Pond Racer II – Electric Boogaloo 1/72 - Finished Pics Pg 5

[jalles]

I've always loved the Scaled Composites designed Pond Racer that tried to break the warbird hegemony in the Reno air races. Alas it never performed as hoped but I still think it looked great.

My idea is at some point in the future Reno adds an all-electric class (electric and hybrid propulsion is hot in aviation right now). Burt Rutan, unhappy with what could have been with the Pond Racer decides to revive the design with the help of one of the fledgling electric/hybrid aviation companies.  The twin booms of the Pod Racer, freed of the large engines and associated cooling systems, provides the perfect volume to fill with batteries.

This is going to be another 3D printed, vacuform, scratch build, and boy is it tiny. Maybe not as tiny as pr19_kit's Midget Mustang, but it's still small.

It won't be an exact Pond Racer, the booms will be slightly different and I think I'll put on some 8 blade, scimitar props but it will be immediately recognizable. If you're not familiar with it, the Pond Racer looks like this:

[kitnut617]

There's a 1/72 scale Pond Racer to be had, made by Cobra Company which now comes under Lone Star Models

[Tophe]

Nice shape of unconventional racer! Good!

[perttime]

The real Pond Racer had all sorts of engine issues, and that finally lead to its end in a crash. 3 liter Nissan engines, I recall.

[PR19_Kit]

I like the whole idea of this. 

The Pond Racer was one AMAZING device and it's a pity they never sorted the engine issues before it was destroyed.

[perttime]

Not Pond Racer but...
There's a group slowly rebuilding the Tsunami: a scratch built but otherwise rather conventional racer built around a Merlin.

https://www.facebook.com/thetsunamiproject/
http://www.thetsunamiproject.org/

[PR19_Kit]

Not Pond Racer but...
There's a group slowly rebuilding the Tsunami: a scratch built but otherwise rather conventional racer built around a Merlin.

https://www.facebook.com/thetsunamiproject/
http://www.thetsunamiproject.org/

Oh yes! 

I saw the Tsunami being re-built at Crystal Airport nr Minneapolis some years ago now, some time in the early 90s maybe? It looked to have been SERIOUSLY bent!

[jalles]

Not Pond Racer but...
There's a group slowly rebuilding the Tsunami: a scratch built but otherwise rather conventional racer built around a Merlin.

Yeah, the Tsunami is sweet! Another idea that holds promise (at least as a whif, but not in reality) is the Bell & Ross racer.

https://www.bellross.com/mods/watches/Racing-Bird/

I doubt I could complete two builds, but that one looks nice too.

[jalles]

Hmm...well the first attempts at vacuforming have been unsuccessful. I can't get the plastic to adhere to the molds down to the bottom of the part. I have an idea I'm going to try, we'll see how it goes.

Here are the 3D printed parts smoothed and ready for vacuforming:

pond-racer-02 by Jason Alles, on Flickr

First attempt at vacuforming. Not so good, these parts are pretty much unusable:

pond-racer-01 by Jason Alles, on Flickr

[PR19_Kit]

Jeepers, that looks like a winner already! 

Why not just glue the 3D parts together and call it the model?

[kerick]

In my limited experience making vacuforming parts I found one problem to be getting the plastic hot enough and then keeping it hot during the molding step. If it cools off much at all it doesn't stretch around the molds properly. Are the molds cold when you lower the plastic onto them? Warming them with heat lamps might help. Or I might be all wet, it's been a while.

[jalles]

Why not just glue the 3D parts together and call it the model?

I've been thinking about doing that, although I'm worried that the surface won't be consistent enough to scribe panel lines and what not. I'll also want to incorporate a clear canopy, which can't be printed. Because of the toughness of the 3D printed parts, I'm worried PSR isn't going to work very well and getting a canopy integrated gives me the shivers. Although I could be wrong on all count 

In my limited experience making vacuforming parts I found one problem to be getting the plastic hot enough and then keeping it hot during the molding step. If it cools off much at all it doesn't stretch around the molds properly. Are the molds cold when you lower the plastic onto them? Warming them with heat lamps might help. Or I might be all wet, it's been a while.

Hmm...interesting. Ultimately I got it to work by building air channels under the part that allows the sides to get sucked in, but your idea sounds intriguing. If i encounter issues again I might give it a go.

[kerick]

Glad you got it to work! Looking forward to watching the progress on this one.

[KiwiZac]

I'm so excited to see someone doing an upgraded version of this very cool machine. Bravo!

There's a 1/72 scale Pond Racer to be had, made by Cobra Company which now comes under Lone Star Models

The Cobra kit's been scarce for a while, thankfully Civilized Models is doing the Pond Racer in several scales (although it's still a little way from release and will be pricey): https://www.civilizedmodels.com/product-page/1-72-pond-racer

[PR19_Kit]

This is a Pre order sale for the very unique Pond Racer.

(That's a quote from the advert.)

Note to the author : It's either unique or it isn't, there are no degrees of uniqueness!