BWA Slot Car Blog Syndication Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:34:18 +0000 admin@slotforum.com (SlotForum) IP.Blog 60
As you can see, a lot more than just slot cars goes on down here.







]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 03:39:10 +0000
This was built a couple of years ago, but, is pretty much an exact copy of what I was doing in the mid sixties.

I'll pretty much let the pictures do the talking on this one. The car was later converted to a pin pickup, bunged under a Revell Mercedes 300 Gullwing, and sent off to the Pin meeting in England where it had it's little wheels driven off it to gain a very splendid second place in it's class. The car now belongs to Jeff Davies. Still not quite sure how he talked me into that one.























]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 03:00:04 +0000
I built it straight from the box, just as the instructions said (although, I doubt I even read the instructions at all, already knowing quite well by then what made these little treasures tick). Paint was hand brushed Testors Light Metalic Blue. Decals were then applied, and not clearcoated, they are still just bare neked.

This car is still in it's original splendour, other than having a 13Uo installed to comply with the Marconi rules of 1/8 ground clearance (just couldn't get there with the 16D lump). I still have the original motor tucked away ready to go back in when needed. It runs really sweetly with the 13Uo, and, I might as well wear that one out as the original motor. The car actually did quite well at the Marconi, and was reported to be very sweet to drive, a fact, that I already knew.

The only other mod which I did a few years ago, was to install some intake trumpets (Silver Eyelets) on the Injector plate. It has modern, but, still very skinny rubber on the back, and, original tyres, and even braid on it.

Definately one of my favorite cars from a bygone era.













]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 02:24:53 +0000
It is built mostly from Dynamic parts, with a Pittman 706 for power (relatively speaking about the same power the real car had in the 50s and early 60s). The body is a pre Painted vac joby by Dubro. The rear wheels are the well known Brass Tradeships with white Silicone. This car has an unusual (well, I had never seen one) and, very original Dynamic springy piano wire drop arm with molded lead weight.

Any way, as usual, the pics can tell you way more than I can, so, here they are, original Vintage Dirt n Grime and all, just the way I pulled it from the treasure box. Actually, it looks more like it was just pulled out of a chicken coop in Wisconsin.

By the way, after a couple of drops of oil in the right places, it was buzzing round my track quite nicely, fairly quick, and, not near as tippy as it looks, despite being very tall, and rather narrow. It really does run very nicely.















And, here, through the kindness of Don Degersh, is a scan of the original spec sheet of the oddball Dynamic swinging pickup. Don was nice enough after seeing my first posting of this car on Slot Blog to go rooting through his files, and find, scan, and email me this little historical treasure.

]]> Fri, 12 May 2006 00:36:31 +0000
To get this project as narrow as I can, I am using an HO sized motor. Overall width using my BW32001 or BW32002 wheels is 1.915. With a bit of whitling, I think I can squeeze about another .100 out of it.

The first pic is of the two side plates just fresh out of the Sherline Mill. I first cut them to rough size, then soldered them together so nothing would move in the various milling operations. A quick blast with the propane totch soon separates them, and, before they cool, a quick wipe with a cloth soon removes the excess solder.



I took the rest of the pics before I cleaned up the solder joints just to show, that in general, I don't leave a lot of excess solder lying around that would need a lot of extra cleanup. If you don't put it on in the first place, you don't have to clean it up afterwards. I actually did use more in this case, as I wanted nice fillets in the corners for the resin reproductions to add some strength. If I was making actual brass motor boxes, I wouldn't have used nearly as much solder, as fillets in solder work, do not add strength, and, in many cases, can actually weaken the joint.











]]> Thu, 11 May 2006 01:03:00 +0000
A first time customer sent me his brand new Scaley 330P to do a conversion on. Since I hadn't actualy had one of these, I thought this would be a good time to do a short article on doing a complete 4 wheel conversion.

To start off with, I could tell from the pictures that the wheels were a bit small, but, was quite shocked at how small they really are. I still don't understand why somebody in the Scaley design office can't figure out how to correctly measure wheels. Maybe they all show up to work on bycicles, and don't have a real car in the parking lot with 15" wheels on it to measure. Maybe nobody in the design office owns a ruller, I don't know. Anyway, I am still astounded that they continue to do this. There really is no excuse.

Anyway, here's what you need to do(which, is not much really), the kit is designed to just drop in with no modifications neccessary at all, so, there isn't much description needed other than the pics.

















This last pic is the only tricky part, The inside of the hub on the wheel on the gear side needs to be trimmed or cut back if you use the TSRF gears. Not neccessary with the stock gears.



More pics on there way later.]]> Wed, 10 May 2006 17:11:29 +0000
Guess I will start out by saying a little bit about myself, and my connection with Slot Cars. It all started Christmass 1959 (Yes, really, THAT long ago) when Santa brought me my first Slot Car set. It was an Eldon figure eight set, with a pair of Ferrariish looking cars. One red, and one white .Once set up, I played with it most of the day, mostly ignoring any other presents. I just couldn't get enough. I was hooked.

Over the next couple of weeks, I kept at it, and, it wasn't long before I was taking the cars apart, and seeing what made them tick. I didn't try to do too much too them in the first couple of weeks, other than keep them properly lubricated and running as good as they could. These cars did not have brushes as we know them today, but, little spring loaded brass flat headed rivits, with the flat head part pointing down through the bottom of the clamshell type body. These worked quite reliably. The cars also had just simple nylon pins rather than guide flags.

After about the second week, I did pull one of the cars apart and used the mechanical bits to build a car of my own. It was made mostly out of 1/16 and 3/32 brass tubing, and all soldered. Soldering in those days was a much more generaly known skill, that far more people posessed than is the case today. Dad was a TV repair man, and model engineer, so, we had all those sorts of tools and equipement around the house, and, I knew how to use them at an early age. I was 10 when I built this car. It had fully functioning front wheel steering. The car ran quite nicely, and was better than the original Eldon car. I only have a vague recollection of what it looked like and how it was built. I wish I could remember it better, so I could make a copy of it. It really was quite a work of art for a 10 year old I think. Mostly, I can't remember what I might have used for a guide flag, as, the Eldon cars didn't have any (being pin guides with brass plungers for contacts as stated above) and, I didn't have access to any other slot cars or spares at that time. I do know, that whatever I used, was hooked up to the steering link like most early slot car steering was done. I didn't discover trail steering until mid 65.]]> Mon, 01 May 2006 18:12:53 +0000
Like I always say, if you have to make something, it usually doesn't take a whole lot more time to make lots. 8)

Who can figure out what these are gonna be, my guess is, Rocky would have most chance of getting this one. The marked out one at bottom right is a clue, and, the scribe line down the middle is significant.



Always very important to get them properly set up and well clamped in a good machine vise for drilling.



Nice big center pops to acurately locate the drill bit.



Don't do this at home, I'm holding the camera in my left hand, feeding the dril with my right, and snapping the shot with me right hand thumb. Pretty clever Eh!l

Don't forget, use a nice sharp drill, especially when drilling thin metal stacked together like this. If you use a not too sharp drill, every time the drill passes through a plate, it will raise a burr. This burr, will try and push the plates apart(upwards), and, possibly loosen the stack, and, if not flinging the parts all over the place, and breaking the drill bit, will certainly lose some accuracy. Also, use proper cutting fluid, especially on brass, which can be very sticky and gummy to drill.



There's the finished job, 14 plates with 4 acurately drilled holes, and, I only had to mark out one of them.

]]> Mon, 01 May 2006 18:12:01 +0000