D3MON's Project Phoenix scx24 -Pic Heavy-

[D3MON]

Hey guys, been awhile since i posted, and been working with RC's in general, but started a project recently and wanted to share the build
Originally didn't think i was going to be doing a build thread on this, as it isn't for me and pretty personal of a project, though it is one i have wanted to do since i have been into RCs, albeit for different reasons and on a smaller scale than I initially thought.
Warning, this project was my first time utilizing Fusion 360, and my first experience with 3d printer and 3d printed parts, so if i am doing something completely wrong with either or both, which there is a very good chance of, feel free to let me know.

Picture of the truck for reference.

the truck is no longer around due to a forest fire, so i had to rely on a few pictures that i had over the years and scaled dimensions off a 5-gallon bucket that was in one of the pictures.

when i started this build initially, there were 2 different lengths to the SCX24, the SCX24 deadbolt (SWB), and the SCX24 Wrangler JLU.
this eventually changed and the SCX24 jeep Gladiator and Dodge Power Wagon were made available with almost a 2cm longer wheelbase, which i opted for in effort to make it more scale.

It started with ordering a 1/24 scaled 3d printed body from i think "Etsy"? i had even less of an idea at the time, but the body was 3d resin printed, which kind of has some issues, but i believe will be able to make it work, all else fails i have a .stl file of it and will be printed in ABS or Petg.

using Autodesk Fusion:

slow process of learning Autodesk Fusion, but the start of the headache rack and flatbed

attempting to learn and understand how "bodies" work and struggling with keeping some parts separate in case of changes to length and location of parts change (which they did).
this version i had tried making slightly longer as you can see by the spliced section, ran into some struggles with the parts underneath, but was able to manage.

once i got this far, i sent it to a friend to get the first test print. we opted to use Petg filament.
after printing found a few issues and around this time was when i discovered that the longer wheelbase Jeep Gladiator was available.

i had made a few of the dimensions too thin and we were getting separation of components.

once the first test print was done i finally decided i wanted the bed and the cab to be attached as one unit, and came across some threaded inserts to make that happen so revisions had to be made to incorporate them in a hidden location so more revisions were to be made.

revised body design in Fusion and a test fitting:
as you can see i thickened up in front of the under bed mounted toolboxes, giving room to install some threaded inserts. i thickened up the triangulated pieces in effort to prevent the pieces from not joining/bonding. i also extended the chassis 2cm aprox to get the dimensions somewhat correct to the SCX24 chassis, i think it is still too short vs the 1:1 but much longer and it would have not looked good on the truck.

2nd print of the bed and mounting to the body:

second print came out alot better, the pieces was revised to be thicker to not separate:

also seen in the above picture is the thicker toolbox back piece to allow the threaded insert seen below

once the holes were drilled and the inserts were heated and melted in, made a mount on the back to screw to the back of the upper cab:

this is where there were slight problems with the body itself being resin printed. (at least with me not knowing it was.)
the bottom left corner was narrower on the print than the right, coupled with it being quite brittle as it is resin printed, it snapped off as you can see. also you can see the back of the cab has a few cracks in it as the whole back broke off as i attempted to drill it.

for now i managed to glue it back together with some shoe goo and a few pieces of wire to add strength.
as you can see it does mount up, made sure to use washers to make it have a more spread out clamp force. time will tell if it will last or not.

picture of the bed mounted to the cab.

overall at the time was happy with how it was coming out.
at this point i was waiting for the truck to figure out how i wanted to mount the bed/cab combo to the chassis of the SCX24.

