Fire and Steel

So the last few days have marked the first days at Local Motors of putting "fire to steel," or in another word, welding.

As mentioned, we're quickly outgrowing the utility of the foam mockup in terms of fitting components and checking the feel of certain components based on where they're located in the CAD model, since "feel" is the one thing you can't get from the computer. To accomplish this, we needed to make a rigid structure that we can quickly and accurately modify when we feel that something needs to move after testing its location.

The pictures below are the early stages of that fixture, and will soon include the pedals, the seat, the steering column and a host of other components that we will continue to layer on as we check the interface between the Rally Fighter and its passengers.

The very beginnings of the fixture - main rails placed on the floor and tack welded together.


The components from the picture above now with the legs welded on to set the floor position at ride height.