1/16 Scale 1974 San Paolo Bros. Spaghetti Bender Front Engine Dragster - UPDATED 8/19/2018

[RAT-T]

DRAWINGS LOOK GREAT CHRIS

[Codi]

Man I wish I had some of the skills that you possess Chris........for those younger modellers that can do CAD like you do (and others here) it can only help to make a better car or whatever you're making.  Great start. cheers dude!

[Bobtail]

Morning Chris, I found your Vega funny car build about 2 weeks ago and binged on it till I finished this morning. I just joined the forum so I thought I'd drop you a line. Fabulous work and I can't wait to see what you do with the spaghetti bender!

[GoatGuy]

Chris, this will be great. Looking forward to it, and I'll see you Saturday at Maple Grove, right? Ha. Wish you could make it.

[Mooneyzs]

Tom... thank you very much.

Tim... thank you very much. I am trying to plan out the design this way so that I don't run into fitment issues and troubles Like I did with the Army funny car. I know I am spending more time up front on things than I would like but it will only make things go smoother for me during the build process. Seeing your last post with the chassis all ready to go and the exudes view pics really has inspired me. I cant wait to get to work in this build. I am currently stuck in getting the Chrysler 8-3/4" rear end modeled.i have the Housing just about dine hut there us one portion of it that I am just not happy with and I may have to start it again and approach it a little differently...lol

Randy... thank you so much for the kind words and taking the time to go thru the funny car thread. Welcome to the forum, you will find many great builders here to learn from. Feel free to ask any questions from.any of us here. From what I have found is that everyone is really helpful here.

Dave... thanks, I am really looking forward to getting the chassis going on this one. Wish I could of made it out to Maple Grove. Looks like you had a blast.

[Mooneyzs]

Hello Fellas... I figured it was time to knock the dust off of this build and post an update. Work at the bench has been slow for me lately and haven't had as much time at the bench lately as I would like. I have gotten a little more design work done for this build and wanted to share what I have done so far with getting more parts drawn up for the 392 Engine and the start of the rear end. I had also sent a few of the engine items off to Shapways to get back some test articles so that I could use them when I start the fabrication of the chassis. Here are some pics. Hope you guys enjoy.....

 

Here is the start of the Rear End:

 

 

Start of the Front Axle:

 

 

Here is the Bell Housing along with the Lenco 2 Speed shifter. The Bell housing still needs the inspection plates designed for it:

 

 

 

Then on the Engine I was able to get the Timing Plate, Oil Pan and Valley Cover completed:

 

 

Here is the bottom side so you can see the Oil Pan:

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

I then got the extension for the fuel pump designed for the Timing plate and added some of the details I had drawn up for the Army F/C to the engine just to get an idea of how things looked

 

 

Here is a side view of everything:

 

 

I had sent the parts to Shapeways to have them printed for me and here they are after I got them back:

 

 

I then had to test fit the parts to check the parts fitment:

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

The next step was to get some primer on the part to check out they actually turned out.  With the way I laid the parts out in the file I was not able to have the parts printed at the smoothest resolution since it was a little bigger than the volume of the print area. I am sure I could of rearranged the parts to fit in the build volume but I was too anxious to have these test printed. My plan is to sand these parts and you will never see the print lines in them. But then again I noticed some things on the block where I want to go back and add some radius to a few of the areas to have smoother transitions. I was pretty excited to see the parts and that they had fit like I expected. I still need to draw up the heads, valve covers and Manifold:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs

[John Teresi]

Chris.....great up-date.....your drawings are Killer.....the 3D parts look great...gonna be another great build from Sobak Designs????

[Flat32]

The day will come when you start doing your own printing.  You can design and print fixtures to hold all of your brass tubes in exact position for soldering.

I use dental scrapers on layer lines to shave them down.  Works better than sanding or filing for me because I can see where the cutting edge is cutting.

[Codi]

You're just full of nice surprises Chris.  A real pleasure to see you back on this build and can only marvel at the CAD skills you possess on top of all the others.  The parts look fantastic!  cheers, tim

[RAT-T]

LOVE THE DRAWING CHRIS, PARTS LOOK GREAT AS WELL, LOOKING FORWARD TO MORE UPDATES

[Pro Tech]

Looking good Chris! 

Charlie

Pro Tech

 

 

[gasser59]

Chris - you've been busy. I know it takes a great amount of time and talent to do the 3D rending stuff. Really good looking stuff you got here. Anxious for more.

[Davewilly]

Some Great looking parts there Chris!  Pretty cool to make up your own parts that is for sure!

[Cubeman]

Amazing work on those custom parts. I am sure, its gonna be another winner.

[GoatGuy]

Great update Chris. Do you think you'll have one of the Hemis installed and the other one on a stand next to the car?

[Mooneyzs]

John.... Thanks Brother!! It's Slowly getting there but glad to have gotten some initial stuff done. I just need to get back to it to finish the design work on it.

