Scratchbuilt Struts for Drag cars

[Dragline]

While making these struts for my Reher Morrison build last night I thought I'd make a little photo tutorial of how I did it. Nothing fancy as far as tools or styrene needed here. Just some patience and the will to improve this kits weak spot. This works for any strut you may need but please remember to measure, measure, measure. I'll leave it up to you how to do that but I'll show you how I built convincing struts from some basic raw materials. Please forgive the photography. At times I was one handing it and I'm not as solid as a camera stand. That's something I'm going to pick up when I see one cheap enough.

On to the strut.

Here are the basic materials we will be using. A piece of K&S alum tubing and an Evergreen styrene rod assortment. Glue of your choice of course.

Find a solid rod that fits into the alum tubing snugly. I will spare you all my measurements since I eyeball a lot of times and sand to final dimension.

Once you get your strut top measurement you simply roll it under the knife till it seperates. Go easy, it'll shoot across the room! Sand em to final dimension. I use an Exacto to ream out the center so the rod will slide in.

It's already looking like something.

I found a piece that fits over the styrene and is a little bigger than the alum rod. This Evergreen pack is a dream for this kind of thing. They fit into each other and are of similar dimension to K&S rod.

I cut disks out of that rod and sand them thinner. You can get em real thin if you want to. On my car I sanded them very thin and are better to scale. These look OK, but thinner would be better. The ole eyeball test will tell you when you got it right.

Here the piece is attached and looking pretty cool. Not much more to go....

Here is the wire I'll be using for the spring. Not sure of the size, but it's what I use for plug wires. Color choice is limited by what you have on hand. I wouldn't recommend painting the wire though. Buy the color you need since painting it would probably mess up the scale fidelity. Use the same alum rod you used for the strut top for a nice snug fit. Just wrap it tightly but not overly so. We'll tighten it up in a sec.

Now is time to tighten up the wire. I force it gently all together in a nicecoil and then twist it till I cannot twist it anymore. Then hold it for a bit. Let it go and see how you did...

Edited November 18, 2010 by Dragline

[Dragline]

Here you can see an extra piece and a piece installed. I leave about an 1/8th of an inch over the top of the strut to get a nice tight coil and a little tension. I pre installed the bottom retainer before I slid the coil over the strut. All that was left was to install the top and VOILA'. A strut....

Give an extra roll of wire on one end and keep those together. That way it looks like a coil spring end. They always keep 2 coils tight at the top and bottom. I did only one here because that may be the toughest part of this. Getting one end isn't so tough. One end ends up being a pain. But you can do it!

A strut needs a spindle so out comes the styrene rod again. I use a small round file to put a indented cut into the spindle so it sits tight and strong. That's the way they cut em, so that's the way we will. I put a small angle in mine since struts are always angled and if the spindle is at a 90 degree angle to the strut the wheel caster will be wong. Every application is different so experiment with yours for proper angle.

AND FINALLY.... here is our strut! There are many factors in determining length and angles that I couldn't possibly go into here. Your build will differ in almost every respect so this is a general build of a part that is always woefully lacking in most kits. It's not their fault though, they have to make it from one piece of styrene. Buy building ours from several pieces we get a much better representation of the real thing and pride in saying we did it ourselves.

Bob

Edited November 18, 2010 by Dragline

[MicroNitro]

Thanks great tutorial, I have book marked this for the pro stock I am building.

[Wolf75]

Great tut! I'll definately give it a try sometime.

[eastown]

Thanks for taking the time to do this tutorial and sharing.

[shucky]

Bob, nice job on the tut! Great result. Thanks!

[whale392]

Kind-of the same way I did mine. Thanks for sharing this with us!

[Dave Ambrose]

Very cool. Thank you for a very useful tutorial.

[camarobuilder]

I used RB Motion coil over spring and seats for mine. The rest is aluminum tubing. I recently talked to an aftermarket machinist that MAY start making aluminum struts in 1/25-1/24 scale, if there's enough interest.

Frank

[Dragline]

Both of the examples are VERY nice guys. I'll bet that aluminum one will not be cheap though.

Whale, yours is in the same spirit as mine.

On the cheap.

Either way you go, they look a darned sight better than what comes in the box.

Bob

[Harry P.]

Nice! Thanks for posting.

[pharr7226]

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Chuck Most]

About painting the wire- I've tried doing that, and it doesn't seem to add much to the thickness (depending on what gauge wire you are using, anyway), but it can gum up some of the coils. I will certainly be using color coated wire for such applications in the future!