67 replies to this topic

[Larry Horner]

Reading Rick’s recent post regarding the first pro angle winder’s, I became fascinated by Gene Husting’s very first 1/24th scale angle winder and loved Steve Okeefe’s post in which he created a carbon copy clone (http://slotblog.net/...st-anglewinder/). Two things I love about the design are that the motor is a stressed member of the chassis and that the front axle is in turn part of the drop arm, both very unusual features. So I decided I wanted to make my own “motor as a stressed member” chassis to conform to the specs of the current pro angle winder class using a Hawk 6 motor. This idea turned out to be short lived but I will document it anyway as it was part of the journey…

 

First step was to create a 3/4” main loop with a 16 degree bend and silver solder it to the front of a Hawk 6 motor can. Pablo, your instructions on how to do this worked flawlessly so thank you! This by the way is not how Steve did his build as he started with the chassis back end first but I think it is probably a six vs half dozen kind of thing. Here is the main loop (plus a couple of brass side rails) soldered to the motor can.

 

 

I was then able to use the main loop to position the motor as I did the backend setup.

 

 

And now is where my design differs a bit from either Gene’s or Steve’s in that I decided to support the axle tube from the back … I’m not sure if I still agree with this decision but it seems to work just fine. Here is the axle tube support bracket prior to installation with the right side upright not yet bent to allow it to be clamped in position while soldering it to the can. A discerning eye might notice lots of different radius bends as the right side has a larger radius to allow easy access to the end bell screws while the left side needs very tight bends as there just isn’t a lot of room.

 

 

Once soldered to the can, the right upright is then bent upward (dept of redundancy dept).

 

 

The axle tube is then soldered to the support uprights and to the motor can itself. It’s already a pretty rigid structure at this point but I will be adding a top brace too.

 

[Bill from NH]

Nice start Larry. The British used a lot of stressed motors in both 1/32 & 1/24 scale. If you can get your hands on some of the vintage British slot car magazines, you'll see plenty of photos.

[dc-65x]

Looks great Larry. Fun stuff!  

[Steve Okeefe]

There be some fancy piano wire bending going on here; carry on! 

[Larry Horner]

Thanks guys and I can't wait to see what youse guys come up with!

 

And now for something completely different. I had a total change of heart and decided to make a true interpretation of Gene's car that would follow the norms of that time period ... 1/8" axles, 7/8" tires, 3" width, 1/16" clearance. So all the work shown above turned out to be a practice run. And my first step was to get some more info on the car so I contacted none other than the above Mr Okeefe! Steve loved my idea and mentioned he himself had done such a car right after he finished the carbon copy car. With his permission, here is Steve's version:

 

 

 

I should also mention that Steve turned me onto the blueprints of Gene's car ... Thanks again Steve!!! (http://slotblog.net/...ng-anglewinder/).

 

And with all this newfound knowledge, it was time to start working on my own interpretation. So I basically did a redo of the work above only this time with a Pro Slot 16D motor (I gots no vintage motors) attached at a 14 degree angle to a 1" wide loop of steel rod. The build steps were exactly the same as above so I will skip ahead and show the finished work with an additional brace at the top of the axle tube.

 

 

[Larry Horner]

It was time to add the upper front support and inner chassis rail. This is one of the areas where Steve’s and my interpretations differ slightly. Namely I made the two rails drop down from the motor in a coplanar fashion and this results in them arriving at the outer rails with the same 14 degree angle as the motor itself hence the end bell side is a bit forward of the can side. But Steve designed his so they both arrive at the chassis midpoint. In hindsight, Steve’s might be a bit stronger. I might mention that with only 4 bends, crafting this piece took more than a few tries. Rick, thank you for the tip of modeling these difficult bends in much easier to bend brass first! Here is a pic of the piece prior to installation.

 

 

And finally a shot of the finished main loop complete with the front brace and various pivot tubes. Oh, and I put the motor back together too...

 

 

One other detail of note here is that the ends for the drop-arm pivot tubes are slightly inboard the inner rail. This is why Gene’s design has the unique 45 degree notches at the back of the drop-arm. Originally I didn’t give this a second thought but I now understand that it is integral to his design.

[Martin]

Moving right alone Larry.   Fab fab.

[Larry Horner]

Next up was the drop-arm and I was unable to find any 7/8" x 1/16" brass bar so I ended up milling down some 1" bar I had on hand. Here is a shot of the early stages in which the drop-arm has been cut to length, notched at the back and the pivot tube soldered on.

 

 

And now is where I followed Steve's lead and took a shortcut, namely using a guide tongue instead of the much more elaborate fabrication that Gene used. But the front axle itself and support for it are pretty much all Gene's design. Here are top and bottom views of the finished product.

 

 

 

And finally a shot of the finished drop-arm in the main chassis loop.

 

 

One final note is that while I haven't done it yet, I might again follow Steve's lead and wrap the joints where the axle support meets the front axle.

[dc-65x]

Looking great Larry. Really neat and clean craftsmanship.

[Steve Okeefe]

Ditto...   Nice work!    

[Pablo]

       

[Larry Horner]

Thanks guys!

