[WIP] Lamley Contest: BMW M3 Progress

With only a week left to go on this project and my essay at school, will I be able balance both tasks without one being a detriment to the other? Who knows. Hopefully that won't be the case.

In any case, I let this project sit for too long and time just took advantage of that and flew circles around me. I'm very disappointed with my current progress. I'm certain this entire project could be completed in one day yet I'm still not done. Many problems were had and I only sought to experiment with solutions even though that would take up even more time.

So what is it I'm making for Lamley Group's very first diecast customs contest? I've never told anyone before, but I finally decided to reveal it now since we've only a week left.

With no specific goal given to us, the open-ended parameters left me and my indecisive self hanging for days because I just could not think of what I could or wanted to do.

At first I was going to take advantage of my school's 3D printer and make a pedestal display and do a C4D polygon digital space, in physical space instead. It was too focused on an arrangement of abstract flat shapes, and the car itself wasn't getting any treatment. I scratched that off the list and started again. What about destruction? Explosions? Yeah! I like damaged cars, I should smash up this BMW and create a cutout of a diorama to give it context. Maybe I can smash it into a pole or have it tumbling, have shattered glass captured in air, parts breaking loose, front tire coming off, it was going to be a 3D view of a captured moment on camera, something that attracts our attention pretty easily. The idea sounded cool, but I lost interest after a while.

Then I decided to approach it differently. What are some current problems I face as an individual? While I was thinking about this, I was playing around with the car opening and closing the chassis baseplate, I noticed on my desk my USB flash drive was missing its cap and thought, why don't I turn the car into an encasing? It's been done before in the novelty market so it shouldn't come off as unusual to anyone who sees it. The idea sounded great, and I started thinking of ways to make it possible. Sketches would have been nice, but this was such a simple problem I didn't bother. I thought of making the base plate open up as if one side was hinged revealing the male port, then I thought of making a sliding/retractable drive. That seemed possible if I cut an opening in the front end of the M3, but then making the movable parts function properly was going to be tricky. Then I thought about cutting the car into 2 sections where one end could serve as the cap and the other as the encasing of the drive. (You can steal that idea if you like. I got a better one anyway.)

That seemed to be the most practical. In fact, I was just about ready to start, until I noticed my house keys could fit inside the casting if I closed the base up like a container. I sprung up, a light bulb lit up. This was it! Another current problem I do indeed have - that's an even greater issue that a capless flash drive - is regarding the keys scratching my phone's screen! What if I could protect my phone using this body? It was possible. The labour involved is very little, and that was a huge plus in deciding on this. So I started playing with the keys for a bit. Luckily I only got 3 keys and they all fit in the casting. Immediately the idea of drilling a hole through the back windshield and the base plate for the key ring came to mind. It'd make a quick key holder, and I can still attach additional items along the outside, like car keys or charms. But before I did, I thought of taking that a step further by asking myself if it was possible to secure the keys to the car and keep them organized without the keyring? If there was no keyring, the whole car could easily come off as a basic mainline; a key holder disguised as a toy car.

The current state. The body's paint has been stripped because I need to sand down any corners or pointed edges to reduce the chance of it scratching the phone. I busted out the wire brush and polished up the surface with the dremel. I put a hole in the wind shield and the base. Unfortunately, the hole in the base has to be a specific spot and to my luck it intersects with the rear axle goes so that presented a huge problem later on. but putting that aside, the fitted hole made the keyring lack some freedom of travel, which was great in that the base plate could be reattached easily, but the problem of stiffness stood (hah pun), so I tried opening up a large gap. It looks hideous but the keyring could rotate around, which is useful when it's in your pocket: flexibility. 

Accommodations had to be made, with the back wheels. Turns out putty wasn't going to stop the brass tubing from rotating. Now I have an aesthetics issue.

Because they can rotate, now I got back wheels that have adjustable camber when I really don't need it.

Paint started coming off through working at the putty and having it in my pocket. Going to have to find a new solution, because I'm not feeling black lace wheels.

That yellow stuff is Tamiya Polyestor Putty. I'm making an extruded edge so pulling out the baseplate is possible. I had to grind down the cut-out riveted points so that it would come off more easily, but now it falls out without any effort. I had planned to make the front end stick via weak strip magnets. It'll require a bit of extra work, but it's doable and better than what I've done which I can't reverse. The arrangement of the edge I can clip my finger onto isn't great. It requires too much wasted strength pushing down which doesn't open up the door at all. I'm going to be redoing this with a new baseplate, but this time, I'm putting down putty at the very top to make a sort of front diffuser for the car.

I didn't test it beforehand, but I learned late that the head of the keys present a problem, and that is that they are too wide for the wheels and ended up pushing them outward.

What we end up with is a ridiculous amount of offsetting. I could have fixed this by turning the car into a widebody, but I clearly can't if the finish is going to be bare zamac.

Looks terrible, but that's the only way the keys can fit. If I knew about this earlier, I would have shaved down the wheels before installing the axles. It reminds me of my Delorean's folded-up wheels

 Here's a 4-panel illustration of how I access the keys.

 Except it's going to be done with my left hand since they door locks are all on the left hand side.

What it will ideally look like when it's complete. The base will easily reattach to the body, and the window is firmly secured to the body.

Work will be done on it tomorrow. I still need to prepare some decals and paint up whatever I'll need to paint up.