Merry Christmas from Alabama!

[Tinkicker]

Hi, everyone. I live in Jasper, Alabama, and I got my first kart at 6 years old. It was a Sears & Roebuck two seater with a 3.5hp Tecumseh and my brother and I had a blast with it til we were old enough to drive cars.

Now that I've got my own kids grown up, I'm going to build a quick kart to run up and down the back roads here. Looks like there's plenty of knowledge here to draw on.

 

[chancer]

Welcome Jasper!

 

[landuse]

Welcome!!

 

[Tinkicker]

Thanks for the welcome! Loving this site...

 

[Poboy kartman]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[Loylmongoose]

Are you gonna build the frame yourself

 

[Kartorbust]

Welcome to the asylum lol. Plenty of knowledge on here.

 

[Tinkicker]

Are you gonna build the frame yourself

Yes...but I'm not normal. I like to try things that aren't usually done, so because I have another hobby I really enjoy alot, I'm working up plans for something related to this:

People who have bought and built that kit have been up over 30 mph on it with a 4hp Lifan, the biggest they supply with it, and the framework has held up fine. That's a really basic yard kart, but in the back corner of my mind I've been toying with an idea for a high speed wooden frame kart for probably 10 years or more.

Race cars started out as wood way back in the day, ya know.

I don't care about competitive racing. I just want to see how far I can take this idea. Anybody can go fast and live with a steel kart. I want to push the upper limit on speed with the lowest amount of material possible.

---------- Post added at 04:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:34 PM ----------

Welcome to the asylum lol. Plenty of knowledge on here.

If I survive my ultimate goal of 70 mph, I expect a custom straight jacket with the site logo embroidered on it shipped to me ASAP. :arf:

 

[Kartorbust]

Wouldn't wood be slot heavier than steel tubing? What kind of wood are we talking anyway? The little bit of wood working I've done is with oak, cherry, and pine. My solid oak 3 gun rack that's about 1/2" thick weighs a good 12lbs or more without anything on it.

 

[Poboy kartman]

Wouldn't wood be slot heavier than steel tubing? What kind of wood are we talking anyway? The little bit of wood working I've done is with oak, cherry, and pine. My solid oak 3 gun rack that's about 1/2" thick weighs a good 12lbs or more without anything on it.

That kart is made from 3/4" Baltic birch plywood. IIRC, it's called the Plyfly.

Anyway, I never seen 3/4" Baltic birch plywood, but I am intimately familiar with 1/2" Baltic birch, as it's pretty much the standard for cabinet drawers. It's not particularly heavy, especially compared to solid oak.

One interesting aside : 1/2" Baltic birch is sold in 5'×5' sheets, instead of 4'×8' sheets.

 

[Kartorbust]

Thought it was balsa wood lol...That stuff is super weak (balsa).

 

[Tinkicker]

Wouldn't wood be slot heavier than steel tubing? What kind of wood are we talking anyway? The little bit of wood working I've done is with oak, cherry, and pine. My solid oak 3 gun rack that's about 1/2" thick weighs a good 12lbs or more without anything on it.

Well there's building a frame out of wood, and then there's building a frame out of wood cunningly. Just like where with steel tubing you can make a frame much stronger by proper use of angles and mounting points, you can do that with wood too.

In other words, it can be built way stronger than it seems it should be with way less material (weight) than it seems it would need. That's the goal...to see what I can really get away with.

That kart is made from 3/4" Baltic birch plywood. IIRC, it's called the Plyfly.

Anyway, I never seen 3/4" Baltic birch plywood, but I am intimately familiar with 1/2" Baltic birch, as it's pretty much the standard for cabinet drawers. It's not particularly heavy, especially compared to solid oak.

One interesting aside : 1/2" Baltic birch is sold in 5'×5' sheets, instead of 4'×8' sheets.

Good eye, good memory, or good use of Google image search PoBoy. Just kidding but yep, it's the Plyfly from a startup called Flatworks, and it's really well-engineered. I think they CNC cut every piece out of like one sheet of plywood. This is beautiful to me:

---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:05 PM ----------

If you examine pictures of their karts from several angles, you can see how they very slickly fitted everything so that you've got strength coming from unsuspected directions. There are a couple of thin ply side wings that I suspect actually give the frame a tad bit of support from their stressed curvature. Freakin' ingenious in spots.

---------- Post added at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:07 PM ----------

Of course, they also tell at some point that they've gone through SEVERAL prototypes.

 

[Kartorbust]

Man, CNC is the best thing to have happened...I just suck at programming the machines to do it. Most UIs are not user friendly enough, or in my case idiot proof for me to figure out. Hope the wood is strong enough to withstand 70mph without breaking.

 

[chancer]

There is a thread on this forum about the Plyfly.
It is the ONLY "Wooden motorized Kart" that was Ever not shot down as Krazy talk here. That I recall.
If you are using their plan and making it better. I say Go for it.
If you are using their idea and attempting a cheap copy: "You'll shoot your eye out"

---------- Post added at 05:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:04 PM ----------

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=28649&highlight=Plyfly
Got to our search box and type "Plyfly" you will get 5 results including your thread.

 

[Tinkicker]

If you are using their idea and attempting a cheap copy: "You'll shoot your eye out"

That's why a smart man wears really good goggles. I believe in 99% planning for every 1% of life risking. I've never even considered making a cheap copy because cheap will usually get you killed. Intelligently economical, on the other hand...

Flatworks' design is a good one and I sincerely hope they make a fortune off of it for their investment. But where they engineered for user-friendliness, I'm more for a tighter, more focused and rock-solid design. So I've got a laundry list of variations from what I've seen of their plan. Trust me, they won't have to worry about copyright infringement. It'll be a completely different animal.

