Ford Quadricycle

vascon2196 · Sep 11, 2016

Thanks for sharing Steve...looks awesome.

Roy Napier · Sep 16, 2016

Hi Chris,

I too am looking to build one of these fascinating machines. Can you please advise how/when/where I can access your drawings please?

Many Thanks.
Roy

StephenB · Sep 17, 2016

Not the ones from here and not complete, but here is a set that includes most of the parts:
http://quadricycle.weebly.com/index.html

stevehuckss396 · Sep 17, 2016

StephenB said:
Not the ones from here and not complete, but here is a set that includes most of the parts:
http://quadricycle.weebly.com/index.html

Those are solid works drawings. Cant be opened by anything I have. Bummer

vascon2196 · Sep 17, 2016

Ya you have to have SolidWorks to open those files....SolidWorks has a free Viewer on their website which I think will let you view the drawings and print them.

StephenB · Sep 18, 2016

http://www.edrawingsviewer.com/
Very nice free viewer that lets you view several different kinds of cad files, including solidworks.

vascon2196 · Sep 18, 2016

Besides building a Ford Quadricycle replica we will also be revising our CAD drawings to reflect the changes we have made throughout the build. Once that is done we will most likely provide PDF versions of the complete set of plans. Again, the correct plans can be purchased from Dave Dunlavy.

http://quadricycle.info/

Dave has also acquired patterns and foundries willing to make the parts that Ford originally had cast.

stevehuckss396 · Sep 18, 2016

I think the proper thing to do is to provide the changes to the plans only. Publishing the entire set would be unfair to the original author of the plans unless the plans were made available free by the original author. In that case ignore everything I just said.

vascon2196 · Sep 18, 2016

stevehuckss396 said:
I think the proper thing to do is to provide the changes to the plans only. Publishing the entire set would be unfair to the original author of the plans unless the plans were made available free by the original author. In that case ignore everything I just said.

I think you are right Steve...even though our plans are significantly different. What happens if someone builds a Quadricycle replica, and somebody else measures it and creates plans, and then builds their own? Maybe one guy bought the plans and built a Quad...then loses the plans. His buddy offers to measure it and draw up a new set of plans. Then build his own Quad. Weird how all that works.

Maybe I should just remove those drawings...they are not as pretty as the original plans but I thought the students did a good job with the 3d modeling.

vascon2196 · Sep 18, 2016

Well I just deleted the site. It makes sense...our Quad is not a true replica but close enough. Too bad, our 3D model of the assembly looks pretty cool.

stevehuckss396 · Sep 19, 2016

I hate to be a kill joy but if we dont respect and protect the copyrights of our own modeling brothers, who will?

vascon2196 · Sep 19, 2016

stevehuckss396 said:
I hate to be a kill joy but if we dont respect and protect the copyrights of our own modeling brothers, who will?

No kill joy...you are right. I am a draftsman and admire/love all types of old mechanical prints and continue to teach "old school" drafting techniques. The original plans are amazing...all drawn by hand...very cool.

vascon2196 · Sep 20, 2016

https://youtu.be/F9EPf8SJc2Q

Here is a link to an amazing 1937 video explaining how a differential works. My students ask me all the time how the Quadricycle differential works.

Please watch this video...it is great!!!

johnmcc69 · Sep 20, 2016

Hi Chris, a really great job on the quad by you & your students.

Are the assembly drawings that were created for this anything that you can share? I would love to see them, maybe print them out & hang them in the shop for inspiration.

John

radial1951 · Sep 20, 2016

vascon2196 said:
No kill joy...you are right. I am a draftsman and admire/love all types of old mechanical prints and continue to teach "old school" drafting techniques. The original plans are amazing...all drawn by hand...very cool.

Chris, as you know, the "original" plans were drawn by the late George D'Angelis in the early 1960s by measuring up Henry Ford's original Quadricycle in the museum. He built and sold several replicas, even selling one, as I recall, to the museum. And of course he sold many sets of his plans, at a very reasonable price, which I think is great. But there is no intellectual property, in the modern sense, and if anything, surely Ford owns the "rights" to the design.