 

[D3MON]

I got really lucky that my LHS had a display model that i was able to take out of the box and measure a few things before purchasing, looking at the trucks in the box, the wheelbase looked very much longer than the Jeep JLU that i own, but couldn't definitively say, as the box on both said they had the same WB, so they allowed me to take it out of the box and pull some measurements.
Wheelbase on the box and of the JLU was 133mm, but actual WB is closer to 153.
The truck back home.

i had already ordered the wheels and tires as close to the 1:1 truck as i could find.
made me realize how fancy of rims most people like to have on their trucks, but the more simple ones are quite difficult to find.
it was a few month process of finding something with a similar pattern, aluminum, and that didn't have monstrous tires already installed. i know the wheel-wells are semi small comparatively on the dodge body, and i wanted it to be as scale as i could get within reason.

started with gluing some 1/4" neodymium magnets to the body mounts on the truck after removal of the velcro that is factory to attach the boy.
after some measurements and tinkering with heights, it worked out about perfectly the height of 2 magnets stacked while the mount is in the upmost position.

then uninstalling the stock bumper

the body with the magnets installed:

after removing the bumper and body i came to a decision on how i wanted the body to mount to the rear.
i was thinking i would try using rear body mounts off my JLU SCX24 using the body post and try to fashion a magnet on top of it and recess a magnet into the next print of the truck bed. but the height of the body mounts without any added height was my desired ride height. so back to the drawing board.
instead i decided to attempt using the hinge mounts already on the chassis that the original body used.

below was my blueprints for the mounting tabs.
kind of a mess, but with a few sketches i was able to get what i think are the dimensions to the mounts.
the bumper i wanted to keep mounted to the chassis as stock, this was quite difficult as trying to eyeball align through holes in the chassis and trying to get a measurement from imaginary points with a contour on the cab. i am sure this will take at least one more revision to get how i want.

after hours and hours of tinkering in Autodesk Fusion, i was able to get the bumper modeled.
i struggled with joining of bodies and trying to keep certain parts separate enough so i could move them independently, primarily the each half of the bumper as the bumper did survive the fire, but the truck is about 3,000 miles away from me and the only person (my brother) that can pull dimensions, is who i am trying to give the build to as a surprise.

attempting to design mounting points to the factory bumper mount points on the truck:
you can see below the mounting points added in. i had to play with the angles and routing of the braces as the chassis rails lined up exactly into the holes for the lights which i am going to add in the future.

on the bumper at this point i am accepting defeat on getting the horizontal pieces that are the grill protector as i am not proficient enough to get them aligned properly and with the worry of them being too small to event print correctly, and break too easy. this might be revisited though.

So far this is where it sits.
i ordered some Petg in black with the hopes of not having to paint the Petg printed parts. everything i have seen in research on it is Petg doesn't like to hold paint the greatest without some major work, and i dont want to send it out and a few days/months later learn that the paint is just falling off. i am intending this to be able to be driven hard if desired.
the petg arrived yesterday but needs to sit in a dehumidifier to reduce moisture in it 24hrs and waiting for my friend to have time to print.
i am new to the 3d printed world, so going to have to do some testing with paint and primer for the body itself, from what i have been able to find the 3d resin printed parts paint ok with a good primer, so far i believe i am going to go with a Krylon Colormaxx spray can as that seemed to work great for people, but if anyone has tips on this please let me know.
i do still have the 3d printed bed which i think would be a good sacrificial piece to attempt to prime and paint.

 

[cbaker65]

