I spent 27 years in a tool room/ machine shop fabricating jigs, fixtures, tools, racks, and carts of all types and I'm still amazed at the smarts and ingenuity that come out of so many backyards and garages. Well done.
Thats some genius work my man. I have made a few inventions and this just gave me some ideas for the one im working on now. Thanks and keep the DIY innovation coming God Bless.
multiple quarter inch bmx sprockets & chain, cheap easy to get or service, bicycle tires cut into sections could be good cheap tread on your track sections. wire bead makes good attachment points
Great DIY! I have a walking tractor I'd wish to convert to a tracked vehicle for plowing. Wanted to use a chain and weld on flat bars. Your track design seems much better. thanks so much for sharing!
Nice job... lots of ideas not just for a track system, but in my case a type of conveyer system for handling heated materials such as rock and asphalt for a small stationary A.C. plant.
Interesting, but attaching into chain like connection links as opposed to cable would give it more durability stability and prevent sideways movement in the track itself which on uneven ground could cause it to skip off depending on how fast you were going/wanted to go
Regardless of what the strength ratings are for that cable, I seriously doubt it will hold up for long. One thing you should have done to help was to put a bevel at each end where the cable slides though. This would at least help give it a rounded edge instead of whats more of a blunt edge which will most likely start cutting into the cable
Beaut piece of craftsmanship. Patience, persistence, and perserverence. Now you can scale over Mt. Everest and the Great Wall Of them Chinese folks on the way back home while drinking Busch Ice out the 24 oz can or two or more and not care a damn about geting a flat tire doing so. Forget about the air pump. Cuzz you got metal bars to treck you over the stars.
Its way cool. I farm and that would work so good on the farm. I live in North Western Wisconsin . And last summer was the wettest year I've ever saw at 55 . We had 28 inch's of rain over the summer till frost and it was so bad you couldn't even get around with tractors. Unless they were Four wheel drive . They are company's that sell track set ups for farm equipment but at a Hugh cost. I'm a machinist /farmer . And I'm always try n to think of thing to make jobs easier . I like your attention to detail. Very good job making your video. Thank you Roger Wagenius Grantsburg Wisconsin
I wonder whether it would help the longevity of the tracks if you coated with linex? I have no experience with this, but it jumped into my head, and into this comment.
Good prototype. Next version make some sprockets for your driver wheels and make standard tracks. Then you will have a badass school shooter fighting vehicle
hello. iv been watching your videos. im currently trying to design a simular vehicle. would you by chance have a video of it moving. jw how it work. looks like a good design.
This i sall amazing to see and all, but theres one thing i dont think i saw when you explained making it. how do you keep your plates from moving on the wire? i know it has the bolts in it, but how do those keep the plates from moving on the wire? i'd really like to know. making my own personal tank and trying to get this thing to work track wise has been driving me insane. I wanted orginally to do converyor and steel, but then came the issue of not knowing how to attach steel to rubber
The cable fits perfectly through the hole in the metal plate, the hole I drill for the bolt gets threaded and the bolt is tightened down onto the cable to keep it from moving.
How'd you calculate the spacing on the spokes for your tracks? I'm gonna try and do this(but with hinges) and need to figure this out. Did you pick the metal based on the space between your spokes or space the spokes according to the metal you used?
I started with making as many perfectly evened spaces around my wheel as close to the size of two piece of track. So I was using 2" steel plates for the track pieces. I was able to weld 7 evenly spaced cogs on the wheels. Then I calculated how big the gap would be in between each track piece and spaced them according to that number. The space cant be to tight or the cogs on the wheel will grab the track and jam. My spaces ended up being about three times the width of the track piece thickness. I hope this helps.
Thanks dude. Really helps. I'm also building something like this, accept scaled up a bit. My tracks are modified from your design, gonna have hinges instead of cable. Got an open diff rear end from a car and individually controlled brakes on each side. Powered and moved by the remains of a 1980 Ford Mustang.
The steel cable between the plates is no good if the plates are tightened by bolts. They're likely to slip. It would have been better if it had spacers with the cable inserted between the plates, then you can be sure that the plates retain the space between them.
