Turbocharged Tutorial

[fordsixty]

thought i would share my technique for making turbos. i have made several and have gotten pretty proficient at it. a little paint detail and some PE components, pretty convincing.

the size of turbo will determine what size evergreen rod to use. i prefer to use evergreen rod, over left over sprue, it stretches evenly and does not snap in two when stretching slowly.

tools required: various sizes of styrene rod

various thicknesses of flat styrene

lighter

hobby knife

flat file

fine sanding stick

pin vise w/ appropriate sizes of drill bits

ruler/scale

zap-a-gap CA

your favorite styrene glue

i will start with a picture of what i want.

this will do, a basic garrett.

first, using the lighter, slowly heat up a half inch section rod while rotating the rod with your fingers. this helps ensure and even heat saturation. when the unheld end of the rod starts to slowly droop, it is time to stretch. now, slowly pull the ends of the rod, stretching it. what we want is a nice long, smooth taper.

something like this.

now cut the rod where the taper ends.

now the tricky part. beware, this will take practice. from this point forward, you will only need to flash the rod into the flame. you do not want the rod heated. you just want it soft enough to bend. flash the rod into the flame and bend it up 90 degrees.

as so.

now we need to start curling the rod around into a circle.

this is the technique i use to maintain a nice circle. you may have to develope your own. it is important that the bend is always kept pointing up when the rod is being flashed into the flame. if it is not, the flame will deform it.

just keep flashing it into the fire and curling it around and it will look like this. cut the end at an angle so that it can be glued in a full circle. then using zap-a-gap, fill in the gap (after the styrene glue dries). sanding stick smooth all surfaces.

this will be the exhaust turbine housing. so we need to build the exhaust manifold flange, exhaust down pipe flange and bearing housing. start with the exhaust down pipe flange. i take a piece of sprue and file a slight taper on one end and glue it in one side.

sorry for the crappy picture, a couple of bad ones here.

then i used .040" square styrene and made three tread bosses to mount around the down pipe flange.

again, sorry for the picture.

[fordsixty]

now the bearing housing. just a piece of flat styrene cut and filed in a D will be glued to the other side. this is where the oil pressure and return lines are mounted.

the result:

should look like this. i took some flat styrene , cut into a square, added four short pieces of round rod for threaded bosses glued to the end which will mount to the exhaust manifold. also took some flat styrene cut into a triangle, to match the three square threaded bosses, and glued to the end that will mount to the down pipe. i drill and add .020" rod in those flanges to help mount it in place.

now the impeller side. same proceedure as before. stretch, cut, flash, curl and glue.

looks familiar.

again, round tube glued to one side for the intake.

now, the impeller housing is made of two pieces. the two parts are held together with either bolt/tab clamps or full circle clamps. the reason being, so that the intake tube can be clocked into whatever position for what ever application. so i start with a circle, the same size as the impeller housing, cut out of some flat styrene. i add a short piece of .100" round styrene to the center.

here you can see that i added very small triangles around the .100" rod. reinforcement which adds a little more reality. there is also .020" rod in the center so that i can clock the imput tube in the right direction.

this is what you will end up with. i added a little more detail: three small pieces around the impeller housing for the clamps and a small piece of flat for the data plate.

the turbo on my semi.

i know it looks complicated, but it is not. just takes practice and be careful with the lighter. both of these, minus the glue drying time, took just one hour to do.

go ahead and give it a try and let me know what you think. if it is not working, let me know.

if this is too small for you to work with, you could always start by replicating this.

thanks guys.

Edited January 9, 2010 by fordsixty

[Nick F40]

Fantastic tutorial Dale, especially from you. I'll have to use this one.

Now if you could somehow make the propeller

[george 53]

Dale, THANK YOU!!!!! I have been ASKING for SOMEONE to do something like this to show us how to build one, and YOU have come thru like GANGBUSTERS!!!! It looks like it's something I could actually DO!!! May take a little practice, but I THINK I could manage it! THANKS AGAIN ! GREATLY appericiated!!!!

[Foxer]

That's one fine turbo you've ended up with. A great looking turbo AND tutorial!

[fordsixty]

thanks guys. i really hope this helps.

Now if you could somehow make the propeller

hey there nick, i already did an impeller..................

[Nick F40]

:lol:

ok, it's official Dale, you are my favorite builder!

[Gregg]

Now, if we could that again with some super high res photos, completely in focus, add the impeller portion, it would go in the mag!!!!

Great job.

[randx0]

Thank You for the tutorial you gifted S.O.B.

[wgflatliner]

why couldn't i have seen this earlier? lol

well, time to rip off the old turbo and start with a new one. hehe

excellent guide. bookmarked it for all my turbo needs.

[20PSI]

I use solder to do turbos. The only problem is that paint dont stick

Good tutorian anyway

[shucky]

I use solder to do turbos. The only problem is that paint dont stick

Good tutorian anyway

fordsixty, nice tut. I've not tried to make turbo's out of plastic/styrene so far. I'm a solder/metal guy.

20psi - paint sticks to solder w/out probs for me. You can always shoot some auto primer on the housings if your having an issue. Normally I just brush paint metalizer which doesn't show brush strokes anyways. These were done w/out primer, straight over solder and never had an issue with it coming off or not sticking.

Edited January 12, 2010 by shucky

[hawkeye649]

thanks guys. i really hope this helps.

hey there nick, i already did an impeller..................

That is just SICK. The exhaust even has discoloration. That's amazing detail!

[hawkeye649]

fordsixty, nice tut. I've not tried to make turbo's out of plastic/styrene so far. I'm a solder/metal guy.

20psi - paint sticks to solder w/out probs for me. You can always shoot some auto primer on the housings if your having an issue. Normally I just brush paint metalizer which doesn't show brush strokes anyways. These were done w/out primer, straight over solder and never had an issue with it coming off or not sticking.

Now that's even crazier, how did you make the hose clamps?

[Smart-Resins]

Great stuff guys! Jody

[shucky]

The hose clamps are thin strips of bare metal foil wrapped around the tubing then the simulated bolt is a tiny piece of flat cut beading wire epoxy'd in place.

[macs_rock]

Awesome tutorial. Is there a collection of the really good tutorials on this site? If not, someone should make one, like a forum with all the outstanding stuff in it. I would make one, but school and homework take all my time that's not spent modelling.

[hawkeye649]

The hose clamps are thin strips of bare metal foil wrapped around the tubing then the simulated bolt is a tiny piece of flat cut beading wire epoxy'd in place.

They are really nice, very clean.

I love the super-detail in the other one too.

I think I might need to make a brace of these for the V12 that's going in my chopped truck...

[393stroker]

I'd like to see step by step way of making these turbos and how to make a supercharger with pics as you build. Nice turbos.

[vypurr59]

I agree that this tutorial should be pinned. Great work on the turbos, Dale

[Ace-Garageguy]

Good stuff here. Very nice work.

[393stroker]

Nice.... I might try to build a few. Im trying to do coilovers within the next week or so when i get time. Nice thread here.