Raymund... thank you. I Have been keeping an eye on a couple of printers and am getting closer to actually pulling the trigger on one and purchasing a small printer so I can attemot to print my own parts. Thanks for the info on the dental scrapers. Is there a certain place you pick yours up at?

Tim... Thank you my friend. I wish I could  get the design work done already so I could have some more surprises for ya. I know that I am moving along slot slower than I would like on this one but hopefully soon I will have some more stuff done on this one.

Tom... Thank you. This one has been fun so far with the drawings. I am just anxious to get started on the chassis. 8 thinknit should be able to move pretty good after that.

Charlie.... thank you, I am looking forward to putting more of your Braided line to use in this build.

Brad... thanks my friend. You are right some of the 3D design work takes a lot longer than people realize. But what is nice is when it's drawn up then I can insert the parts into assemblies and have a nice library of parts.

Dave... thanks... yeah it's totally fun to be able to draw up the parts especially when you are trying to go for for a replica and there are no parts available for it.

Manfred... thank you very much. I hope I can do this build justice considering it was a dragster my dad worked on. Has a special meaning to me for sure.

Dave... Thank you very much. You know I never gave much thought into having a Hemi in the car and one on a stand next to it. That may just be a great thing to do. Thanks for that idea

[curt raitz]

Howdy Chris

Dang did I really miss this build earlier!

I heard you talking to John about the "Spaghetti Bender" during our visit, now I know what younger talking about!

If they are up to your standard...I'll give you a set of my 1/16th scale wire wheels at the GSL.

c'ya buddy 

 

[GoatGuy]

Looking forward to more of this Chris......

[Straightliner59]

The drawings are very cool! If I drew all that in AutoCAD (I say ACAD, because that's what I have available), I'm afraid, I would call that a model, and be done with it! I've never used printed parts. How much time do you spend cleaning up the layer lines? Looking forward to watching this beauty come together!

[Mooneyzs]

Hello Fellas....

I apologize that I haven't been around much lately, life and work has been busy but I am slowly getting back to the bench.

Curt.... I don't know how you missed this build....lol. It is going to be a really fun build, especially with the meaning behind this build. I have another FED that I want to build where I would use a set of your wheels on it. But on this build I am shooting to pretty much scratch build and 3D print most of the parts. It's something that I want to challenge myself with. Hopefully you understand. It was great seeing you at DSC and GSL.

Dave.... Thank you very much.

Daniel.... Thank man!! I started my CAD skills with AutoCAD12 and then learned Pro-E in college and back in 2007 one of the companies I worked for Switched to Solidworks. So pretty much the past 12 years I have been using that program. In regards to the 3D printed parts and cleaning them up, to me some of it doesn't really take too much time to clean up. The material is a UV cured Resin based Acrylic Plastic and it sands really easy. I will have to take one of the parts, sand on it and post some pics for you so you can see what I mean. Keep in mind that I had this printed thru Shapeways and it was printed with their smooth resolution. I probably should of paid the extra money for the Smoothest but at the time I just wanted to see how these parts turned out so I could use them for mockups while getting the chassis fabricated.

[Mooneyzs]

Ok Fellas.... So as mentioned I haven't been to the bench so to speak for a while but I have been working on some design work and spending time here and there at the computer. I have been working on designing components for a chassis jig for this project so I can keep the frame square when I build it. I have designed miniature clamps which is somewhat of a scaled down version of clamps I use on fixtures at work that I design. I know some of you may think I am nuts for doing this but I thought that I could approach this like I do with some projects at work on how we bank parts and hold them down in fixtures while they get machined. So far I have gotten a couple of the clamps and components for the fixture drawn up, I still have more to do there. But I did start to Machine a few of the clamps and let me tell you that it gave me a much more respect for guys like Tim (Codi), Dave (Comp1839, Mark Jones (Scale Master) and all the others out there that machine parts. I didn't realize how much time goes into setting up a part prior to machining. While I am having a blast making chips, I know I am going slower than those who have been doing it for a while but I am also taking my time to learn and not screw things up. I am taking lighter cuts while I am learning my machine and am sure when I am more comfortable I will be taking heavier cuts to rough the part out and come back with a light finish cut. Anyway let me share with you a few pics of what I have been working on the past few weeks.

 

Here is my Chassis Jig Plate, the Hold Down Clamps and supports. I still have more items that I need to design for the fixture:

 

 

Here is an up close shot of the hold down clamps:

 

 

Here is the drawing of my clamp along with some 6061 Aluminum to make them from:

 

 

I started out first with squaring up my material:

 

 

Once I got the block squared up  I used and angle guage to cut the angles into the part:

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs

[Mooneyzs]

Here is what it looked like after cutting the angle:

 

 

 

After cutting the Angle's on the part, I put the part back in the vise and indicated the part in and set my X and Y zeros on the DRO with an audible edge finder:

 

I then machined the part to length and added the hole and slot to the part:

 

 

Next I flipped the part over and faced it off to size (yes these are two different parts, Top pic part #1, Bottom Pic part #2, I forgot to take pics of the 2nd part after I flipped it over to face it):

 

Edited March 14, 2021 by Mooneyzs