321 replies to this topic

[Pat McGee]

Anyone up for pancakes?? Here's my little toy, first HO build since '76!

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[sidejobjon]

NEW Hobby Store in NJ. Just saw today this web site 1/64 track Cedar Grove.

http://www.extremeho...et/slots164.htm

[Charlie Benson]

Rick?

is that Rick Terry?

I'd like to get one of these.

http://web.me.com/ho...Racer/Home.html

Here is picture with Ricks new jig:

[Pat McGee]

Those jigs come from Rick at R-Geo. He posts and advertises here on slotblog.

[Charlie Benson]

Pat...thanks, I'll check it out.

Those jigs come from Rick at R-Geo. He posts and advertises here on slotblog.

[chaparrAL]

Latest from the skunkworks

[chaparrAL]

and a dragster too.

[John Stezelecki]

Al,
I know that since the 70's many new smaller motors have been made. Are the motors that were looking at a new design or retro-1970's. Also a little update on the 1972 parma Chaaallenge track. The reconstruction is going well. The decision to use copper tape ( original) or braid has yet to be determined. The test track will tell us if the track surface can be routed for the braid.Thanks for the photos,
Stez

[sidejobjon]

Al,
Were you get those motors? Nice work Here is a Chassis i was working on copy Joels. Is that some type resistor so motor don`t burn out?

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[chaparrAL]

John and Pat, Nice job! More , more , more!
Guys, right now both sources of these motors ,Surplus Traders and Allellectronics, is out.
Its Mabuchi FFM20VA/VK. iit measures 10 mm W 8mm H 15mmL YOU WANT THE ONES WITH NEO MAGS. Joel just learned this yes some have NEOs.
Surplus traders have FFN20PA in stock. They measure 12mm W 10mm H 15 mm L The ones I have have some sort of ceramic mags . Maybe polymer. If they had NEOs it would be very powerful. However i have found in testing that the smaller motor with NEOs has plenty of tourqe to propel a non downforce car. Its the ticket.
Beleive me. I have done the testing. Yes the endbells are pos's with no carbon brushes. Yes if you insist on pumping 18 V through it it WILL blow up.
One of the cars in the pic went around a circle test track @ 4V for 8 HRs. The motor will do the job. That s why they have slip on sili's. wear out the good ones they go go go....

[chaparrAL]

Right now a big holdup is a lack of a worthy track to test. That may change soon. In the meantime I am picking up inertia to try a few things very soon one way or the other.
I have a variety of resisters to try. The questions are will they overheat and fail, melt the body, , or whatever.
If we can figure out how to make these babies work,, along with a partner, I will order 1,000 of em. Gotta make sure it has NEO mags.

[chaparrAL]

And one last thing.
Even with NEO mags the motor passes the Midwest Series lift device test.

[Uncle Fred]

Just had to post a photo of Roy Wongs Independent suspension car...............

[sidejobjon]

Fred,

Thanks for posting. Is Roy on here? Did he do other HO Scratch building? Were is this car today?

Thanks John F

[Uncle Fred]

Fred,

Thanks for posting. Is Roy on here? Did he do other HO Scratch building? Were is this car today?

Thanks John F

Roy lives in San Francisco and is into R/C planes.

[sidejobjon]

Well heres Pat Dennis Progress on MARK II .Alive & well still contributing to the hobby.Thanks Pat
.http://www.toybaron.com/PatDennisMK2progress.htm#Jan2012

[Pat McGee]

Thought I'd bump this up with my latest and greatest.....

[A. J. Hoyt]

Pat,

The car looks awesome! This is the place to post it! I look forward to seeing it in person on Thursday, maybe even seeing it run!

Can you substitute larger pictures?

I wonder if plastic idler gears were available and period correct? I remember that a number of people used alternative crown gears (not Aurora, like, Cobra crowns) and there are a lot of very nice crown gears available today - not period correct but, perhaps, better suited, more reliable and faster. Heck, you are using modern silicone on sponge tires...

