45 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

My friend Steve Okeefe and I have been discussing Gene Husting’s groundbreaking 1968 first 1/24 anglewinder Pro car pictured below:
 

 
We thought it would be fun to create our own take on the Husting first anglewinder. We are going to build our own versions in 2 different build threads in this subforum.
 
Steve's build will be engineered toward the 1/24 club/home track and mine towards the commercial raceway.
 
This will be one of my favorite type of vintage builds that I call a "what if buiild". The premise behind my build is what if you had been at one of the raceways Hustings was running and promoting his anglewinder concept before the first Pro anglewinder race in April 1968?
 
His car was fast and when you saw it in 1968 what jumped out was:
 
1. The chassis wasn’t an inline or a full sidewinder, but rather the motor was at shallow angle and can driving a big red Weldun spur gear!
 
2.  The chassis had a front and a rear section both of which were directly soldered to the motor can!!
 
What if you decided to build one and try and kick butt as an armature at your local raceway in 1968?
 
As William Shatner would say:
 

 
Gene Husting did a first anglewinder race report in Model Car Science magazine. In it he discusses his efforts to convince his fellow racers that anglewinders were the way to go before that first anglewinder race.
 
It is interesting reading.
 
Below is a link to my recent thread about the first anglewinder race with the MCS/Husting race report in Post #1:
 
The first Pro anglewinder race
 
To go along with Husting’s anglewinder theme of front and rear chassis sections soldered directly to the motor, I’ll be using this Phil Ruben chassis for my design cues:
 

 
Why I chose the Rubin “wild, wild pan thing” is because of what the late great TonyP said about the design in my Ruben build thread (link to the Ruben thread below):
 
Phil Rubin's 1968 'wild, wild pan thing’
 

You need to build a second one and cut it in half to make an anglewinder which a lot of people did. Lol. This was the state of the art inline, much better than what we were using, unfortunately it was state of the art for one race. It’s what Jerry Brady took to the west coast to beat the pros, unfortunately while he was 8 Miles High traveling to LA, the fast guys were beating out anglewinders.

 

With all that background said…….time to start building.  

[bbr]

are you doing a "restomod" interpatation for modern tracks?

 

use a BL motor,,, I will donate,,, if you build me a copy

[Larry Horner]

Well mine is mostly finished but so cool to have three people doing inspired versions of the same chassis. Can't wait to see what you and Steve come up with!

 

As a side note, Merriam-Webster recently decided it is permissible to end a sentence with a preposition ... so we got that going for us.

[Martin]

        Looking forward to this one, or 3.

[dc-65x]

are you doing a "restomod" interpatation for modern tracks?

 

Hi MIke,

 

No modern interpretation. Strictly period as if it was done back in 1968 after seeing Gene's car in action.

 

We should have a couple, well three when Steve posts his, builds on the Husting theme Larry.

 

Three it is Martin.  

[Steve Okeefe]

Thread is up... and we're "off to the races" 

 

Phil Rubin's "Wild Pan Thing" is elegant in it's simplicity, and should adapt well to anglewinder drive.

[dc-65x]

That's great Steve. I'm looking forward to seeing what you and Larry come up with.  

 

Fellow Slotbloger from Australia George Hawkins (nostalgic) gifted me a rare and beautiful new old stock Russkit 28 motor can for this project. Check out the goldish finish. It looks like it was made yesterday:

 

 

I can't bring myself to solder and splatter acid flux all over it and ruin the finish. George has agreed to let me use the can in another project.

 

Thanks George!   

 

I decided to go with the good old 68 Mabuchi ball bearing can. I don't know what the shiny plating is but it solders beautifully and acid flux doesn't hurt it if cleaned off reasonably quickly.

