314 replies to this topic

[BWA]

Yes, those Record Elastic were more commonly used by the 1/24 scale guys. All us 1/32 scale guys used the Veco small tail wheels.

Both were sponge rubber with a smooth outer skin, and, both were very similar. These (the small Veco tail wheels) were a much finer grain/cell structure than the bigger tires.

I'm not sure if the larger 1/24 scale tires packaged by Veco specifically for slot racing were in fact actual Veco model airplane tires, or, the German Record Elastic jobbies.

Well, a little bit of scrounging around, and, I may have answered that question. Just found an original unopened baggy of Veco tires.

Bag says Veco products 454 1 1/4" Dia. Sponge TIRE ONLY $ .49 pr.

AND, it has VECO molded right into the sidewall of the tire itself.

They have been precut, as, the original ribbed tread has been removed. I would guess they were originally around 1 3/4 inch uncut and mounted on a Veco model airplane hub.

Mary Kay hand lotion works well to soften and rejuvinate these old sponge tires. No, I am not making this up.

In the 1/32 world, all we ever used was small amounts of degummed Castor Oil worked into the sponge for grip. They worked wonderfully, nice combination of grip and slide. Very smooth drive.

[Bill from NH]

Weren't those older German tires known as Graupners?

Al, which Mary Kay hand lotion are you using? Last time I looked, they sold 12-15 different types. Some eurosport racers use it the same way.

[gascarnut]

Sun tan lotion works well too - the higher the SPF the better.

Rub it in, let it stand for a few minutes then wipe the tires clean, works a charm, even on the old Elastiks and K&B "foam".

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

My first tires used black USAF "embedding" silicone! I was using merit hard tires as the "master" and on one of my survivors, you can faintly read the tire information from the kit (Maserati 4clt). In the day, when I went racing, I usually had a half dozen sets in the box for my cars . Simply, I was racing at various homes,an on base club track and in '64 a commerical track. And all seemed to want a different tire!

Besides the Elastics and the Vecos, I had the silicones and other things like the Mille Miglia open cell sponge. Most of my survivors of the era have silicone on them. The issue being that the original silillies are very different from modern silicone which has a lot of "filler" in it. They don't measurably wear.

I wonder about the track Al is running on. The experience I have is that old silicone usually way outperform the new Ortmanns and the like. I wish we had a way to get together and compare notes on this.

As a side story, The commercial track in North Carolina I raced at decided to put together a traveling team to make the circuit and hit all the local tracks. As I was building cars for the track, I was the team "wrench"(as usual?). So, we go to this american Black in Kingston North Carolina that was in the foyer of a bowling alley. The team had cars and were happy EXCEPT for me. It seemed to me that nothing was working well. Not the Veco, not the Rekord, not the MM, nothing. Then, on a whim, I put on a set of monogram narrow rubber...and voila! Won that one. And all the way home, the track owner was complaining. Wasn't it my job to look out for him? I mean I only had ONE set.

Fate

[mdiv]

Nice cowwie ya got there, Duffy!

- Mikey "moo moo cha-choo choo"

[Duffy]

Nice cowwie ya got there, Duffy!--- Mikey "moo moo cha-choo choo"

Oh, you know my cow, too, huh? Ol' Cabot gets around, she surely do. Yah, I tend to include some odd population in my pictures, for a sense of proportion--spiritual as much as physical.

Hey, are you part of that bunch that Jersey Vintage bunch with Pete_L?? He's got a real interesting assortment of Weird Old Bodies to play with, and more on the way. Y'should come do a Lost Cause ride too.

Duffy

[dc-65x]

Mikey "moo moo cha-choo choo"

Y'should come do a Lost Cause ride too

The Lost Cause Force seems strong here .

[mdiv]

That I am, Duffy! =) Lost cause all the way!

Mikey

[Horsepower]

Duff! That chassis is beautiful! I almost soiled myself when I saw the finished picture. I'm confused again Who needs the record elastic tires? I think I have a card of them.

