I'd love your opinion on the new Buggy Kite Shop (BKS) buggies from France/China. Does anything jump out at you good or bad?
there is an article at Exterme Kites.
I'll try to paste URL
http://www.extremekites.com.au/product-watch/buggies/sysmic-...
Paul

The painted steel could be a problem with corrosion and chipping. It is zinc plated but paint likes to chip. Stainless and or powdercoating would be superior. Maybe those things didn't let them hit their price target.

looks like stainless to me and they are using the fusion method of welding it(no filler wire) .That is WRONG!. Look really close at the weld on the rear axle, notice how concave it is. That is called undercut, and it is not acceptable I cant believe they would build a buggy that nice w/ shoddy welding procedures.If I was to buy one, Id have to reweld the whole damn thing before I would trust it. And before some deucebag starts callin me a"knowitall". I got 30 yrs welding exp. 27 of it in the shipyards here in Norfolk VA! So when it comes to metal and welding ,I am a "K.I.A" That's why i'm the weldngod!:frog: I will examine a little closer and tell ya what else I notice.

welds holding fork tube on looks like #@%$#!. I guess thats what happens when THEY add filler wire. What a piece of crap. pull the photos to your desktop and zoom on em.:barf: They look good at a distance, but upon closer examination What do you expect cheatin azz CHINA is involved w/ it! They can't even make a decent crescent wrench!

it was the budget S2 that was painted. The S1 does look like stainless. WG, I might have to bring my buggy by for you to check the welds on it. Maybe I could take some pics of the joints and see what you think, you know, sometime when you take a break!

BeamerB , it would be a road trip for sure. But if you wanna come to VA ,come on! It would be great if I could make the JIBE,but that is impossible right now. but if you take some close ups that are clear and I'll QA your welds for ya. Right now the wind is 15-20 out of the east, and I'm playin hooky.I'm headin to the beach bro' Oh. yeah paint really doesn't like to stick to galvanize(zinc).

Thanks for taking a look WG.
i had my concerns from the start (China) and I know nothing about welding (i did take a welding course in high school, it was fun but that was a course 20 years ago.) I gave BKS the benefit of doubt because some things coming out of China are far better quality than expected.
Maybe if BKS knows what we now know they may do something about it but i'm guessing we'll be hearing about broken BKS buggies long before that happens, if ever.
Paul

Quote:

Originally posted by revpaul I'd love your opinion on the new Buggy Kite Shop (BKS) buggies from France/China. Does anything jump out at you good or bad? there is an article at Exterme Kites. I'll try to paste URL http://www.extremekites.com.au/product-watch/buggies/sysmic-... Paul

sorry revpaul, just found this post, I have already given my critique of this buggy on EK, you can see what I had to say here

[Edit: link removed]

Bobby I think that Weldngod would find your Flexi welds to be good. I don't have the experience he has, but as a former licensed aircraft mechanic I was once taught what a good weld looks like and how to do a bit myself.

I'm a tweaker by nature. I'm sure they haven't developed the rep they have by doing shoddy work. My line on that is that I couldn't see the faults that WG was seeing. I guess I could see it if someone who knows showed my the logic. I'm sure you've hit a sand castle or two in yours by now to test out those welds on yours.

you need to zoom in on pics and look close. I you look at a weld and it is concave ,that is bad. But so is too much convexity. When you tig weld stainless, you need to add filler wire . This is what makes the weld convex, if you don't then your just melting the 2 pieces and the molten metal sinks into the seam.(concavity) some things are ok to fuse. But not structural things that have to endure stresses.For that you have to add filler metal of the appropriate type, to create a weld bead. When you fuse pieces together ,it's like a microweld and it is only microstrong! I can look at those welds and tell instantly that it was fused, cause I would be fired and blackballed if I did that on the wrong thing.If I tell ya a weld fails, you can bank on it. Other welders don't call me the weldngod for nothing! Those welds are CRAP! I could out weld that guy with a pack of matches and a coathanger!

i got this information about the material used for the rims:

The aluminum used is A356 with T6 treatment, this process is generally used for marine equipment.

Maybe this will help

all that means is it is cast aluminum that was heat treated to relieve stress. You can have all kinds of porosity, inclusions,microfine cracks. But that is the same with ALL aluminum castings ( engine parts, rims etc..) I weld broken cast aluminum all the time, you wouldn't believe the porosity i have opened up when my arc melts the parent metals. T6 means it is been heat treated to 6000 series aluminum ,but it is also means it is brittle and doesn't like to flex. So if you jump or get air borne you may well break your rim. Never put heat on it or you will take the heat treat out of it and it will be annealed( softened) . If you want the chemical breakdown of what it is made of ,I got that too.

forged alum. would be better. that's when they cast it and put tons of pressure on it. Which makes it much denser

I hear what you are saying on the welding quality Weldngod and agree with you.
However, the proof of the pudding is in the eating as they say. I wonder how this thing will hold together if used in anger.
Our playground would be good totest it out as I believe we have one of the harshest environment anywhere in the world.
I won't buy one as I build my own. I weld but using filler rod. I'm not a good welder by any means & try and construct my buggies as much as possible to avoid areas where welds are highly stressed. i.e. I clamp parts together as much as possible.

I build my buggies from mild steel now (earlier stainless) and have tried different protective coating. I zinc coated one buggy and even with the etching acid Ii put on it to help the paint stick over the top, didn't work too well. The paint has come off in places. It looks pretty awful but the zinc coating provides a good base against rustiing.

I powder coated my last two buggies. This is superb. The important thing that I found out about powder coating is the the steel need to be properly cleaned & prepared before the actual powder coating process is implemented otherwise it can crack off in places.

Hmm I had my link removed but yours stayed....

my views then

Ok..initial impressions, looks pretty good


My Critique

Not too keen on the Harley foot plates, you feet will slide off the ends of these when they are wet, and the yokes look slightly thin and bent, they look weak.

What are the tubes hanging down from the bottom of the rear axle for, and also the two pieces of wire on each of the fork legs, not a criticism, just an inquiry as I don't know what they are for.

The axle clamps plates look good, but are they practical, as all the forces on the axle are from a narrow plate and not spread out.

It looks like they have tried to make a shiny buggy and given up at the last hurdle, it looks shiny from a distance but up close the finish is disappointing, re swan neck

Who makes these ?

Note:- I am not out rubbishing someone else's work, just giving my honest critique, I would rather have one honest critique than a 100 "oh yes that great" comments any day, that's how we all learn and move forward. I don't know who has made these buggies, but I wish them well and all the success for the future if they are bringing these buggies to the masses.

From the buggy site

Adaptable ballast
- Front and rear supports of ballast designed for weightlifting disc interior diameter 28,5mm
- Hole Diam.10mm available for other types of ballast



going to look a bit strange with weight lifting discs fitted underneath the rear axle...why not just put them on the stub with the wheel....?

They then came back with some explanations, and my reply was....

I am not doubting the axle clamp, I can see that is strong, more concerned about the contact point with the axle itself, rather than the axle plate going across the axle, its fixed at 90 degrees to it, making the contact area very small and with some stress to area the axle tube will bend quite easily.

The yokes as you said are 6mm thick, but with all the cut outs on them, they look, and will be weak IMHO, you have cut outs where the bolt goes through..., I hope this works for you, as I can predict first half decent knock the front end gets you will end up with a buckled set of yokes.


I am not trying to slate your buggy, I am merely trying to point out a few things that I have learned from my own experience before you plough into production.

I wish you all the success