Dawid Kozlowski I have a link in this video on the master link and a finished track. Its under Progress report 10 A. Sorry I did not include it in this video.
so i'm assuming that you are using the bolt/nut configuration to lock down the plate so that it won't move on the cable, if that is the case then i question the durability of the cable at the point where the bolt contacts the cable, that much stress on such a small point will cause failures very quickly
i hate to be negative because you actually building this is far better than me just sitting here WISHING, but..... here is my two cents. i would think that a significant amount of torque will be applied and i foresee that each of the treads will slide along the cable when you give more throttle.
i see someone made the track with pipes cut in halves screwed to 2 bicycle chains.... do you think its a good idea i need to make it for mu trolley so i can use it climbing stairs
+zact lee I am in the same predicament right now in trying to construct a build that can climb stairs. I saw a tutorial about a guy who used bike chains to construct the track. Have you tried it and was it able to climb steps?
Sorry I forgot to show the master link. Its the same as the other links except I drill two extra holes in the 3/8 bar and bring the the cable ends up and out and then crimp them. I will make a video on it in the next progress report.
I see now. Are you going to need a spacer in between the track plates? Those plates look plenty strong, how thick are they? I had to put cleets on mine because the plates were to thin not to. Thats why I put the bolt head on the outside plus to get my chain to move up and down I had to notch the sides which works out since I weld the bolt head all the way around it strengthen that area back up. Can't wait to see how you connect the track ends up to each other.
Oh man! I forgot to show the master track for connecting the ends!! Its like the other except I drill a 1/2 " hole in the middle of the 3/8 rod and then on each end I put one of the lock bolts. The cable ends come up and exit out the top of the 1/2" hole and the lock bolts keep it from slipping back out. I will show that on a future video. The flat plates are 3mm thick. I think they will be strong enough. I also may still add the center guide on every other track but I am going to wait until I can try it to see if its needed.
I see, Thanks for letting me know on the master track.I figure each track plate should hold 1/4 the weight of vehicle. For mine I have 800 lb limit on my vehicle because of tires are plastic with max weight limit of 50 lbs each with 16 tires, so me standing on the track plate in center and held up on the ends without buckling should be good enough for me. I'm about 250 lbs. For track guides on yours you could probable use 1/2 or 3/4 flat stock on the tubing and extend them up that way, and keep the center where the wheels are clear like on a sherman tank track.
Do tell us how they're holding up? Many times I've thought of using cable as the linking parts of a track set. Big conveyor chain is ridiculously expensive to make a "real" set of tracks plus having to buy of make the sprockets for it to run on would put a feller in the poor house. I have been hating myself for driving off when a man next to me at the land fill dumped several broken rubber skid steer tracks beside me. They had plenty of track left and was 2 sets of them. They must have been vantleized because each one looked to have been cut with a chainsaw. But for a machine like you're building a splice could have made the perfect set of tracks.
+Phil Lowman They have not broken yet but I am still working on the vehicle so I have not used it much.There is another person on TH-cam using chains I am curious to see how they work His channel is Prancstaman
its pretty basic to make a jig to use with drill press to drill straight holes? years ago i made one for drilling the centre of a .303 projectile to make them hollowpoints :)
what if I wanted to do this for an SUV car for off-roading fun, do I need to change the chassis of the car and the arms? and do I need to use a bigger rims? what did I forget?
Midget It would be allot of work but you could do it. You would have to lock the steering wheels in front and cut the body so the tracks would pass across the top of the wheels. There are a few on You Tube that have done it.
I spent 27 years in a tool room/ machine shop fabricating jigs, fixtures, tools, racks, and carts of all types and I'm still amazed at the smarts and ingenuity that come out of so many backyards and garages. Well done.
+SuperSaltydog77 Thank you . You do what you can with what you got . Thanks for the comment.
I am right now making a tank and, this is the best video about it in TH-cam
Simply amazing!!! ill have to try it out someday!!!!
Thanks for watching.
chris manning
chris manning
Awesome work, it really took my breath away
Thumbs up for ingenuity!
Thats some genius work my man. I have made a few inventions and this just gave me some ideas for the one im working on now. Thanks and keep the DIY innovation coming God Bless.
This is amazing man. Very useful and informative!! Subscribed and liked video.