 

The cheesy ball bearing was replace by JB Welding in an endbell oilite bearing:

 

 

A small notch was filed into the axle tube to get the motor a little closer to the gear:

 

 

I'm using two U-braces to hold the axle tube to the can. The motor angle is about 10 degrees. I kept the braces parallel with the track surface and the arms pointed straight ahead. I thought it gave more of an "inline" look:

 

 

I set my motor up for clockwise timing and can drive like Gene did. I am hoping it might make lead wire and brush spring installation easier......we'll see:

 

 

I'm also using top and bottom flat head screws ala Champion to get them out of the way of the chassis rails. I love those red 64P Weldun gears:

 

 

I spend lots of time fiddling around to get the gear mesh correct and get the motor located side to side to mate up with the front half of the chassis. I hope to minimize any awkward angled bends in the main rails to connect with the can.

 

I want the front half of the chassis, in fact, the rest of the chassis to look like Phil Rubin's inline beauty...........just at TonyP suggested.

[Larry Horner]

Wow, your design for attaching the axle tube is WAY easier than mine ... when will I learn to not overthink things! 

[dc-65x]

Larry, I was thinking about what would be easiest to cut off and do over if I screwed up!  

[dc-65x]

While I was modifying the can I also worked over the Mura 1st gen "unmeltable" endbell. I wanted to have the modified endbell finished to make sure it would clear the chassis, especially Rubin's huge "wild, wild pans"

 

I installed a Mini Wheels endbell bulletproofing kit:

 

 

I'm using Champion 26D brush hoods, hex brush holders and shunted brushes:

 

 

The 26D hex brush holders are cut down and soldered directly to the kit's bulletproofing plates in my Rick's Jig:

 

 

Here they are all cleaned up and ready to install:

 

 

The stock endbell on the left and the modified endbell on the right ready to accept the kit:

 

 

The endbell bearing is soldered to the kit bulletproofing plate and attached with 2-56 stainless steel machine screws:

 

 

2-56 screws also attach the brush plates:

 

 

Ready to go:

 

[dc-65x]

Time to get the front half of a Phil Rubin style "last gasp of the inlines" chassis........

 

 

..........onto my anglewinder as TonyP suggested:

 

 

 

The side by side rails (1/16" brass rod and piano wire) and spacing for a 3/4" drop arm are all the same as the inline.

 

 

The outer brass rail in jig and ready to start soldering:

 

 

But I'm having second thoughts. I think I should make the pans first so I'll know where the hinge tube will be located.

[dc-65x]

I love Phil Rubin's "wild, wild pan thing". Those big pans are a favorite feature.

 

I can't help myself.........

 

 

Here are the pans cut from 1" X .032" K&S brass strip. Check out the price tag. It really must be OLD.   

 

 

I also made up the pan hangers and hinge tubes. I'm going to solder the hinge tubes at the same time I do the rails. I decided to make the hinge tubes 2-piece so I can blow all the acid flux and water out of them:

 

 

Two 1" pans, a 3/4" drop arm and 1/4" worth of rails make a nice and easy 3" wide chassis without any custom cutting:

 

 

OK, now it's finally time to solder........

[Martin]

Enjoying your thought process and the choices along the way.   

 

I must confess I like the narrow drop arm and the wide pans too.

[dc-65x]

Thanks Martin.    
 
I made an important choice along the way thanks to a reminder from Steve Okeefe:     
 

Soldering brass rod and piano wire main rails together will cause them to warp quicker than Captain Kirk on the Starship Enterprise .  

 
I don't know how I forgot this nightmare.     When I built my Phil Rubin inline chassis I did solder both brass and piano wire rails the full length and probably got them plenty hot too. 
 

The hinge tubes and the full length of the rails are soldered. They warped like crazy into an hour glass shape.    
Quite a project to straighten things out.

 

 

As I recall I had to cut out the front axle tube and straighten out each pair of rails individually.

