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Super great timing on this cake contest! It's my sons birthday again. Obviously his cake had to be something out of the ordinary. See past cakes -
volcano
helicopter
we were just on vacation at Disney so I didn't want to get too elaborate due to time constraints. My son asked for a tank cake. I'm sure he would have been happy with a cake with a picture of a tank on it or a model tank. But I would not have been happy. First I decided that the turret would rotate. That is pretty easy. I toyed with the idea of having it shoot something (what says happy birthday more than getting shot in the face with whipped cream) That idea got shelved as soon as I imagined the look on my wifes face. To up the difficulty level I decided to make the gun go up and down as the turret rotated.
-Imagine wife smiling-
It is a little difficult to see the gun raising and lowering due to a bad camera angle. Look at the camo icing and the gun shield and you can see what is happening.
Please check out my other instructables and I also have a diy podcast called mechanicalmashup.tv
volcano
helicopter
we were just on vacation at Disney so I didn't want to get too elaborate due to time constraints. My son asked for a tank cake. I'm sure he would have been happy with a cake with a picture of a tank on it or a model tank. But I would not have been happy. First I decided that the turret would rotate. That is pretty easy. I toyed with the idea of having it shoot something (what says happy birthday more than getting shot in the face with whipped cream) That idea got shelved as soon as I imagined the look on my wifes face. To up the difficulty level I decided to make the gun go up and down as the turret rotated.
-Imagine wife smiling-
It is a little difficult to see the gun raising and lowering due to a bad camera angle. Look at the camo icing and the gun shield and you can see what is happening.
Please check out my other instructables and I also have a diy podcast called mechanicalmashup.tv
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Signing UpStep 1The mechanism
I started with some scrap parts I had laying around, mostly stainless steel. The stainless sheet metal was the same piece of scrap I used for the volcano cake last year. Since it was not going to shoot anything, I started with a solid stainless barrel, welded a bracket and a pivot onto it, and fixed it to the turret pan.
By the way, nothing puts a smile on my face more than describing how I make cakes with a welder:)
To make the gun travel up and down, I decided to make a rod and cam type system. I welded a guide tube to the turret pan and made a "cam" of sorts out of a metal disk that I heated with a torch and bent randomly. I then fixed this to a tube that would act as a bushing for the turret pan rotation.
I had a slow turning motor sitting around the house and mounted it to a piece of wood as a base. I welded legs to the cam and drilled them into the wooden base. I set it all on a bit of an angle so the tank would be tilted slightly when done. You can see that the turret pan warped a bit during welding but I was not too concerned and I did not bother to correct it. The push rod was installed to slide along the cam and raise the barrel.
The last thing I did was put on the barrel guard. I used perforated steel for two reasons, one was it would be really easy to bend a slight curve into it and two was so the icing would have something to adhere to.
By the way, nothing puts a smile on my face more than describing how I make cakes with a welder:)
To make the gun travel up and down, I decided to make a rod and cam type system. I welded a guide tube to the turret pan and made a "cam" of sorts out of a metal disk that I heated with a torch and bent randomly. I then fixed this to a tube that would act as a bushing for the turret pan rotation.
I had a slow turning motor sitting around the house and mounted it to a piece of wood as a base. I welded legs to the cam and drilled them into the wooden base. I set it all on a bit of an angle so the tank would be tilted slightly when done. You can see that the turret pan warped a bit during welding but I was not too concerned and I did not bother to correct it. The push rod was installed to slide along the cam and raise the barrel.
The last thing I did was put on the barrel guard. I used perforated steel for two reasons, one was it would be really easy to bend a slight curve into it and two was so the icing would have something to adhere to.
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I saw your other cakes, and they're just amazing! Great job! =D
http://gizmodo.com/384801/loving-dad-bakes-son-a-motorized-tank-cake
Congratulations!!
i want this
+1 rating and +1 vote