I got really lucky that my LHS had a display model that i was able to take out of the box and measure a few things before purchasing, looking at the trucks in the box, the wheelbase looked very much longer than the Jeep JLU that i own, but couldn't definitively say, as the box on both said they had the same WB, so they allowed me to take it out of the box and pull some measurements.
Wheelbase on the box and of the JLU was 133mm, but actual WB is closer to 153.
The truck back home.
View attachment 190245
i had already ordered the wheels and tires as close to the 1:1 truck as i could find.
made me realize how fancy of rims most people like to have on their trucks, but the more simple ones are quite difficult to find.
it was a few month process of finding something with a similar pattern, aluminum, and that didn't have monstrous tires already installed. i know the wheel-wells are semi small comparatively on the dodge body, and i wanted it to be as scale as i could get within reason.
View attachment 190244
started with gluing some 1/4" neodymium magnets to the body mounts on the truck after removal of the velcro that is factory to attach the boy.
after some measurements and tinkering with heights, it worked out about perfectly the height of 2 magnets stacked while the mount is in the upmost position.
View attachment 190247
then uninstalling the stock bumper
View attachment 190248
View attachment 190250
the body with the magnets installed:
View attachment 190249
after removing the bumper and body i came to a decision on how i wanted the body to mount to the rear.
i was thinking i would try using rear body mounts off my JLU SCX24 using the body post and try to fashion a magnet on top of it and recess a magnet into the next print of the truck bed. but the height of the body mounts without any added height was my desired ride height. so back to the drawing board.
instead i decided to attempt using the hinge mounts already on the chassis that the original body used.
View attachment 190251
below was my blueprints for the mounting tabs.
kind of a mess, but with a few sketches i was able to get what i think are the dimensions to the mounts.
the bumper i wanted to keep mounted to the chassis as stock, this was quite difficult as trying to eyeball align through holes in the chassis and trying to get a measurement from imaginary points with a contour on the cab. i am sure this will take at least one more revision to get how i want.
View attachment 190253
after hours and hours of tinkering in Autodesk Fusion, i was able to get the bumper modeled.
i struggled with joining of bodies and trying to keep certain parts separate enough so i could move them independently, primarily the each half of the bumper as the bumper did survive the fire, but the truck is about 3,000 miles away from me and the only person (my brother) that can pull dimensions, is who i am trying to give the build to as a surprise.
View attachment 190254
attempting to design mounting points to the factory bumper mount points on the truck:
you can see below the mounting points added in. i had to play with the angles and routing of the braces as the chassis rails lined up exactly into the holes for the lights which i am going to add in the future.
View attachment 190255
on the bumper at this point i am accepting defeat on getting the horizontal pieces that are the grill protector as i am not proficient enough to get them aligned properly and with the worry of them being too small to event print correctly, and break too easy. this might be revisited though.

So far this is where it sits.
i ordered some Petg in black with the hopes of not having to paint the Petg printed parts. everything i have seen in research on it is Petg doesn't like to hold paint the greatest without some major work, and i dont want to send it out and a few days/months later learn that the paint is just falling off. i am intending this to be able to be driven hard if desired.
the petg arrived yesterday but needs to sit in a dehumidifier to reduce moisture in it 24hrs and waiting for my friend to have time to print.
i am new to the 3d printed world, so going to have to do some testing with paint and primer for the body itself, from what i have been able to find the 3d resin printed parts paint ok with a good primer, so far i believe i am going to go with a Krylon Colormaxx spray can as that seemed to work great for people, but if anyone has tips on this please let me know.
i do still have the 3d printed bed which i think would be a good sacrificial piece to attempt to prime and paint.

Nice ,great to see you doing some projects Bruh!..

 

[D3MON]

Nice ,great to see you doing some projects Bruh!..

just haven't had much time to even think about rc's lately let alone run them, feel really bad for neglecting my nitros and not running them, but they were stored and after run oil in them.
really nice to be able to get back into it, and learn new things.

 

[cbaker65]

just haven't had much time to even think about rc's lately let alone run them, feel really bad for neglecting my nitros and not running them, but they were stored and after run oil in them.
really nice to be able to get back into it, and learn new things.

Yea ,same here ,with me I have everything to run RC an they run great an I can go out at any time on a whim ,but
the desire for it just isnt there anymore!
I am alone in a small farming town an I am the only one in my area that does RC's ,the closest people to run RC's
with or meet is 25 miles away through heavy traffic an just isnt feasible for me to get my license renewed ,pay insurance
just to go meet people to run an RC!
The field that I walk to ,I am waiting for the weeds to burn off after the winter months right now ,but am going to get
out there an do some ripping!..

 

[D3MON]

small update:
PAINT!
in trying to get as close as possible to the real thing, i decided to use the Dupli-color perfect match series of the OEM paint.
primered the body first, then painted.

used a chrome paint pen to color the grill and headlights, and some black paint on the handles, B-pillars, and mirrors, and soon will paint the strip where the windshield wipers are.
i plan to get some Tamiya X19 smoke and get a few layers to darken as they were replaced with LEDs with black housing.

i am quite horrible at paint, and overall am not the happiest how it turned out, but given my painting skills i think it turned out OK.
i will be revisiting the window paint and trying to get them smoother looking.
hoping in the next few days to have the revised bumper and bed to be printed and able to be mocked up and start on wiring lights.