Outstanding job with the video and explanation! The custom jigs are a great idea.
Jason Geer Thanks
that's cool, I really like the gigs you made too.
mowguy fudd Thanks
Very cool! Great engineering.
Love all the different jigs you can up with. great job
+BigSlimmyD Thanks for watching.
باندك امريكاا وابناء بطلالي وبانمسل هلجموع الرافضيه
Lookin good. Thanks for sharing. Nice well-explained vid.
Thanks.
multiple quarter inch bmx sprockets & chain, cheap easy to get or service, bicycle tires cut into sections could be good cheap tread on your track sections. wire bead makes good attachment points
Great DIY! I have a walking tractor I'd wish to convert to a tracked vehicle for plowing. Wanted to use a chain and weld on flat bars. Your track design seems much better. thanks so much for sharing!
Joseph Nzomo Glad you liked it. Thanks for watching.
Outstanding, nice work.
+Chuck Pringle Thanks
I really like your design looks good so far it will be cool to see you take it for a drive
Thanks, I hope to have another video up in the next week or so. Thanks for watching.
Interesting.... love to see how well it works...
+xzqzq Thanks still working out the bugs. Check out my latest videos.
Nice job... lots of ideas not just for a track system, but in my case a type of conveyer system for handling heated materials such as rock and asphalt for a small stationary A.C. plant.
+Brent Smith Thats great! Glad it helped.
Interesting, but attaching into chain like connection links as opposed to cable would give it more durability stability and prevent sideways movement in the track itself which on uneven ground could cause it to skip off depending on how fast you were going/wanted to go
that works out amazing
really? no one knows yet until he actually puts them to work.
I've been A Engineer for Meny Years Vary Nice Kid I'm Impressed Good Luck And Gods Speed
Love your idea im working on a hot air balloon made from showe curtains. Lol
Very interesting stuff Aceman307! Thumbs up!
This is totally worth watching because I'm going to build this
Go for it!!
Awesome video, brother!
Perhaps, give some type of warning to the viewers who may be surprised by the sudden brightness of the welding
Awesome design!
Nice jig, smart thinking. I had to do something similar but different for mine.
Thanks
Good idea with the angle grinder too
Excellent ;)
Pretty bad ass. The cable looks like it'd wear out though.
LOL right! he's bad ass though****
And stretch.
Impressive work
Amazing!
Done at summer me and my dad will make a tank!
great pre planning
Regardless of what the strength ratings are for that cable, I seriously doubt it will hold up for long. One thing you should have done to help was to put a bevel at each end where the cable slides though. This would at least help give it a rounded edge instead of whats more of a blunt edge which will most likely start cutting into the cable
i like your idea, the steel wire does not bend enought, according to the diameter of the steel wheel, resulting on steel wire long service.
Браво! Спасибо!
Looks cool
shout out ko min nic good build homemade tank
You are genius... ^_^
Beaut piece of craftsmanship. Patience, persistence, and perserverence. Now you can scale over Mt. Everest and the Great Wall Of them Chinese folks on the way back home while drinking Busch Ice out the 24 oz can or two or more and not care a damn about geting a flat tire doing so. Forget about the air pump. Cuzz you got metal bars to treck you over the stars.
Very Good Friend;)
Класс! Очень подробное видео. Круто!
wow. lot of work. way cool.
Thanks for watching
Its way cool. I farm and that would work so good on the farm. I live in North Western Wisconsin . And last summer was the wettest year I've ever saw at 55 . We had 28 inch's of rain over the summer till frost and it was so bad you couldn't even get around with tractors. Unless they were Four wheel drive . They are company's that sell track set ups for farm equipment but at a Hugh cost. I'm a machinist /farmer . And I'm always try n to think of thing to make jobs easier . I like your attention to detail. Very good job making your video. Thank you Roger Wagenius Grantsburg Wisconsin
that is some mad max shit right theret
so cool!!!!
gracias por el vídeo. me gusto.
I wonder whether it would help the longevity of the tracks if you coated with linex? I have no experience with this, but it jumped into my head, and into this comment.
Incrível muito bom 😱😲😲👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏
good job
Wow excellent
nice done job sir
Great vid! Question: is there a way to cover the tanks with tire retread? Keep up the good work👌
A channel with rubber , some bolts
very cool im planing on making somthing similar soon
Ready to invade North America?
from land and air !!