 

Anyway this time I'm using plan B. I soldered the hinge tubes to the outer brass rails first after aligning them with the pans:

 

 

Then I soldered the inner piano wire rails to the motor and connected them to the outer brass rails at just the drop arm hinge tubes and their reinforcement bar. This ties the middle of the chassis together:

 

 

Next the front axle tube went on and the drop arm up-stop ties all 4 rails together at the front:

 

 

At this point the rails are straight and parallel and I could probably slowly and carefully solder everything together. But I think things are fine the way they are. 

 

I shared all this in the hopes it might help other scratch builders. And I'm sure others would do thing differently and perhaps far better. I encourage them to start their own build threads here on Slotblog and share their techniques and tips with us.  

 

OK, time to do lots of cleanup and "put the buff to it" to see what this thing really looks like.   

[Larry Horner]

Looking great! And to think I was feeling guilty about my 1/2" pans.  

[dc-65x]

No "pan guilt" Larry. Your build is looking great.  

 

Here's my "center section" all spiffed up and ready for the next step:

 

 

 

 

 

I'm happy with it so far. Onward to the next step, the drop arm.

 

 

 

 

[Martin]

When you are done Rick just send it to me so I can add my patina process. It takes awhile 20+ years maybe?, but look at that color.    Beautiful work then (?) and now.  Still part of my Master builder collection.

 

 

[dc-65x]

Hi Martin,

 

I guess I like Rubin's chassis design. You have my first one done many years ago and I working on my third and it's an anglewinder no less.      

[Martin]

Found this early PVA angle winder chassis recently, It may be of some influence on your build (not that you need it)

 

 

P.S. I can always erase this post if it muddies your build? I just wanted you to see the drop arm and the slash back pans really. In case it helps.

[dc-65x]

Thanks Martin, but I have a built up drop arm already in the works. And my build predates all 1/24 Pro style anglewinders except for Gene Husting's car so the PVA anglewinder isn't really relevant.

 

It looks like Rubin influenced PVA from the look of those pans.   

[Alchemist]

Awesome project Rick!

 

Ernie

[Larry Horner]

Looking awesome Rick! One quick question about the pivot tubes for the pans ... are they flush with the bottom of the chassis or are they elevated slightly? It looks like there might be a shadow under them in the photos so I was just wondering.

[dc-65x]

Thanks Ernie.   

 

Good eye Larry. With the pans up against the hinge tubes I always mount the hinge tubes flush with the bottom of the chassis.........if I'm using .032" piano wire for the hinges. I can easily bend a little kink in the hinges and file a matching notch in the pans and all is good.

 

With 1/16" hinges it's more problematic. As was often done with early hinged pans I spaced my hinge tubes up with .030" feeler gages covered with high temperature Kapton tape:

 

 

The pans are spaced upward also but just while soldering the hinge tube to the chassis to locate the tubes for and aft:

 

 

When it comes time to solder on the pans they will lay flat on the jig and I can use simple L-shaped hinges to attach them.

[dc-65x]

Here are parts and setup for my drop arm. A Dynamic pillow block will hold the guide flag. 1/32" brass strip will serve as a spacer to raise the pillow block to the correct height for a Cox guide:

 

 

I left the brass strips extra long to "drag" any excess solder away from the joint:

 

 

The 3/4" strip drop arm itself is located close enough to the guide flag so it acts as a rotational stop:

 

 

 

The back end of the drop arm gets milled reliefs to stop solder from flowing into the its hinge tube:

 

 

Ready for the down stop:

 

 

This is a picture I've saved to remind me of the setup I use for installing down stops on thick plate drop arms. It aligns and holds the stop in place and I only have to heat up a small area of the plate to solder it in place:

 

 

Attaching the pans to finish the chassis is next.

[dc-65x]

The setup for pan installation:

 

 

Ready for trimming off the excess material:

 

 

All that's left are the pan down stops. I like the thin wire stye on this Lee Hines inline:

 

 

The chassis is finished and I think it's a "wild, wild pan thing" indeed:

 

 

My Phil Rubin inline chassis that (along with the Hustings anglewinder of course) inspired this build:

 

 

Time to finish the motor...