Carbon Fiber Rules

[Magageddon]

Forgot I had this pic saved on my phone. You have to really try to break these frames if you really wanted to lol

[DocsMachine]

Possibly more interesting is that's just two 10-32 screws holding the frame to the body and rail.

Doc.

[shrompman420]

I have to say. that's cool as hell

[BonesJackson]

Man I have been LOOKING for that photo and was unable to find it anywhere I searched several months ago. Saving now. Thank you!

[SignOfZeta]

The more I look at this photo the more questions I have. For one…that is a weird way to lift a car. It’s more weird the more you look at it…three points like that?

The really strange thing is what Doc Mentioned, that someone is suspending a 1000kg car from two grip frame screws with not a lot of engagement…or is that what’s happening? The photo is blurry so it’s not clear to me how exactly the Mag and the hook and the rig are all attached to each other. Is the hook on the chain fall directly attached to the body or the grip frame?

It seems beyond the ability of the screws unless they used a dummy body and valve with 1” deep holes and extra long screws and even then it’s way beyond safe rating if not beyond possible. How much thread engagement does a Mag have?

If they have attached the hook to the frame itself thats massively more believable but since mag frames are attached with two screws so it’s also not representative of anything.

[DocsMachine]

Okay, first, that's a thirty-ish-year-old set of photos. It was done by AGD in response to concerns the new "plastic" grip frames weren't as strong as the original pot-metal ones. I dunno whose car that was, but supposedly that was AGD's warehouse section.

A hanging tab was TIG-welded to a probably-scrap Automag body, and presumably some other parts tossed on to make it look like a complete gun. I don't recall how the lower tab was attached to the grip frame.

That's a 90s Miata, and so weighs a bit over a US ton, around 2,100 pounds. (940kg for those that don't grok Freedom Units.® )

The 3-point chain arrangement is just to be able to lift the car in a level format, and not have it tilt badly forward or backward. They only lifted the car 6-8", since the point is of course, to show the strength of the grip, not, you know, actually to lift the car to change a tire or something.

I would bet money on yes, it was just a normal front grip screw and normal field-strip rear screw- Tom didn't fake things like that. He's the one, after all, that risked his own tongue, on video, to demonstrate the Level 10 bolt.

Now, I can easily see that whole arrangement having been pretty delicate- toss a cinderblock on the passenger seat and the whole thing might snap and fall. But the point was to show the frame could, in fact, hold more than a ton of weight.

Aaron Alexander of AKA did the same thing. At the time, anyone making a gun or body with a removable feed beck, used Angel LED feed neck threads, since those were becoming the standard- and you could get a lot of different styles. AKA used a coarser thread for their Merlin and Excal bodies, and people complained- they wanted to use common Angel threads.

Those Angel threads, though, as we all know, were weak and prone to stripping. AKA didn't want that, and so went with a heavier thread- and showed Aaron (or Larry, I forget) hanging from a rope or chain attached to an Excal or Merlin feed neck, with the body suspended on a forklift. The complaints stopped.

Doc.