It's not as though you are giving away or selling copies of the D'Angelis plans. As you have said, they are still available through Dave Dunlavy and are worth every cent. George D'Angelis worked in the Ford design office, so he did nice drawings.

I think it will be a shame if the wider hobby community are unable to see the Quadricycle design through modern CAD and 3D Modelling. Perhaps just have General Arrangement drawings and the 3D Models available on this forum. Any serious Quad builder will buy the D'Angelis plans anyway. Just my thoughts...

Regards, Ross G.
_____________

stevehuckss396 · Sep 20, 2016

radial1951 said:
Chris, as you know, the "original" plans were drawn by the late George D'Angelis in the early 1960s by measuring up Henry Ford's original Quadricycle in the museum. He built and sold several replicas, even selling one, as I recall, to the museum. And of course he sold many sets of his plans, at a very reasonable price, which I think is great. But there is no intellectual property, in the modern sense, and if anything, surely Ford owns the "rights" to the design.

Here's the thing.

George goes to the museum, measures the quad, makes drawings for sale. Fred buy's the drawings and creates 3D models from the drawings and starts giving them away free. Fred is in essence giving away Georges work.

Now if Fred went down to the museum and measured the quad, created drawings, and then gave them away I would see no problem because he is giving away his own work.

You can obviously do what you want and Chris, I promise I won't post again on this topic as to not clutter up this awesome thread that I have enjoyed sense the first post. But we all may not know what's legal or not but we all know right from wrong. Chris did the "stand up" thing by taking them down. Tells me everything I needed to know about his character, not that I didn't already know.

RonGinger · Sep 21, 2016

Now if Fred went down to the museum and measured the quad, created drawings, and then gave them away I would see no problem because he is giving away his own work.

I would note Fred has put a lot of work into making the CAD drawing- you should know that well Steve with the amount of work you have done on CAD. So distributing his CAD is not really a knock off of the original work.

It is a complicated question, and lots of room for interpretation.

vascon2196 · Sep 22, 2016

No worries...all great questions and all great dialog between people who love this hobby. I have always loved drafting (my students are taking a CAD final exam as I type this). I was given the original Quad plans from a good friend who purchased the plans directly from George DeAngelis.

Part of this project becoming a club meant that it had to span across multiple courses here at the college. Using the original 2D plans the students were able to interpret the drawings to create 3D models and drawings. Many features were changed and continue to change based on our machinery and available tooling.

I started in this hobby by taking apart my friend's air engines and measuring each piece to make 3D models of them. I admired all of the air engines from Elmer Verburg...and basically copied all of his 2D drawings and created 3D models and working assemblies...then after doing that for a couple of years I took up machining model engines and never turned back. Now I just put all of my effort into gas engines.

So yes...let's move on and discuss the Quadricycle!

We have the engine running slightly better...we ran in the rings a bit more yesterday using the lathe...it seemed to help. We took one of the pistons out and noticed the rings were not wearing 100% all around (cylinder still egg shaped?)

We may changed the timer on the flywheel to use the original spark timing...the pin on the flywheel prevents us from using the small pulley to drive the car.

Again...I hope everyone is still enjoying this thread...it has come a long way and we are very close to completion. I hope to have the Quadricycle displayed at the Yankee Steam-Up this October in East Greenwich Rhode Island...maybe I'll see some of you there!

stevehuckss396 · Sep 22, 2016

vascon2196 said:
Again...I hope everyone is still enjoying this thread...

Yes we are!

vascon2196 · Sep 22, 2016

So here are a few of our pictures from yesterday. We ran the rings in again but this time much longer and at a higher speed. It helped a lot and the engine seems to run a lot stronger as of today. I advanced the timing a bit more which also may have helped. We ran the engine on squirts of starter fluid...can't run it too long in the shop even with the vent hood. Student in the picture is George...he's helped out a lot...and helped me get the engine running.