 

I'm on the final stretch and the last thing is obviously the pans. I have to credit Steve in that his interpretation stuck very close to Gene's design (albeit with way better execution ... sorry Gene). Mine on the other hand went right off the rails. First is that I wanted something a little heavier than the original 1/4" x 1/32" so mine are 1/2" x 1/32". They are also 1/4" longer but this is due to my having misread Steve's blueprint!  And lastly I felt Gene's design for the top and bottom stops  seemed overly complicated so ... well you can see for yourselves.

 

 

One other item of note here is I finally figured out how to solder brass pin tubes on top of 1/16" rod. Alligator clips are simply a must when scratch building!

 

And here are some shots of the completed frame with some Electric Dreams re-ops of vintage Russkit wheels and a lovely 48 tooth 64 pitch Trinity crown gear.

 

 

[Larry Horner]

And just for grins, I mounted up some modern 7/8" tires just to get a feel for the stance.

 

 

And since the body choice is simply a given, here is the car with a slightly trimmed JK Lola T70 body.

 

 

 

 

Rick and Steve, I hate painting too ... Jairus???

[Steve Okeefe]

I have no doubt those wider pans will help make the car more stable.  Many of the west coast pros (Gene's contemporaries) were, in April 1968, already using 1/2" wide brass strip for their side pans, and a few were even using 3/4".

 

How are you adapting the 1/8" set screw front wheels to the 1/16" front axle?

 

That is one massive looking spur gear! 

[Larry Horner]

Yeah, I thought for a minute that I might use 1/4" by 1/16" pans to add more mass but still look like Gene's. But I opted for low and wide instead ... this is an interpretation after all!

 

I cut some 1/8" and 3/32" brass tubing, Loctite'd the smaller into the larger and then use it to sleeve the wheel down to the needed 1/16" ... crude but effective!    And when I mount them, I have some locking springs left around from those crappy dynamic independent front suspension kits.

 

I think that spur is actually meant for drag racing but I had one lying around and it just happened to be exactly what I needed so I went with it. Thank goodness it's aluminum!

[Steve Okeefe]

Regarding those 1/8" to 1/16" front wheel adapters you made, here's something for your consideration:  Instead of two pieces of thin wall tubing glued together, K&S markets a thick wall tube that measures 1/8" OD x 1/16" ID.

 

They also have 3/16" OD x 1/8" ID, and 1/4" OD x 3/16" ID, among a dozen other sizes.

 

The K&S website is ksmetals.com and the product SKU# is 8205. 

[Bill from NH]

Another way, if you have a lathe, is use 1/8" brass rod for a plug, then drill & ream your own 1/16" hole. Some retro racers were doing this in order to use Parma crown gears on 3/32" axles.

[dc-65x]

I like the wider pans than Gene used too Larry. Looks like you're about ready to "wire it and fire it"  

[Alchemist]

What surgical precision in the craftsmanship Larry!

 

I want to "frame" this picture!  LOL  Yes pun intended!

 

[Bill from NH]

Larry, these photos show off your building talents! Nice job. Is that spur gear 64 pitch or something finer? In the photos it looks finer. The Lola coupe has been a favorite of mine for a long time. 

[Larry Horner]

Thanks for the kudos guys!    It was a fun project and I'm looking forward to getting it painted and taking it for a test run.

 

Bill, that is a 64 pitch gear and those with good eyesight (probably not most of us  ) might see that I'm also using an angled pinion to get a bit more contact with the spur's super wide teeth. And one last spur gear detail is that it has two set screws which work perfectly with Mike Swiss's double flatted axles.

 

And to quote the late great Douglas Adams "So long and thanks for the fish!"

[Martin]

Its beautiful Larry, a real Mater Blaster.

[Larry Horner]

Just a quick update for those still following this thread is that I got no takers with regards to painting this beast so I guess I'll just have to paint this thing myself ... this should prove highly entertaining!   But I do get a little help in that JK has a decal set specifically for this body which should help a lot. I just ordered the decals yesterday so it will take a few days for them to arrive. And naturally the Bay Area weather for late this week is cold and rainy ... Rick, I feel your pain. To quote one of my hero's Alfred E Neuman, what could possibly go wrong! 

[Larry Horner]

Since I'm on hold for a few days anyway, I decided this would be a good time to finish trimming the body. And this is one of the hardest parts of body work for me mostly because, while an adequate craftsman, I really am not much of an artist and I think bodywork falls more into the later camp. So I looked online to find some profile shots of an actual Lola T70 and see that they have very non-circular wheel wells both front and back.

 

 

Now I know there is no way I could possibly freeform cut those shapes so I decided to create a template. So I fired up TinkerCad (my modeler of choice), created a circle, added a rectangular base to it and stretched it horizontally until it had a shape I deemed appropriate. I actually tried a couple of different "stretch" factors until I had one that looks good on my body. And note that my goal here was to create wheel wells that have the same aesthetic as the original but are not quite so extreme as I don't want to remove too much material from a 10mil body.

 

 

Now I can print out the templates, tape them to my wheel openings and trim around them ... well that's the theory anyway. Onward! 

[Bill from NH]

My way is to mask the wheelwells on the inside of the body, painted it, then cut & trim out the wheelwells. The body remains stronger with less chance of overspray with the wheewells left in during painting. After body mounting, you may need to do some minor trimming of the wheelwells for tire clearance.