 

[WickedFog]

If it were me, I would have cut the windows out and glued some new ones in from a blister pack, or find a cheap body for a 1/16 scale to hack up.

But it looks fine man. Do you have some good paint brushes?

This is going to be a cool little 24, especially since you are building a scaled down version of a real truck. So cool! And I love that bed!

When designing stuff in Fusion, I like to try to avoid supports at all costs. So a lot of times if I can split a model up in multiple parts to make for an easier print, I will. But it's hard to glue PLA together. So I typically try to add screw holes to the models. But you look like you're doing a good job with the software.

Great project! Thanks for sharing!

 

[johnnydmd]

Awesome D3MON! Love seeing 3D printing used for projects

 

[Tunedfrog]

Looking good.

 

[D3MON]

If it were me, I would have cut the windows out and glued some new ones in from a blister pack, or find a cheap body for a 1/16 scale to hack up.

But it looks fine man. Do you have some good paint brushes?

This is going to be a cool little 24, especially since you are building a scaled down version of a real truck. So cool! And I love that bed!

When designing stuff in Fusion, I like to try to avoid supports at all costs. So a lot of times if I can split a model up in multiple parts to make for an easier print, I will. But it's hard to glue PLA together. So I typically try to add screw holes to the models. But you look like you're doing a good job with the software.

Great project! Thanks for sharing!

in the beginning i was really leaning towards cutting out the windows, but after seeing how brittle the resin can be after drilling a few holes, i decided against it as i want it to still be drive-able and not have to worry about it cracking and or breaking as soon as it rolled over or bumped into something.

i do have some decent brushes, issue mostly is kind of a combination of eye-sight, and get a bit shaky here and there.

never even thought of separate parts.
That said though, except a few areas on the test print of the bumper, i haven't really ran into issues on the supports coming off/coming off cleanly. main problem area for the print is that the orientation the bumper printed it was a 4 degree slope up and the buildup wasn't smooth and we were getting a hot first layer.
the table has a slight warp from a 4 legged friend but a new bed is on the way.

thank you very much for all the tips and kind words!

Awesome D3MON! Love seeing 3D printing used for projects

thank you! definitely been an experience lol

Looking good.

thanks!

 

[WickedFog]

i do have some decent brushes, issue mostly is kind of a combination of eye-sight, and get a bit shaky here and there.

I feel ya there. I had cataract surgery on both eyes before I was 45. Damn tig welders in the workplace with no shields around them. And I have shaky hands too. I used to be able to paint straight lines. Now I use vinyl striping/masking tape.

In case you don't know, you can cover your prints with UV resin and cure it with a UV flashlight in seconds. It goes on like paint. It's a simple way to remove layer lines, it strengthens the prints, and it sands really easily. Just wear a respirator.

Looking forward to more of this project.

 

[D3MON]

I feel ya there. I had cataract surgery on both eyes before I was 45. Damn tig welders in the workplace with no shields around them. And I have shaky hands too. I used to be able to paint straight lines. Now I use vinyl striping/masking tape.

In case you don't know, you can cover your prints with UV resin and cure it with a UV flashlight in seconds. It goes on like paint. It's a simple way to remove layer lines, it strengthens the prints, and it sands really easily. Just wear a respirator.

Looking forward to more of this project.

i did not know that, do you happen to have a link for that UV Resin that you like/have used?

 

[WickedFog]

i did not know that, do you happen to have a link for that UV Resin that you like/have used?

Sure do.
Epoxy UV Resin Clear Hard,ONGHSD UV Jewelry Resin Glue Sunlight Ultraviolet Curing Resin Crystal Liquid for DIY/Kids Craft Jewelry Making Supplies Mold Not Included (60g/2.12oz) https://a.co/d/5o5A1ma

And these are the flashlights I use.
Morpilot Blacklight Flashlights uv Flashlight,12 LED 395nm Ultraviolet Blacklight 2 PCS Black Light Flashlight Mini, Torch Light Pet Urine Detector Light for Dog/Cat, Dry Stains,Resin Curing,Bed Bug https://a.co/d/6Z9VqBy

 

[D3MON]

very small update again,
i am happy with how the Tamiya X19 smoke paint worked on the chrome paint pen.
Don't mind the chrome that had gotten out of the lines lol. i am going to try sanding it down back to the clear coat.

interesting note, the paint interacted with the paint i used on the rear windows and caused it to re-liquefy and it kind of blended. i am assuming this is because it is a lacquer type paint and the paint may have not setup fully. kind of surprising as it had been almost 3 days. tbh though i kind of like the effect.
hoping tomorrow i can get one more coat onto the rear window to darken it up slightly more.

