nyloXuss

Construction Diary

Day 1

After contemplating putting the skateboard from the fishslice onto the bottom of the Slippery Jim (after removing the wheels), grecet decide to build another sledge, after about half an hour of talking and looking at amusing sledges on the interweb they decide on a trike style design and after wanting to stradle it for less window resistance we decide on using a gingus seat... typical.

When Jules turns up to pickup Ant they look in his garage for parts to see what they need to buy and they almost leave when they realise the trumpet is useless and they take the metal from it, also some old table legs are scavenged. And Ants’s dad agrees to cut the skateboard in half down the centre for us. After some table skimming action they head back for Jules's using the compass in his car to find the way over the ridiculously long journey.

They open the door to the garage and get ready to try and build a sledge in 2hours. After standing around drinking and eating food they decide if the challenge is to be accomplished they best get to work,
After fretting around for a further five minutes they decide it really is time to get on, and the tools are unpacked and the welder is readied for action. The skis were first to be made, after Jules explains to Ant that he cant weld steel to wood he gets out some big long woodscrews and they proceed to screw some long timber mounts to the skateboard halves with a little bit of fairy washing up cutting fluid to ease in the screws. Some head stripping later the skis are looking rather good.

Jules takes them out to the lawn and pushes them around on the wet grass and they work rather well… better than Jules expects as he almost skids into the muddy flowerbed. Ant has a go and they agree that this thing could be very quick on the slope, then again we though that of the toomerous and it was shit.

Next up were the front ski…s erm yes. We took a bit of table leg and hacked it off to make a short ski that was about twice as fat as the Slippery Jim’s ones. Ant then attempted to make Jules a mount to weld onto the ski so that it would lift the forks away from the ground, however Jules has trouble welding it due to the silly angles cut onto the steel (Jules puts Ants’s name down for some lessons in hack sawing) Anyway after the welder welds the wire to the nozzle and Jules manages to remove the jam from the inside of the roller he finishes the job and its looking pretty good.

The seat is quickly screwed onto the rear skis wooden blokes and a metal cross piece is screwed onto the same mount (After Jules explains yet again why metal cannot be welded to wood yet again) so the front steering can be attached. Ant then has to go for his dinner so Jules packs up and the NyloXuss is put away for the night.

Day 2

As I now finish collage at four on Fridays and Ant was going back to London on Sunday we decided it would be a good idea to finish this project just in case it did randomly snow. As soon as collage finished on Friday I Raced home picking up Ant on the way and we got to work at getting this little beast of a sledge built.

Whilst I setup the welder and got the tools out Ant pulls out the work bench and cuts a length or heavy duty box section out and then bolts it to the wooden struts of the skis, he holds it up and exclaims that the sledge has now got dual metal bar strength… and I look very puzzled as he managed to cut some steel with an almost square edge to it.

Again like the first day Ant doesn’t have much time to spare so it was another mad rush to get it finished. I get Ant to start cutting up the rest of the metal for the supports and while he was doing that I quickly attempt to find some washers from the tub of bolts and washers. The forks off Muzz’s old bike didn’t have an axle so I welded a washer to each side off the axle mount and then a bolt fitted through nice. After feeding the axle through the left fork prong and then the ski mount and finally out of the right prong, I then welded it on with a few spacers to keep the free spinning ski central and still rotatable, so it would ride bumps better.

Next Ant and I propped the front frame up on the small sections he had cut out and I tack it all up with the welder. She was looking rather good if a little wonky… a bit of heaving and bending the frame about and it looked a lot better. Ant retreated to the garage corner and I welded the frame up firmish. It wasn’t possible for nice welds on all of the joints as Ant had not cut them nicely, he still doesn’t get welding too well I think ;). Anyways after I down the torch she is looking very trike like indeed but the frame had pulled up slightly so the front ski was actually slightly higher than the main skis, which means the steering will be rather poor, so we intend to weld some skis onto the main front one that are lower. This will increase the steering power and give it more surface area to lift with.

Ant starts to pack up as he has to go, I quickly weld the steering bar onto the forks and Ant moans about the hot spatter against his legs but I ignore him cos I want to finish this extremely slippery sledge. Amt has finished clearing up and does a runner leaving me to paint this noXus.

*Jules pulls out the cans and looks at the noXus, slowly approaching it he steps around and levels the cans at the front, PSSSHHHHH*

After around five minutes the whole body is covered and I retreated from the fumes of the garage for a drink. For the finishing touches I tapped up the control grips on the Jim and the noXus and then tape the ‘anti knackers KnackererTM firmly to the uprights of them.

Now all we need is some serious snow to test them. And RACE RACE RACE.

-Jules