[Pete L.]

fellas,

After almost TWO WEEKS of water coming up in the cellar I'm ready to finish up some cars ! A Ferrari 330 and a King Cobra are nearing completetion. Both cars are awaiting interiors as well as some last minute chassis work. Looking to get a Lotus 11 painted up to look like polished aluminum we'll see what happens.

[Duffy]

After almost TWO WEEKS of water coming up in the cellar I'm ready to finish up some cars ! A Ferrari 330 and a King Cobra are nearing completetion. Both cars are awaiting interiors as well as some last minute chassis work. Looking to get a Lotus 11 painted up to look like polished aluminum we'll see what happens.

Wull, G'morning, Peetie! Happy to hear somebody's getting some protoRetro done. When'll we see pics? Your camera runs on batteries, y'know, you don't have to worry about dropping the extension cord in the flooding!

My workshop's high and dry in a fourth-floor walkup, so rain's a thing I smile at out my window; but, taxes and Defense contracts have distracted me from my fun these past days. Always something.

Say I bought some "Jelclaw" and "URETHANE" rear tires along with the Ortmann's to try on these old dogs.

Okay, Rick, have you got any more data yet? Based on the comments I'm seeing from all you lot, I figure it's still a good idea to get me a sampling of what's available and run 'em all on my local tracks. Too many variables to not-experiment with.

I've got some Ignorant Tyre Tyro musings I'll share here.

I'm approaching a bottleneck with tyres; I have to go tune up the homebrew truer I've been tinkering with and make some 50s-era rubber. (That's CARS-era, I mean! Like, large and skinny)

I got a pair of Mille Miglia Cheater Slicks in pretty good shape off eBay; gonna see if they soften up, and cut them to shape along with the Vecos that Rick sent me, and toss in some JK donuts while I'm set up I guess. The open-cell composition of the MMs kinda scares me; once I go through the sidewall I'm gonna be in that stuff, right? Which means these would be "Silongie" candidates from that moment on, the way I see things.

At the same time, BodiesForBeerInt'l is getting set to pull some shells that will mean coming into some REELY tall & skinny hoops, like prewar German stuf--and, as far as I'm concerned, a whole different speed & handling regime, like big, long, swoopy and slow, the kind of run where you can actually SEE how far that big silver tail's hanging out there. We're talking in the range of, ohh, like, two garbage can lids duct-taped together, right? It'll be interesting to see what rubber works in this situation.

I'm running at commercial tracks only (hopefully at hours where I I won't have to tack a "Hazard" triangle to the back of the car), & this traction thing's gonna be a steep learning curve for me.

Duffy

[Pete L.]

fellas,

It's been slow going for these cars as the cellar has been under water again this week...this is as far as we got. The Cobra has to have it's rear track re-engineered and have a pair if spongies installed.

Cobra is built on a BZ chassis, as for the Red car it's Mike's baby...

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[Duffy]

Ooooooooo pretty!! Do I spy headlight tunnels on the King Cobra? tell the story. Aww, now I can't very well do another #98 I guess, maybe I'll do Augie Pabst's Mosport ride instead.

If I am very lucky, in the next coupla days I will pour moulds for Cooper wheel inserts. Make a master and then do a set of four from the casts. --Oh yah, and some mirrors...Stay tuned.

Duffy

[Pete L.]

Duf,

That Cobra is an original Pactra body, and in fact it was painted about TEN YEARS AGO just never completed !
We had developed a method of producing the headlight tunnel look without actually building a tunnel. It's a bit difficult to explain, but pretty simple to pull off. I'll put together a how-to shortly.

[Duffy]

Riiiighht. The only original body I have is, well, developing arthritis.

With a dollop of red paint I neatly sidestep the headlight problem by doing this car:



There's a buncha sponsor stickers on the sides, & I'm bravely (& a bit vainly) avoiding decals; I figure with practice I'll get good enough.

Duffy

[Pete L.]

