3rd-Mar-22, 11:31 AM
Cut'n'Shuts (Chop Shopped) Cars
One of the definitions of "Cut and Shut" below.
Taken from the Urban Dictionary.
A car comprised of two halves from other cars welded in the centre and repainted to sell to others. Usually structurally unsound after the process and dangerous to use.
"My mate Tommy does cut n shuts. Last week he welded a Ford Focus and a Rover 400 together. He made a few bob selling it to some old lady."
Unscrupulous car dealers would take a front end wreck and a rear end wreck, cut them both in half and weld them together for sale.
Before you ask, "YES! It is illegal in the UK"
In the slot car world:
Before the introduction of 3D printed chassis and before the introduction of generic chassis' (eg the slot.IT HRS), a Cut'n'Shut was the only way to turn a toy car (scalextric etc) into a competition capable car.
In this day and age, 3d chassis are available to retrofit a lot of cars but sometimes, the one you are looking for has just not been designed. Even if shapeways does have a design, the cost for me to ship to the UK from the USA is exorbitant.
The HRS2 is a capable replacement chassis but , like all generic parts, a "one size fits all" approach never really fits perfectly. I've never really been happy with the sidewall body mounting technique, always preferring single front and rear body post with set screw (grub screw) float adjusters at each corner.
HRS2 also assumes that the body of the donor car will reach down to "flat" chassis level but this is often not the case as many toy cars have chassis that curves up to meet the body.
Each car also has unique front and rear end detail that can be lost when a generic chassis is fitted.
My project:
LONDONslotCarClub.com has some classes of racing that are just for fun and do not contribute points toward the annual championship trophies.
One such class is "TransAm" which is intended to have a grid full of mid seventies American street muscle. 60mm axle width maximum, 9mm tyre width maximum.
The problem is that no "quality" manufacturer NSR, Slot.IT etc makes a set of cars of this era. (Quality is defined by floating motor mounts, alloy wheels and removable transmission parts (crown, spur etc)
Some of the cars that appear on the LSC TransAm grid are cut'n'shuts and I've always been curious about this approach because it predates my time racing slot cars (i started about 5 years ago).
So, after picking up a used Scalextric Sunoco '69 Camaro for £20 at the recent MiltonKeynes swap meet, I began planning the cut'n'shut.
Researching other's conversions, there are clearly two schools of thought.
1- cut a chassis aperture to retrofit the motor mount.
2- cut a chassis aperture to take the motor mount "skeleton" from another chassis.
For the camaro, I chose the second.
The drivers for this?
1- the scalextric chassis was not wide enough (at its flat section) to take the motor mount.
2- the camaro has front and rear detail that has been designed, built and painted into the chassis rather than the body.
A donor skeleton was found in a racer sideways BMW m1 chassis that had suffered a major front end impact and split the front of the chassis after a floor impact.
The skeleton was cut out with a modelling knife and offered up the the scalextrix chassis and body to align ready for the chop.
The scalextric chassis was cut and the skeleton "spot welded" into place with very small amounts of superglue.
The rear of the chassis was chopped off and fitted to the rear of the skeleton.
Once the whole chassis assembly slotted together with the body, as required, the assembly was pulled apart. Epoxy resin mixed with black powder residue (from the cutting and shaping) was then used to make the final permanent bond. Where a gap was present between the skeleton and chassis, small amounts of tissue paper was used to act as fibre glass.
Some pics below
I did not take pics during the process, sorry. I had not planned to write this little project up.
The most difficult part of the conversion was the alignment of the skeleton into the chassis to ensure that the motor was centred and aligned properly.
It took 3 attempts, cutting and rewelding before I was happy with the alignment of the chassis, skeleton, motor mount and body.
Once everything came together, the chassis was run over wet'n'dry paper to remove any lumps and bumps. The chassis was then put through a chassis flattening process using a steel flat plate, magnets and hot water.
I had intended to reuse the yellow scalextric wheels , cut into trims, inserted into NSR wheels. However, after the amount of time take to perform the major chassis surgery, I no longer had the motivation to cut the old wheels up.
The solution? "Staffs" wheels. Quality alloy wheels with set screws.
The red wheels look suitably and garishly seventies against the blue and yellow body.
As part of the conversion, I lifted a Slot.IT motor mount from another car complete with SlotingPlus titanium Axle, Slot.IT transmission and an NSR purple long can inline motor.
The factory fitted screws were replaced with precision machined NSR (rear) and PolicarF1 small head at the front. The body floats!
Top tip for the conversion is to fit the whole motor ensembly Into the skeleton to get the alignment right, then remove the mount to perform the welding.
This process is not just "measure twice, cut once".
It is more like "measure, offer-up, initial cut, remeasure, recut, offer-up again, spot weld, offer-up, recut, realign, offer-up, recut, offer-up etc etc etc".
Remember to offer up with wheels attached to ensure that the wheel arches are aligned.
The camaro was difficult in respect to the wheel arch alignment because the arches part cover the wheels (at the top) and part not (at the bottom). A very typical muscle car arrangement.
In Summary, this was an interesting and challenging exercise.
I'm glad to have experimented with this but this is not a process I plan to repeat.
Too much hard work and the results can never be as precisely engineered as a 3d solution.
Next time, I'll bite the bullet and find a 3d solution.
Please do leave comments and pics of your own cut'n'shuts
ALAN W
More pics in
https://ibb.co/album/v37BCJ
One of the definitions of "Cut and Shut" below.