 

[D3MON]

small update:
getting close to done with painting which i am very thankful for.
final clear coat is done, surprisingly used an entire can of the perfect match clear red paint and clear coat, +1 coat from a second clear coat can on this.
probably excessive, but i wanted more layers for a thicker clear coat to for better protection.
the clear coat had an odd reaction with the grey paint on the windows again. going to need to figure out how to correct/mitigate it.
it also seemed to have made the grill really dull looking, so going to do another chrome paint on top of the clear coat. a bit concerned how resistant to nicks/chips.
got the chrome vinyl sticker "rocker panels" cut up and applied.

as per @WickedFog recommendation, i got some UV resin and light, going to try to reinforce the back of the cab and a corner of the bottom. going to also reinforce areas inside the cab.
might play with trying to make light lenses with it as well when i get the parts and working on the lighting.
still some issues on the 3d printing side, but hoping that will come together soon.

 

[WickedFog]

This is going to look really awesome when it's complete!

 

[johnnydmd]

Clear over chrome paints always dulls them unfortunately.

 

[Chubaka]

Sure do.
Epoxy UV Resin Clear Hard,ONGHSD UV Jewelry Resin Glue Sunlight Ultraviolet Curing Resin Crystal Liquid for DIY/Kids Craft Jewelry Making Supplies Mold Not Included (60g/2.12oz) https://a.co/d/5o5A1ma

And these are the flashlights I use.
Morpilot Blacklight Flashlights uv Flashlight,12 LED 395nm Ultraviolet Blacklight 2 PCS Black Light Flashlight Mini, Torch Light Pet Urine Detector Light for Dog/Cat, Dry Stains,Resin Curing,Bed Bug https://a.co/d/6Z9VqBy

Ahh the funny splashlights.

 

[D3MON]

This is going to look really awesome when it's complete!

hoping so, going to be a surprise gift for someone.
there are a few spots i am really frustrated with how it turned out but overall i am happy with the paint.

Clear over chrome paints always dulls them unfortunately.

ahh, well good to know, learning alot of new things with this build. might add to the illusion of making it "pop out" more like the plastic pieces of the real thing with the chrome applied on the outside.

 

[D3MON]

been awhile, few major things happened in life so haven't been able to do much/post on this, but now progress has been made
ended up purchasing a 3d printer for myself so been having a blast with that, but more importantly no more waiting for parts.
though i have been having some issues i was able to print revised models of the bed and bumper.

Bumper Revisions:
Added buckets to receive 3mm LED lights and other reinforcements.

semi-final product:

the "brush guard" section of it is as expected, quite fragile. dont really know how to overcome that except maybe just be at the ready to print more, or make it a separate piece to be glued on (pending testing to see how well glue works with PLA+)


Bed Revisions:
-- this time instead of how it mounts in stock form, the rear body mount is inverted to angle up.
this reduces the height of the mounts to the bed, and looks better aesthetically as they dont hang down so far.
--added 3mm holes (2.5mm to be drilled out to 3mm) for LEDs and put a small recess for license plate.

-- due to printer issues and concerns with strength, i changed the design to have a 2 piece design, separating the headache rack from the bed itself.
was able to incorporate reinforcements to allow m2 screws to fasten.

so far as it sits its looking pretty decent i think, the bed "rails" mesh were too fine of a print for my printer to handle (was expecting this) so most likely going to use some
window screen or similar to accomplish the look.

hoping to be able to start soldering together the LEDs tomorrow getting it closer to final shape.
so far:

thank you for reading through, and as always am open to ideas.
-D3MON