Custom Made Motor Plate
 

Knowing how the stock plate flexes, I decided to make my own. I made one out of 4.75mm 7075 aluminum. A bit BEEFY I would say lol. :intello: All work was done with a Dremel and tungsten carbide bits. A big thanks to MisterCrash as he answered all of my machining questions as I originally had no idea what I was doing!

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0775.jpg

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0776.jpg

Beefy, eh?

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0780.jpg

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0782.jpg

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0789.jpg

http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z...n/IMG_0793.jpg

Almost rubs. ;)

That's nice work man... did you do it free hand... or did you bolt the dremel to a bench?

You have beautiful hands :lol: You did really well, the plate looks awsome.

Hand porn alert! :smile:

Just curious, but why didn't you just JBWeld two stock plates together? Nice job regardless!

I free handed it.

JK! I used the Dremel router attachment. Not the best router in the world, but you can't beat it for $30. :intello:

lol

Thanks. I couldn't of done it without you. :)



Because mistercrash tried it once. He still ended up bending them both. I don't think I'll have that problem now. :)

The stock plates are made of very cheap aluminum, nothing like T6 7075 aluminum. Even when you double them up, they flex and bend out of shape.

Cool... I was just looking at one of those on ebay... I'm going to need one soon... thanks for sharing rusty.

Nice work and Nice hands.

great work



let me know if you want to make one for sale

nice work! I might be interested also.

Lol, you guys are funny about the hands. :lol:


I will make a few, but only a few. I have enough metal left over to make 3-4 more. I'm only making them because I have no other use for the extra material. There is no use it letting a $20 6" square piece of metal sit in a box. :intello:

I like shaping metal, but it does take a lot of time to make one. I'll only make one at a time so I'll just contact somebody else when I'm ready to make another. :intello:

Wow, that sucks. You'd think Trx would use better materials since they are strapping a heavy motor in there. Maybe they need to talk to Mike for ideas on how to do it right? Would probably result in less tech support calls. :smile:

And improved overall customer satisfaction.

I'm sure the Traxxas plates are made in mass production on a huge automated stamp machine. I'm quite sure the machine could handle a little thicker material.... Is the cost of the material the only restriction?

Anything to save a buck, thats Traxxas's motto I believe..

Nice job on the mount dude, might have to look at the dremel router jobby myself- if you give your mount a rubdown with some fine grit sandpaper & 3in1 oil it'll look a million $ :yes:

Very nice work! :great:

How many bits did it take you to make that? :lol:

One for cutting, and one for trimming. :na:


Really? I was using Mother's but I couldn't get the hairline scratches out. What kind of grit would you recommend?

I'm interested in one myself, let me know if you have enough material, and no big hurry, just let me know....and thanks

If there is enough demand, I wonder if Mike would stock a thicker plate made from 7075 Al similar to this? Would have to make it look different enough to not be a direct copy (for copyright reasons), but that should be easy enough...

Ermm, fine grit... :oops:

I have aluminium oxide sandpaper that gets the metal pretty smooth, then something like 400, and finally 800 grit should do the trick, before using 000grit steel wool and the mothers polish. I havent actually practiced getting a really good finish, but I have been reading up on it & asking questions to those who do- Candyman (search for 'maxxbling') does beautiful things with aluminium, leanrt a fair bit. A polishing wheel on the dremel with the mothers would be great too for all the tight spots and curves.

If your trying to mirror polish then procede on down the line to 1000, 1500 and lastly 2000 grit automotive paper... On a flat plate like that it would be easy to polish to a mirror shine... Wrap the paper around a block and wet sand with the higher grit papers with a back and forth motion... 10 minutes, some elbow grease and a good final buff with Mothers and a quality microfiber towel wrapped around the block (again back and forth) and you'll have a finish worth the shades :intello: !