Taken from the Urban Dictionary.
A car comprised of two halves from other cars welded in the centre and repainted to sell to others. Usually structurally unsound after the process and dangerous to use.
"My mate Tommy does cut n shuts. Last week he welded a Ford Focus and a Rover 400 together. He made a few bob selling it to some old lady."
Unscrupulous car dealers would take a front end wreck and a rear end wreck, cut them both in half and weld them together for sale.
Before you ask, "YES! It is illegal in the UK"
In the slot car world:
Before the introduction of 3D printed chassis and before the introduction of generic chassis' (eg the slot.IT HRS), a Cut'n'Shut was the only way to turn a toy car (scalextric etc) into a competition capable car.
In this day and age, 3d chassis are available to retrofit a lot of cars but sometimes, the one you are looking for has just not been designed. Even if shapeways does have a design, the cost for me to ship to the UK from the USA is exorbitant.
The HRS2 is a capable replacement chassis but , like all generic parts, a "one size fits all" approach never really fits perfectly. I've never really been happy with the sidewall body mounting technique, always preferring single front and rear body post with set screw (grub screw) float adjusters at each corner.
HRS2 also assumes that the body of the donor car will reach down to "flat" chassis level but this is often not the case as many toy cars have chassis that curves up to meet the body.
Each car also has unique front and rear end detail that can be lost when a generic chassis is fitted.
My project:
LONDONslotCarClub.com has some classes of racing that are just for fun and do not contribute points toward the annual championship trophies.
One such class is "TransAm" which is intended to have a grid full of mid seventies American street muscle. 60mm axle width maximum, 9mm tyre width maximum.
The problem is that no "quality" manufacturer NSR, Slot.IT etc makes a set of cars of this era. (Quality is defined by floating motor mounts, alloy wheels and removable transmission parts (crown, spur etc)
Some of the cars that appear on the LSC TransAm grid are cut'n'shuts and I've always been curious about this approach because it predates my time racing slot cars (i started about 5 years ago).
So, after picking up a used Scalextric Sunoco '69 Camaro for £20 at the recent MiltonKeynes swap meet, I began planning the cut'n'shut.
Researching other's conversions, there are clearly two schools of thought.
1- cut a chassis aperture to retrofit the motor mount.
2- cut a chassis aperture to take the motor mount "skeleton" from another chassis.
For the camaro, I chose the second.
The drivers for this?
1- the scalextric chassis was not wide enough (at its flat section) to take the motor mount.
2- the camaro has front and rear detail that has been designed, built and painted into the chassis rather than the body.
A donor skeleton was found in a racer sideways BMW m1 chassis that had suffered a major front end impact and split the front of the chassis after a floor impact.
The skeleton was cut out with a modelling knife and offered up the the scalextrix chassis and body to align ready for the chop.
The scalextric chassis was cut and the skeleton "spot welded" into place with very small amounts of superglue.
The rear of the chassis was chopped off and fitted to the rear of the skeleton.
Once the whole chassis assembly slotted together with the body, as required, the assembly was pulled apart. Epoxy resin mixed with black powder residue (from the cutting and shaping) was then used to make the final permanent bond. Where a gap was present between the skeleton and chassis, small amounts of tissue paper was used to act as fibre glass.
Some pics below
I did not take pics during the process, sorry. I had not planned to write this little project up.
The most difficult part of the conversion was the alignment of the skeleton into the chassis to ensure that the motor was centred and aligned properly.
It took 3 attempts, cutting and rewelding before I was happy with the alignment of the chassis, skeleton, motor mount and body.
Once everything came together, the chassis was run over wet'n'dry paper to remove any lumps and bumps. The chassis was then put through a chassis flattening process using a steel flat plate, magnets and hot water.
I had intended to reuse the yellow scalextric wheels , cut into trims, inserted into NSR wheels. However, after the amount of time take to perform the major chassis surgery, I no longer had the motivation to cut the old wheels up.
The solution? "Staffs" wheels. Quality alloy wheels with set screws.
The red wheels look suitably and garishly seventies against the blue and yellow body.
As part of the conversion, I lifted a Slot.IT motor mount from another car complete with SlotingPlus titanium Axle, Slot.IT transmission and an NSR purple long can inline motor.
The factory fitted screws were replaced with precision machined NSR (rear) and PolicarF1 small head at the front. The body floats!
Top tip for the conversion is to fit the whole motor ensembly Into the skeleton to get the alignment right, then remove the mount to perform the welding.
This process is not just "measure twice, cut once".
It is more like "measure, offer-up, initial cut, remeasure, recut, offer-up again, spot weld, offer-up, recut, realign, offer-up, recut, offer-up etc etc etc".
Remember to offer up with wheels attached to ensure that the wheel arches are aligned.
The camaro was difficult in respect to the wheel arch alignment because the arches part cover the wheels (at the top) and part not (at the bottom). A very typical muscle car arrangement.
In Summary, this was an interesting and challenging exercise.
I'm glad to have experimented with this but this is not a process I plan to repeat.
Too much hard work and the results can never be as precisely engineered as a 3d solution.
Next time, I'll bite the bullet and find a 3d solution.
Please do leave comments and pics of your own cut'n'shuts
ALAN W
More pics in
https://ibb.co/album/v37BCJ
![[+]](https://slotracer.online/community/images/bootbb/collapse_collapsed.png)