When I was at Walt's last Friday, I noticed 8 various brass pans with screws all wrapped up together. I think Doug Morris must have snuck them into my box. I think they are all TCP NOS pans! I need to start building some IROC cars, I guess!

In our "Brass Wars" class, I did not have any .003 phosphorus bronze to make pickups from. Out of necessity, I used the .002 brass in the K&S Shim Stock assortment package. On today's "rounted" high quality tracks, the track joints do not do the "continuous band saw" machining on the wipers and they held up very well for a couple of races.

As you can imagine, the handling performance picks up substantially as there is much less "spring" trying to push the car out of the slot! Other "gravity" racers running wipers should try this and see how it works for them. I imagine a .002 or .0025 half hard phosphorus bronze would work even better as the brass is pretty ductile and would look "period correct".

Keep it in the slot,

AJ

[Pat McGee]

Thanks, AJ. The three cars I've built so far have all been NOS TCP pans, something I never used in the day, always cut my own. The car you saw in Longmont last year was a bronze wiper TCP "Open" pan (full brass), my second was a TCP "Pro" pan with stock A/FX pick-ups, and the open middle section. I don't ever recall anyone running those in Michigan HOPRA, neither does Doug. However, he's doing well in the Midwest gravity races with his, and mine seemed pretty quick. So, I decided to build a "wiper" car with the open center, the thing is a missle with a stock, unbalanced "mean green" arm in it, should pass the "lift" test with ease, going to buy a lift tester from Scale Engineering soon. Problem being, I don't have anyone else's builds to compare them to on the track! BTW, most of the lead shown in the pics has been removed, it's not needed.

I always liked brass idlers, though the plastic ones were around in the day. I'm going to do some experimenting with crown gears, though you have limited room due to the pancake motor's gear plate. Right now I'm using 19 tooth tyco-pro crown gears with the boss cut down to fit in the A/FX chassis, along with .059 axles and brass bushings. All three cars at first had standard Aurora .063 axles with 19 tooth A/FX hop-up gears, they bounced all over, the new axles and bushings settled them right down, nice and smooth. No secrets here, well, a few, but, pretty much just like we built 'em in '71-'72. The silicone/sponge tires are a neccesity, since no one runs glue in HO anymore, and you don't want to gunk up the track for modern cars. Once they start to get dirty, the cars slide around like a real car running out of tire late in a race.

The only bronze sheet I've found is a K&S item listed on Walther's web site (train stuff), I'll have to get some as I'm about out of what I got from Doug and Al.

Left my little usb storage thingee at the office, I'll post pics of all three cars for the masses tomorrow, but big enough for your tired old eyes to see! You'll see all three cars in the flesh this Thursday.

Just remembered, car #1, my first build in HO since the '76 Nat's, is shown in post #51 of this thread....

[Pat McGee]

Here's some larger pics......

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[sidejobjon]

Pat,
I love those TCP pans, I found one of his lap counters.
AJ was going to post some pictures , from back in the day?
Thanks John F

[Pat McGee]

Pat,
I love those TCP pans, I found one of his lap counters.
AJ was going to post some pictures , from back in the day?
Thanks John F

Two or four lane? Post a pic. Those were the "trackmate" of the day, best there was.

[sidejobjon]

Pat,
It is two lane . I posted picture in Vintage HO History. You mentioned someone won one "Jason" post # 40. I put picture post#43.
It sounded like you wanted to see it. If you don`t find it i will resend.
What other TCP parts do you have?
Thanks John F

[Pat McGee]

Hi, John. Saw the pic, if I recall, Tom built those in 2, 4, and 6 lane configurations. I don't have anything left in any scale from the day, all went away in the '80's, for virtually nothing compared to prices vintage stuff is pulling today. Don't even like to think about how many Faller cars I tossed after stealing the motor brushes and springs from them. TCP offered everything from brass pans, tires, bushings, brush tubes, rewound armatures, magnets, etc.

[Pat McGee]

This one's just to be different...