Good prototype. Next version make some sprockets for your driver wheels and make standard tracks. Then you will have a badass school shooter fighting vehicle
great job! how many credits did you use?
so, after 5 years, did everything hold up like expected. would you make any changes?
Nice design
Thanks. We will see if it works.
Excellent idea product
Keep it up also try
Sum cheaper Collection
yep use wood to finish up! excellent ...BUILD RIP SAW 427 C.I FULL BLOWN
How much did this cost to make altogether? (As in the whole tank combined) was thinking about making one.
i wanted to make mini of this racks but i couldnt find any, yousaved me
Thanks for watching
hello. iv been watching your videos. im currently trying to design a simular vehicle. would you by chance have a video of it moving. jw how it work. looks like a good design.
fantastic
Thank you.
This i sall amazing to see and all, but theres one thing i dont think i saw when you explained making it. how do you keep your plates from moving on the wire? i know it has the bolts in it, but how do those keep the plates from moving on the wire? i'd really like to know. making my own personal tank and trying to get this thing to work track wise has been driving me insane. I wanted orginally to do converyor and steel, but then came the issue of not knowing how to attach steel to rubber
The cable fits perfectly through the hole in the metal plate, the hole I drill for the bolt gets threaded and the bolt is tightened down onto the cable to keep it from moving.
ah, okay i see now. thats pretty freaking cool. thank you so much.
yoshimitsu0614 just drill two holes in the rubber and steel track and then bolt them on with nylon lock nuts use grade 8 bolts so they don't break
How'd you calculate the spacing on the spokes for your tracks? I'm gonna try and do this(but with hinges) and need to figure this out. Did you pick the metal based on the space between your spokes or space the spokes according to the metal you used?
I started with making as many perfectly evened spaces around my wheel as close to the size of two piece of track. So I was using 2" steel plates for the track pieces. I was able to weld 7 evenly spaced cogs on the wheels. Then I calculated how big the gap would be in between each track piece and spaced them according to that number. The space cant be to tight or the cogs on the wheel will grab the track and jam. My spaces ended up being about three times the width of the track piece thickness. I hope this helps.
Thanks dude. Really helps.
I'm also building something like this, accept scaled up a bit. My tracks are modified from your design, gonna have hinges instead of cable. Got an open diff rear end from a car and individually controlled brakes on each side. Powered and moved by the remains of a 1980 Ford Mustang.
Very good there Aceman307, hope soon to see it finished . ........................................Ken
+Kennethe Miller Me too!! Thanks for watching.
The steel cable between the plates is no good if the plates are tightened by bolts. They're likely to slip. It would have been better if it had spacers with the cable inserted between the plates, then you can be sure that the plates retain the space between them.
just a suggestion on attaching the pads to cable take a sledge hammer and crimp cable in cross piece would have better holding and less work.
I love this idea. Where did you get the metal plates? And how much were they? thanks!
Great Job !! I have just one question - how are you connecting tracks to make one functional piece?
Dawid Kozlowski I have a link in this video on the master link and a finished track. Its under Progress report 10 A. Sorry I did not include it in this video.
Could you have used DOM tubing to run cable through? Should be cheaper than drilling round stock.
so i'm assuming that you are using the bolt/nut configuration to lock down the plate so that it won't move on the cable, if that is the case then i question the durability of the cable at the point where the bolt contacts the cable, that much stress on such a small point will cause failures very quickly
Making track out of old snowmobile track thoughts
+Aceman307 How do you calculate the stops that you welded to the rim so that they transmit the power and fit just over the caterpillar ... ???
could use snowmobile tracks right? Or you wanted it more heavy duty like a real tank?
nice but i prefer panzers
It is a panzerpamfwagen though.
i hate to be negative because you actually building this is far better than me just sitting here WISHING, but..... here is my two cents.
i would think that a significant amount of torque will be applied and i foresee that each of the treads will slide along the cable when you give more throttle.
Did the cable hold up or did it break?
