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Old 06-25-2011, 04:10 PM   #141 (permalink)
aerohead
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dimensions

Quote:
Originally Posted by orbywan View Post
Those are great illustrations, aerohead, do you have any dimensions for the various arms? Those might be of interest for towing the boat behind the boat tail.

My RV boat tail is coming along pretty well. So much for building a quick prototype to see what kind of gains it achieves. This is such a big structure I decided to buy some steel and go for it, I don't know how else to do it. The three trim pieces for the rear cap were all damaged and cracked and they want about $350 for new trim so I figure if this works that money is well spent towards the modifications. The frame is about 80% done so far and weighs a little over 60 pounds. I’m impressed with how strong the structure is, even with no skin yet.

I'm going to cover it in coroplast to do some testing, if it proves to be sufficiently beneficial I'll probably recover it with aluminum. This summer heat is slowing things down a little but I can’t wait to test this out.
orbywan,The illustrations are purposely vague on account of the fact that everything would need to dialed in on a vehicle case specific basis.
I built a chipboard and push-pin model of the mechanism and ran it through the full range of motion without trouble.It appears to function okay for something home-built.
In production,something like this would last beyond a normal human lifetime,working into the future,moving from vehicle to vehicle as the tow vehicle reached its useful lifespan.Like a B-52 or DC-3/C-47.
I'd like to have something like what is used on Disneyland's Monorail and some transit buses.But that sort of thing is hard to construct at home.

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