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This is a read-only archive of the old Madabout Kitcars forum. New posts and replies are no longer possible, but every thread is still here to browse and read.

Garyh's Sammio build

8 Jun 2012, 9:42pm
Great work Gary. :cool:

I love the fact that people have just learnt to weld and got on with it.

It is something that I hope to master one day.

Cheers, Paul. :)

PS

Whilst I know nothing...

I would have thought that adding extra patches would strengthen the chassis?
8 Jun 2012, 9:53pm
hi there hope you dont mind me saying this but you need to go up on the power on your mig abit down on wire speed and up on gas flow more you will get a much smoother neater continious weld!! good luck
9 Jun 2012, 7:29am
It could be worse. You could be building a JC Midge, a death trap if ever there was one! That is a JC Midge avatar our chief safety advisor uses isn't it?
9 Jun 2012, 6:15pm
T, I bought a set of those plans in the late 80's... And sold them on eBay a couple of months ago when I was selling everything, so I could build this car.
9 Jun 2012, 7:13pm
Built a jc locust years ago, very errrrr wooden...
9 Jun 2012, 7:33pm
And clad in aluminium!
9 Jun 2012, 7:49pm
But to be fair the chassis was very substantial there are still some around as well they pop up on eBay occasionally, inveriabley wrongly registered though, John Coperthwaite or his company anyway still lives on in the electric kiddy car format I think
9 Jun 2012, 7:55pm
But to be fair the chassis was very substantial there are still some around as well they pop up on eBay occasionally, inveriabley wrongly registered though, John Coperthwaite or his company anyway still lives on in the electric kiddy car format I think
9 Jun 2012, 8:03pm
They were very much a car of their time ......

The positive side of old Moss , J.C. , Spartan etc stuff is that they are cheap to buy and ,as we have proved recently with a couple of builds , can be re-bodied with Sammio bodies...
9 Jun 2012, 8:34pm


That takes me back over 25 years. My first kitcar and one of the first Ford based Locusts.
10 Jun 2012, 6:44pm
Well this i have managed to string a few days together and actually get somewhere... just another 4 patches to go, then onto the outriggers.



And I can order a pair of these next payday.
10 Jun 2012, 7:18pm
Your chassis repairs look very good Gary. You sure you're not a professional motor mechanic?
10 Jun 2012, 7:52pm
I'm blushing T... Like yourself, i am really enjoying all this. A couple more bit in the jigsaw and i can move on. Have already asked the Mother in law if i can have some lessons on her sewing machine..
10 Jun 2012, 8:04pm
Is that to do your own interior? If you can manage that I really will be impressed as it's the only bit I'm not doing myself.
10 Jun 2012, 9:03pm
Who knows, I know you have to unpick the old cover which gives you a pattern to use, then lay on your new fabric and cut out... then just stitch it all together, job done!
11 Jun 2012, 6:51am
garyh wrote:
Who knows, I know you have to unpick the old cover which gives you a pattern to use, then lay on your new fabric and cut out... then just stitch it all together, job done!


Sounds simple enough. Slight fly in the ontment is that I only started with bare seat shells so I don't have a pattern to copy. I'm also aware that you need an industrial grade sewing machine to stitch leather or leatherette. Trying to use a domestic machine for heavy duty trim materials is the equivalent of trying to fix the Forth Road Bridge with my 100 amp stick welder. I wish you well if you do have a go yourself though.
13 Jun 2012, 9:15am
Any advice greatly appreciated

chap68 wrote:
hi there hope you dont mind me saying this but you need to go up on the power on your mig abit down on wire speed and up on gas flow more you will get a much smoother neater continious weld!! good luck


I have a Clarke 150, it has switches that i have on max as someone said that before, speed is on 5-6? shall i try 4? I havn't been able to do one continuous bead as i seem to blow holes. So i am just stitch welding. I would really like to know how to do it neatly as then i wouldn't grind it back.:tea:
13 Jun 2012, 9:52am
That was interesting, pretty much what Chap said and a couple of other poosibilities. Cheers.
13 Jun 2012, 10:00am
That forum led me to check the wire speed controller on my Clarke. I measured how many metres per minute were coming through at different settings - just do it for 10 seconds to save wire!
Immediately I discovered that it was flying out at the fastest speed whichever setting I had it on. The Clarke spares service is great and I had a new PCB in no time which made welding much more enjoyable and effective.
13 Jun 2012, 10:06am
Does your Clarke have switches for amperage?
13 Jun 2012, 10:16am
It has the daft 1 & 2, and Min & Max switches, plus the speed controller.
13 Jun 2012, 11:26am
With MIG the switches control the voltage rather than the current. The current is more controlled by the wire speed.

I'm spoiled these days by having an Inverter based MIG which has continuously variable voltage.

The larger Clarke MIGs are some of the better budget machines.

Once you're up to about a 120 amp machine you'll get much prettier welds by going to an Argon/CO2 mix. CO2 gas is reactive and adds to the weld heat helping out small welders. Technically it's not MIG (Metal INERT Gas) when using CO2, but it's more properly called GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding) anyway.
13 Jun 2012, 11:36am
I'm using gasless, should i use gas?:wacko:
13 Jun 2012, 7:27pm
I've got a Clarke 161 (150 amp same as yours!) but i use Gas and even with that i find it needs quite a bit of "fettling" to get it right, although switching from CO2 to CO2/Argon mix really did help.
I dread to think how much harder gasless makes it?