Vanquish Products Ripper - Prototype

background

This project was born out of my plan to build a new chassis for myself in the spring of 2017. My plan was to build the chassis out of steel as I had done many times before. However in the early stages of sketching, Jim (@RipperMachinist) suggested that we change the course of the project and that we machine EVERYTHING. We decided to combine the ideas of a machined cage and the concept of a machined body panel set that Jim was going to make for the Axial Yeti. We decided to shoot for a deadline of Axialfest 2017, which gave us only 2-3 months to finish the project. To be Axialfest legal in 2017, we needed to retain the SCX10 chassis, so that was where the design had to start from.

MACHINING

The programming and fixturing was the most intensive portion of the project. It was planned to machine the chassis out of three total blocks of material: left chassis side, right chassis side and then the three center chassis pieces would be machined from one block. Each of the three chassis blocks would start out at around 20lbs. The body panels would come from three additional blocks: a 9lb hood block, both side panels would come from one 17lb block, and the grills are made 4 at a time from a 10-15lb block. The total material used to create each Ripper is nearly 100lbs and takes 30+ hours from start to finish. We stayed late nights in hot conditions to keep our finger on the button of the machine during the proofing of the programs. The finished thickness of the body panels is only 0.025”, which you almost need to see in your hand to truly appreciate.

When the material was ordered for these trucks, we had enough to build 9 trucks. We never planned to build more of these when we started on this project, but that all changed a couple of months after the completion. The original prototypes belong to the following people:

#01 - @RipperMachinist

#02 - Harley Designs

#03 - Casey Currie

#04 - Currie Enterprises

#05 - David Castillo (formely w/Currie Enterprises)

#06 - KMC Wheels

#07 - Taylor Anderson (Founder of Rigid Industries)

#08 - Bob Tarvin (VP shop friend)

#09 - scrapped in machining