Dyne's LD-F1 (D-O concept) build

[Dyne]

I've completed printing of all of the new neck parts.   Raw black prints are annoying to photograph, but here they are laid out.


The Aluminum tubing and PVC pipe were cut to 250 mm length, which makes the neck the same height as it originally was. I have leftover threaded rod to use in the assembly, but I have to find my cutting wheel and figure out exactly how long it needs to be.

The two lower stalk arms (which will be held on with magnets, as previously mentioned) were printed in halves lying on the bed, as was the large disc that goes on the forward neck. These have already been assembled and epoxied together in the above photo.  The space between the marker lines on the PVC are roughly the distance that will be exposed and needs painting.

I'd printed the parts that go on the upper and lower ends of the neck first, and once they were done, I dry fitted them together with the tubes (lower part has a tight fit with the aluminum tube despite having same tolerance as upper part, so i increased that slightly for the remaining pieces.

To the right of the Aluminum tube in the above photo you can see three thin black cylinders.  The longest of those cylinders is the cover that brings the lower rear piston to its original length.  After my dry fit without the detail parts, I decided that I liked the look of the bare aluminum tube, so I made two shorter variants of the rear piston cover in order to expose more of the aluminum (it would be exposed only a centimeter or so at the original size). I decided to go with the medium length cover instead of the long or short one.

Here is the assembly being test fit together just before priming.  As you can see, I've used milliput to fill some of the gaps.  You may be able to see that I added some greebles to the top rear stalk that werent originally there.


And here is the assembly after priming with Rustoleum 2X Flat Black Paint + Primer.  The lower rear piston cover hasn't been glued on yet.  I've got a few rough bits to clean up, but most of it won't be easily visible unless you get really close.  After that, I'll give the parts a final coat of paint.


My rewiring plan requires involved disassembly of the front chassis section, but I dont think the new neck will add a huge amount to it. To remove the existing neck, there's the pivot bolt at the lower end of the lower stalk that I'll likely have to remove one or both tracks to get to.  There's also the pivot at the leading edge of the rear body shell which might be more of a pain, but hopefully not too bad.

Installing the new version is just a matter of bolting it on and adding the dummy lower arms. And that makes it removable for transport.