I'm in the auto parts industry, and it's always struck me how completely different the Europeans put together cars compared to the US (and really Asia too). Just park a Mercedes next to one of the Big Three and look at how the engine compartments compare. Some things are plain bass ackwards to our way of building cars, but there's a purpose in it. That little thing called the Autobahn.

My point is in a little comparison. Most North American cars wouldn't last under constant use on the Autobahn. We think we're awesome cruising the interstate at a fixed 90 mph all day, but try cruise control at 125 mph to work and back every day and you suddenly begin to see why their cars are thought of so highly. With a wooden kart there's a lot of parallels. With a steel frame you can at least conceive of really high straight-line speeds with almost any design, but a wooden race kart will be a world different than a wooden yard kart.

The PlyFly is top engineering for folks around the house, up and down the back streets, and maybe even sprinting down the old abandoned airstrip in my town. I guarantee it's fully capable at higher speeds than what they're designed to ever see, and since it was designed by a racing kart driver it may even be totally sufficient for my purposes. But I believe anything can be improved, and I've got plenty enough patience to not mind improving and improving and improving.

Goggles, man.

---------- Post added at 07:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:43 PM ----------

By the way, I checked out the other PlyFly threads and member plyfly#14 is the person on the Flatworks forum who's been the most publicly-active with information on these karts. Seems like a nice guy.

---------- Post added at 08:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:51 PM ----------

Poboy kartman, this was in a locked thread so I couldn't quote it directly, but you wrote:

******** I'm going to build a perfectly safe wooden kart. ********

Put this in the back of your minds guys.....it will come in handy a year from now......

That was in July, 2013. I could be your opportunity.

---------- Post added at 08:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:04 PM ----------

For anybody interested: http://theflatworks.com/

 

[chancer]

Kartman is a wood tick. but most likely that was sarcasm!

I hope you stick around, Sounds like you have some good Ideas.
One thing For sure, Use better tires and wheels than the PlyFly. LOL
The Plyfly guys may have had better luck here but they started with that
whole asking for money thing. "Go fund me" or whatever...

Merry Christmas

 

[Tinkicker]

Kartman is a wood tick. but most likely that was sarcasm!

I hope you stick around, Sounds like you have some good Ideas.
One thing For sure, Use better tires and wheels than the PlyFly. LOL
The Plyfly guys may have had better luck here but they started with that
whole asking for money thing. "Go fund me" or whatever...

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone's Christmas was merry and peaceful. We had a snowless one, but it was still quiet and undisturbed. Happy kids and full belly, what more could you want?

Thanks for the compliments and point taken on the round rubbers. My HF hand trucks has a better set on it. That tire spinning on the wheel issue was pretty sad.

Yeah they did the Kickstarter thing and got up some serious cash. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/445968790/plyfly-go-kart

I saw where 6 backers pledged $1700 each! That was for two karts per investment, but talk about "Man, I've got so much cash I really don't know what to do with it" syndrome.

---------- Post added at 10:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 AM ----------

And I'm beginning to wonder if Kartman is really the Cartman who lives in South Park, Colorado by way of Texas.

---------- Post added at 10:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 AM ----------

Here's one of the reviews of the original Kickstarter. It's interesting not so much for the recycled article, but for the comments heh heh:

http://jalopnik.com/new-kickstarter-is-planning-whats-basically-the-ikea-go-1688281083

 

[Loylmongoose]

Everything should be made out of wood the wheels axle steering and the screw's lol..

 

[Poboy kartman]

A completely wooden kart is not impossible, just extremely impractical. Axles, spindles, and bearings could be made from Ipe. Properly polished and lubricated they would last a long time.

Then there's the chain, sprockets, and of course the engine! (That wood be EXTREMELY difficult!!! Wood is a very poor conductor of electricity!)

And a completely wooden tire that actually flexed would be a mass undertaking...( but, if they can make pillows out of bamboo....)

Then again an all-steel kart would be an undertaking as well. Consider , even without the difficulties of replacing the non steel parts, how difficult and time consuming would it be to totally build EVERYTHING on a normal kart from scratch.

Someone with a million dollars, a lot of knowledge, imagination, and spare time could do it, though.

 

[Tinkicker]

Well I have to admit this project is hard to explain to the average kart builder. Most people kind of look at me like my little friend in my avatar pic is. They don't get why I'd rather do it the hard way.

But I'm really not thinking a total wood design. My #1 goal is to be able to walk away from it in one piece after a fierce fast run, above all. There's a lot of unsafe ways to do it with wood. A prime nitpicking point is the wooden rack and pinion on the PlyFly...nope. Even though one of their buyers posted video showing him slaloming on his kart, there's just no safe way to engineer that for something more than your average yard kart that I know of. Maybe they could. I can't. So all of that will be metal. And, I mean, wooden pedals? I know they were honestly going for the Ikea effect...flat pack and all that...but I'm not shooting for THAT much novelty.

My goal is to see how stable a design I can make with wood, and in the process see how fast I can make it go without self-destructing. Think Bonneville Salt Flats racer...

Personally, I kind of want to approach it like Preston Tucker did. Unconventional outside of the box designs...but obsessively safe.

But I've got some loose ends to tie up around the house before I can really get started. I've got a hundred-year-old red oak behind my shop that's got to come down, I've got an unsafe situation with the breaker box in the house, and I just had the whole house re-plumbed. Suffice to say that between all of that and Christmas AND the wife wanting new living room furniture (if she ain't happy, ain't nobody happy), I'm low on the $$$ right now, but I can work on the plans. I've got some interesting ideas that I'm sorting out, and soon I'm going to start a thread in the Photo & Gallery area and begin laying out my thoughts.

Later, gators.