'A gentle reminder that we aim to be inclusive and welcoming.'

Thank you Stefan. I've got the message.

I will be inclusive and welcoming, and supportive in any way I can, whilst remembering the quote from our building guide -
'CycleKarts are compact, lightweight, sports machines, styled to resemble pre-war racing cars.
They are home made by their drivers for the pursuit of classic motoring sporting
excitement. They are not built to be serious race machines or show cars but purely for the
personal satisfaction and fun of driving a machine you've built yourself.'

I'd even do a bit of welding for someone but I draw the line at buying the tube, cutting it to length and angle and welding it.

I'm also working on a design with an all wood chassis and a plywood/softwood monocoque body screwed and glued to the chassis - 'Look Mum - no welding'. The front axle is still an issue - still working out how to make one without welding or 'engineering' skills.

Soapboxes are a great source of raw material for your cyclekart.

Stefan, I think you have the words at each end of this transposed

Right now everyone has got off their soapbox's, back to the original question.

For myself it would be nice to have available 'in house'
Hubs, Axles, Wheels.

I sort of agree. Sort of, because all of those are commercially available, USUALLY. If they were a "club merchandise" item how is that to be funded?
If they are available from suppliers, then the club has no need to be involved? Just a listing on the "Where to get stuff" and I personally prefer to see multiple suppliers.
Even springs (which would be the top of my list)  is not really a "one size fit's all".

[quote author=David F-R link=topic=787.msg6103#msg6103 date=1647814117
I'm also working on a design with an all wood chassis and a plywood/softwood monocoque body screwed and glued to the chassis - 'Look Mum - no welding'. The front axle is still an issue - still working out how to make one without welding or 'engineering' skills.
[/quote]

Yay wood!
That basically describes my riley build. I bought my welded front axle from Gemini, because it’s available… But I’d also say mine is unibody rather than monocoque because the chassis rails are incorporated into the overall structure. Ive been working along the lines of a ‘no critical joints’ philosophy, where there are no single points of failure (as there might be on a true monocoque, say if a corner split..) so everything is built of torsion boxes, bonded to other torsion boxes, which all goes into making one big, curvy, hopefully strong, 3D, car shaped object. I filled the void spaces in the torsion boxes with closed cell fireproof expanding foam, mostly for stopping water ingress and subsequent rot, but also because why not?

Maybe we should start a new thread on wooden CKs, and various design strategies…. I know if I built my Riley again with the benefit of hindsight it would basically be the same but with a couple of major refinements. And involve more jigs. And less fibreglass. And maybe more marine ply. I dunno if they’d make it much faster, safer of long lived but they’d make life easier…

Right then chaps - Lets get this back on track (thanks Bill for also trying to get this back to the original train of thought)

It was pretty simple - with nearly 300 people on this forum we currently only have a regular (10 -14) people who attend events for whatever reason. As a club has been formed we don't want to spend countless hours defining, discussing and planning events for the whole year if the club is not going to encourage new folks from all walks of life to join in, this is simply not sustainable. This was supposed to be a simple exercise to gage an interest from people who may not comment regularly on the forum and see what people feel they may require to be able join in or start their build.

For those who don't currently have a cyclekart that is "track worthy" but are building etc, I guarantee you will spend a whole season working out how and why it doesn't drive that great and all the things you want to change so you are happy - not to mention the ever evolving styling and upgrades that you only do and know once you are using it, so buying some components is not a big deal, the only thing it does in my opinion is ensure that some of the structural elements of these "home built" machines are up to the actual job, as they do take a beating and need to be safe or this whole hobby has issues.

So, positive comments please, these are all just ideas at the moment and may never happen and remember it is part of something much bigger, not just about slapping some cash down at all.

Also, for those who have not attended an event or seen these in person, try and visit one of the events this year, see them in action and see if it's right for you!!! a lot of people have come along and some have decided its not for them, but they still wish to own or build one, two very different outlooks on the hobby.

Cheers Andy

Indeed, 10 - 14 people attending is a very low number. In fact, there were 25 plus 3 supporters at the inaugural club meeting. There are 25 build journals active this year. I think that shows a very healthy growth rate.

Question - are go-karting circuits the best, or only available, places to meet up and drive cks? Would that be putting people off attending?

Hey Andy

This sounds great.  I've not started the build yet so your timing is really good.  However I was going to try and build as much as I can as my budget doesn't really exist (the pandemic hasn't been kind).

I have a Honda engine so upgrades would be interesting.  I'd like to have a crack at building the chassis myself but all the other stuff would be useful, as long as I can pace the investment.

I also think the build workshops are a fantastic idea

Tim