And as we read the words that men want to hear about their wallets, these were the words used to describe the project by my wonderful and patient wife.
The first thing you really want to have ready is the Strongback. This is confirmed by reading other skin-on-frame projects and the building guide for the project.
Space to build is your friend. I am just fortunate that I have a dual car garage that's over 8m long.
Read everything and pay attention to the build guide. The largest of the Racer X designs needs a strongback of around 5.8m This is long in anyone's language. I don't have building timber that length and I felt like a challenge as I'd just spent a few hours cleaning the garage and needed it dirty again. Off to the local plywood place for a sheet of MDF (I use moisture-resistant MDF. It only cost a few dollars more and is better in the high humidity environment that I find myself in). This will result in a heavy, stiff strongback.
I ended up making something that could be described as a torsion beam strong back using MDF.
I started by ripping the sheet to 100mm wide sections along the long edge. You need 9 of these to make 3 sections in an upside-down U shape. I then used the saw to cut a 60mm wide strip to act as internal ribs in the beam.
I used a drop saw to cut 100mm long sections out of the 60mm strip (12 of them) and rough cut the remainder into 4 sections to act as joiners for the beams.
I used glue and a nail gun to make the beams. take your time and make sure it's straight.
I then flipped it so the flat side was face down and used Tek screws to fasten it all together.
Now I have a 7.2m long Strongback that's heavy. Take it from me, it's a lump!. I just happened to be able to put a call out to mates and get my hands on 2 extra folding "work benches". I use the term work bench loosely as I find them too small and too lightweight to be much good. I have saw horses with more weight. I used these to hold the strongback and it happens to be the right height for me but damn it's long (but the Racer X(L) will be longer).
The image below isn't able to fully describe just how long it is and show i have 3 of the work benches holding the beam up.
I am following the build guide pretty close from this point as I have no idea what to do differently as this is all uncharted territory for me.
I used a chalk line to mark a centre line and installed the mounting brackets as described in the building guide. the only thing I did differently was an offset from the front as an arbitrary measure point. Follow the guide, it seems to be my friendly first point of information. When it comes to other sources of information such as equipment suppliers, there are other places I get things from provided I know what to ask for.
Be good to people and be the reason someone smiles.
D
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