Wouldnt it be easier if you used a rubber tire by cutting out sidewalls then connecting a couple together with kevlar industrial belts or something.
i see someone made the track with pipes cut in halves screwed to 2 bicycle chains.... do you think its a good idea i need to make it for mu trolley so i can use it climbing stairs
+zact lee Sounds like it could work.
+zact lee I am in the same predicament right now in trying to construct a build that can climb stairs. I saw a tutorial about a guy who used bike chains to construct the track. Have you tried it and was it able to climb steps?
Can u make some vid of u off roading or just driving in it i love it
+Nathan Little I will try and get a video out soon. Thanks for watching
+Aceman307 COOL GREAT JOB
Cool idea. How do you tie the ends together?
Sorry I forgot to show the master link. Its the same as the other links except I drill two extra holes in the 3/8 bar and bring the the cable ends up and out and then crimp them. I will make a video on it in the next progress report.
what size is the track 4cm by what and how thick
I see now. Are you going to need a spacer in between the track plates? Those plates look plenty strong, how thick are they? I had to put cleets on mine because the plates were to thin not to. Thats why I put the bolt head on the outside plus to get my chain to move up and down I had to notch the sides which works out since I weld the bolt head all the way around it strengthen that area back up. Can't wait to see how you connect the track ends up to each other.
Oh man! I forgot to show the master track for connecting the ends!! Its like the other except I drill a 1/2 " hole in the middle of the 3/8 rod and then on each end I put one of the lock bolts. The cable ends come up and exit out the top of the 1/2" hole and the lock bolts keep it from slipping back out. I will show that on a future video. The flat plates are 3mm thick. I think they will be strong enough. I also may still add the center guide on every other track but I am going to wait until I can try it to see if its needed.
I see, Thanks for letting me know on the master track.I figure each track plate should hold 1/4 the weight of vehicle. For mine I have 800 lb limit on my vehicle because of tires are plastic with max weight limit of 50 lbs each with 16 tires, so me standing on the track plate in center and held up on the ends without buckling should be good enough for me. I'm about 250 lbs.
For track guides on yours you could probable use 1/2 or 3/4 flat stock on the tubing and extend them up that way, and keep the center where the wheels are clear like on a sherman tank track.
Nice project. How much did the machine shop cost? It may justify you buying a small metal lathe.
about 2000.00
You need to put metal plate for every hole you have on the drive wheel, to much force on to few drive plates... ;)
Smart
I'm making a small wooden tank. Would ABS conduit sheets be suitable for a lightweight version of this??
I dont see why not. Thanks for watching
Do tell us how they're holding up? Many times I've thought of using cable as the linking parts of a track set. Big conveyor chain is ridiculously expensive to make a "real" set of tracks plus having to buy of make the sprockets for it to run on would put a feller in the poor house. I have been hating myself for driving off when a man next to me at the land fill dumped several broken rubber skid steer tracks beside me. They had plenty of track left and was 2 sets of them. They must have been vantleized because each one looked to have been cut with a chainsaw. But for a machine like you're building a splice could have made the perfect set of tracks.
+Phil Lowman They have not broken yet but I am still working on the vehicle so I have not used it much.There is another person on TH-cam using chains I am curious to see how they work His channel is Prancstaman
I built mine out of Tire Treads
Want to make a system like this for my mini bike
its pretty basic to make a jig to use with drill press to drill straight holes? years ago i made one for drilling the centre of a .303 projectile to make them hollowpoints :)
Looking good.
Thanks Shawn.
Нормаль, молоток )
So the bolts hold the steel rope? Can't it slide forward or backward?
What rpms will your drive sprocket be turning at?
Do you mean what is the reduction from the rear drive sprocket to the front drive sprocket? Its about 2.5-1
Why didn't you just use short pieces of the tubing for spacers? Sure would have been a hell of a lot easier. AND faster!.
rod builder jnn
what if I wanted to do this for an SUV car for off-roading fun, do I need to change the chassis of the car and the arms? and do I need to use a bigger rims?
what did I forget?
Midget It would be allot of work but you could do it. You would have to lock the steering wheels in front and cut the body so the tracks would pass across the top of the wheels. There are a few on You Tube that have done it.
Is cable will survive if we use them like that?
*We lost a track*
FINALY 1 AMERICAN SPEAK IN CENTIMENTRE :D