TractionKiting.co.uk

Popeye the Welder has just made his latest buggy!

Its a work of art, check it out Here

O.

OMG. I want it

This man is an incredible artist in Stainless steel!!!!

I love the front forks! They look mean as anything!! Liked his idea for the front suspension, just a shame he forgot to take in to account the width of the rubber stoppers and he can't put the wheels between the forks!

O.

Very nice and **bling** but to be any use for anything other than a posing machine he'd need to seriously redesign the downtube for a race machine, might work if he made a dual or better still triple pipe along similar design as his current one with maybe 1" long bracers every 6-8" of the downtubes length.

I must say the rest of the frame looks as though it'll do a nice rigid buggy though

Sorry if I missed something in your post Tom, but whats the problems your seeing with the current downtube. I know nothing about building my own buggy, Im just looking at the bling

O.

Whats the problem that you see with the down tube Tom??

The new BBS concept buggy has the very same curved down tube as this bug and I thot they were quite popular over on the continent?

Plus does Sand Yeti not always go on about how he thinks that a round pipe downtube would be alot stronger??? Something to do with handling flex better???

Ped:)

When a race buggy is under pressure in a race one of the major points is a 'twisting' motion that is exerted through the down tube, because of the side pull and the point contact of the front wheel. My original down tubes were only 50 x 20 mm box section and from head on pics I've seen, the top of the front forks must be nearly 15 degrees from verticle! they are much more rigid with the 60 x 40 box section
Although a circular tube is more resilient to the effect than a rectangular one it needs to be a fairly large diameter to resist the motion. The other problem is the anchoring of the downtube, i hate to say it but for all his fancy clamp, its all relying on the shear force on what looks like a 6mm screw.

I guess the reason most people use square section for downtubes is the fact you can grip it much better than a round tube. Flat sides don't roll

Will be interesting to see how his testing go with it. I read on the site that he is thinking about covering the rear axle to create down force, what do you all reckon? Down force or slow you down?

O.

i agree with tom. the first homemade buggy i did was constructed from 25mm galv conduit including the swan, and it broke twice, i then slipped a box section over it and welded in place and the buggy was okay, i have two of the same constuction and had no probs since fitting the box section. i would be very carefull in trying a bug with this at the front ?
the first accident was at 5mph the second at 15 mph holding a 3 m blade that was very interesting