Mini Thunderbolt Parts - Not Getting Built Any Time Soon

[CDV777-1]

After almost destroying my left ankle and being laid-up for a month with a month left to go before I get my cast off I started drawing up the parts to the mini-thunderbolt. Making those parts-to-fit piece-by-piece on the first one was a whole different process than trying to work-up drawings to have the parts made. When I first built the thing I made the parts as I went along. It took me months of on and off time at work doing that. I thought I would get the drawings done so I could have, where I work, quote me a price to make the parts for 20 or so mini-thunderbolts. Trying to figure out how to tolerance the parts that fit inside one another is a real pain. For example I have to take into account the tolerance of the bushing that goes around the air tube in the rotator. On the same bushing I have to figure out how loose it can be inside the hole in the lower rotator plate. I have to figure all this out so when the parts are done I can take any of those 20 bushings and any of the 20 rotator lower plates and they will all fit without being too loose or too tight. I have to do this on all the parts that go together. I forgot how many parts are a slip-fit on this thing. Actually I probably shouldn't get too carried away on it now. I should probably just B.S. it to get the drawings done so I can get an idea how much it will cost. Then I can get it figured out later if it's feasible (sp?) (doesn't cost too much) to have the parts made. Of course the closer tolerance on the parts the higher the quote price will be per part. I'm only doing the rotator/chopper assembly. If I do have some made then it will only be the rotator/chopper and if anyone buys them they can figure out what to use as a blower themselves. I know some of you already know about the difficulty in making parts fit I just thought I would share the ordeal. As it is there are more than 25 parts in the rotator/chopper assembly. I need to redesign the rotator brushes too. That will probably bring the parts total up to almost 30.

[Charlie Davidson]

Keep us updated on how it goes.. I'd definitely be interested in one of them. Seem like a cool little gadget to have around.. especially for owners of the real thing. Any vague ideas of how much one would be?

Good luck, those things would sell like hot cakes!

[weasel2htm]

Depending on the price, I would also be interested.

[TBOLT1000]

Me too! That would be pretty cool to have.

[Matt]

I would be interested in it as well.

[JasonC]

Solenoids!!

[TboltTX1]

I would also be interested.

[Charlie Davidson]

Solenoids!!

YES.. icing on the cake!

[CDV777-1]

Solenoids!!

Don't think I haven't thought about it. I always dismissed it out of hand as being to small of a scale to do it. I just went and eyeballed the horn neck and It's not as small as I thought it would be.
I guess one side solenoid box would be roughly .58 tall by .75 long by .4ish deep. That's guesstimating though. It might actually be bigger than that. Maybe I could find something that would go in there. Maybe a model railroad switch solenoid??????? Hmmmm....
Of course the rotator box will have to be taller and another set of brushes added but that wouldn't that huge of a change. Let me scale the solenoid boxes on one of my 1003s and see what the final scaled size would end up being. And I think I have some model railroad switches around here somewhere from my train hobby daze.

Any vague ideas of how much one would be?

I really don't have any idea. I was talking about it with my machine shop supervisor a while back and he said I should slap together some drawings and get them to quote a price on the parts. He said that it might not be as expensive as I think. I thought about what a pain it would be to try to do an entire unit but then I thought the worst of it is the chopper/rotator and that I could probably just do that assembly and leave it up to whoever wanted one to come up with the blower and put the finishing touches on it. The blower I'm using isn't really the best way to go. I ended up with it and it works so I never looked into finding a better blower for it. That crappy smog air pump I'm using pulls a ton of current and it runs hot too. Maybe I will eventually try to figure out something better.

[weasel2htm]

Now, if I remember right, you said that the mini Thunderbolt (with blower) is about as loud as a Shop vac?

If you can do a mini 1003, I'd be all over it.

Oh and to further complicate things, have both a 4/5 chopper and a 5/6 chopper available.