Duf,

Check out this old Lotus 11. It has the headlights I referred to, we used to get a strip of body Armour (heavy gauge sticky backed lexan) and then punch out two round discs from a sheet of white material and stick it to the strip of body Armour.
Then stick the Armour UNDER the body so that the round discs (headlights) were visible. If you got real fancy you would get a NASCAR sticker sheet and stick a portion of the window net on the white back ground before you punch out the discs, this way there was a cross hatch on the disc to simulate a lens.
the pics sip, but you get the idea.

ps: I love decals & stickers !

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[Howmet TX]

OR we could just vac some 'headlight tunnels' for these cars. Anyone interested?

[Duffy]

Definitely interested. We'd spoken of this a while back but sort of dropped it--a generic tunnel, enough length that it could be trimmed to fit & taped in? Easier in the Vintage years, when there'd be but a couple of standard light sizes to deal with. Fussy work, probably wouldn't survive the first wall shot, but very Lost Cause. In the day I'd hang all sorts of scaley bits on the cars, &I used to make stuf like this up from odd scraps.

Duffy

[dc-65x]

Nice looking cars Pete!

Duffy, I haven't tried the "Jelclaw" and "URETHANE" rear tires yet. I think you're right that how they work is going to vari depending on the track.

I just got the Ferrari 250LM "notch back" coupe you've been wanting . I'll email you and John pictures when it shows up. Oh, did you know that BWA already makes Russkit Cooper wheel inserts?

John, I'm all in on the headlight bucket want list .

[gascarnut]

Duffy, I haven't tried the "Jelclaw" and "URETHANE" rear tires yet. I think you're right that how they work is going to vari depending on the track.

How they work also depends on the exact composition and hardness of the urethane. The original "grey dust" Ortmanns are still the best IMO, but difficult to find nowadays, and not always very round when you do get them. Fortunately they true up quite easily. The replacement "blue dust" Ortmann compound was not as good, and apparentl,y there is now a third compound coming from Ortmann that is similar to the originals.

Jel Claws are a type of silicone, they are quite nice, but sometimes they are not very round and can be a bit difficult to true. You have to take it very slowly so as not to build up too much heat, and then polish the surface to get them smooth again. They are quite soft, so there could be some bounce if the tires are big on a small wheel.

[Duffy]

Oh, did you know that BWA already makes Russkit Cooper wheel inserts?

Oh. Darn all, I'd been meaning to go peruse his site...okay. Lancer mirrors, then?

...and apparently there is now a third compound coming from Ortmann that is similar to the originals.

Hm. Well, I've got some of those, I'll post what I see when I see something.

This week I'm tooling up slowly (read: one coffeebreak & lunch per day) on a tire-truing kloodge; one bracket holds the Dremel sander, with Y-axis infeed, & a trough accepts the handpiece of my Foredom flexshaft grinder with the axle/spindle, slap on a wheel and run it back&forth by hand. That's about as expensive as I can go, but the Foredom runs better than .001" TIR so I hope I can get good-enough results off it all.

Duffy

[dc-65x]

Oh. Darn all, I'd been meaning to go peruse his site...okay. Lancer mirrors, then?

Hi Mikey,

My "Kingdom" for those mirrors . Later the Ulrich Halibrand wheel I converted to an insert and the knockoffs to go with them would be "sick" . I've got a Pactra Ferrari 250LM for you .

[BWA]

Halibrand????? Knockoff??????

How about this??

[dc-65x]

That's beautiful Al (like everything you make )! Are they .500" OD to fit Russkit repo wheels?

I'm also hoping for some seperate knockoffs for Russkit (and other) wire wheel inserts.

[BWA]

Those are I think .620, whatever the normal id of a ProTrack Big Hub wheel is.

Did Russkit actually do a Knockoff for their wire wheel. If you could show me a picture, I might have one.

I'll see if I can do these in .500 dia. It surprises the heck out of me every time they come out of the mold.