Off to the spray painter

So fabrication of the chassis is finally complete. Finally. And it’s off to the spray painter tomorrow.

We finished joining the various chassis panels together some time ago, but we’ve had detailed design work to complete for the suspension and mudguards, plus various minor finishing tasks. We didn’t want to paint the chassis and hide the embedded tufnol strong points until we knew exactly where we needed to drill holes to affix components to the chassis. (Once it’s painted, we lose sight of the hard points.)

Interestingly, the unpainted chassis has a total mass of 47kg: light enough for two people to lift comfortably. Low mass has been a key imperative throughout our design process, to minimise the energy required to drive the vehicle, which in turn minimises the size and cost of batteries and solar panels to charge it.

In five days we will receive a freshly painted orange chassis back from the spray painter, ready for affixing the mudguards, seat cushions, carpet, suspension and wheels. And then it will go on display at Womadelaide.