned out to be more troublesome than we first imagined. We seemed to spend a lot of time knocking bearings on and off axles. In the end I started putting the units into my freezer for a couple of hours before working on them. This was surprisingly effective actually. The contraction of the metal means that everything moves with much less resistance and it seems to keep cold long enough to do the work.

We cut the old side bars off and re-welded these into the centre of the chassis. These were then drilled and the new drive units were mounted onto these bars. I found the welding was much easier following a general buildup of rust over the winter. Seems that the oxidisation has helped so you don't rely on the CO2 shield quite so much. We made a few mistakes on some of the holes and had to re-weld them, but generally pretty good. The picture to the right is Cathy drilling the chassis - yes, that is the chassis under there somewhere and yes that is Cathy under there somewhere :-)

This is a close-up of one side once it was finished. Much more compact than before and there is room to fit some bits in next to the axe cylinder. This should mean we can have flat sides at least!! There should also be less strain on the drive as it is all much closer together. I'm slightly concerned about the wheels using grub screws to hold them in place, but we can always cut a biscuit/key if tests prove its not good enough.

We've started work on the axe. The new head is mounted on the new arm (which is made from aluminium scaffold pole) and this in turn is mounted on the chassis. we need to re-fit the linkage and try it out. We had a little 'manual' test on Panda Monium's polyprop shell and it went through with no hassle at all...NICE!!

PANTS FLASH: Just got our audition date for Robot Mayhem. It will be at London Arena on 8th August 2001. Still got lots to do between now and then, but I'm hopeful that we can do well this time....(famous last words...)