95 replies to this topic

[Duffy]

Not really in the HOODOO lineage, but--





My second Retro32 chassis. I'm trying to get something going out here on the Right Coast, and a few demos
may help things along. You see the Warmack pedigree here--tho't I had bits but no, had to improvise. JK
bracket filed down for .74" min. tyres, the rest stock-on-hand, including a surprisingly pleasant session
cutting out the sidepans and losing nary a Dremel disc. 42g as it sits.

Full-floating bite rear bite bar was a "seems like a good idea" thing, based on an app RGeo suggests by
holes in his new brackets. I bet I'll want to tie the pans together better for more fore-aft control. One move at a time.

--AND it's over here on this thread for the (inevitable) name: it's a small car, sooo--WEEDOO!! (Hoo else?)

Duffy

[Duffy]

Rob's all smug because he's buildin' today while we're all scrappin' and wringin' our han's...
But I wuz buildin' too! And fixin' my airbrush and turnin' tyres and and and...


I woulda had this at the track, along with my race-ready HooDoo 2, but for getting embroiled in a
domestic squabble. No matter, gives me a chance to do a righteous Lola T-600 for
draperies.



Set up with .75" rears and .65" fronts, which Warmack & I agree is about as small as looks good
on these little cars & the heck with Rules; those're Roger Schmitt's Ruffs on the back,faced to
.63" wide, and Sonic Retro Fronts forward. Geared 9/28 for now, and I could go a little taller with the
smaller tyres & still be in range with the motor. See how it runs like this.

The funny plumbing you see abutting the bracket, that's a rear stop for the pans: I had slotted the port
in the bracket that the floating bite bar passes through, so it would give me fore-aft movement in the
pans; but I didn't consider the whole assembly could skew twice that amount of slop! More I thought,
the more I wanted to deal with that, so this was my solution. Forward stops're the hinge tube slamming
up against the nosepiece.

I'll get it out to the track this week.

Lovin' these cute teeny cars! I want to get me some suitable spur-gear matchups and make an
anglewinder or two. I gots me some nice McLarens to wrap around 'em...

Duffy

[68Caddy]

Duffy have to say I don't know what you are talking about, but it sure looks good.
Is it a 1:32 ride?


Nesta

[Duffy]

Yah, built to D3 Retro32 rules as I wrote in the post directly above that last. I'm trying to get the local guys interested, and one way is to hand 'em some cars and watch the smiles go around. And I'm having fun building. Therapeutic.

Duffy

[ShootinSparks]

How about a little musical interlude in the hoodoo spirit... Creedence... y'all know which song I'm talkin' 'bout...

Now when I was just a little boy
Standin' to my Daddy's knee
My Poppa said son don't let the man get you
Do what he done to me
'Cause he'll get you
'Cause he'll get you now.

I can remember the fourth of July
Runnin' through the backwood bare.
And I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'
Chasin' down a hoodoo there
Chasin' down a hoodoo there.

Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou
Born on the bayou

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

Attached Images

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[Duffy]

Thanks for that. I actually was on the bill with Creedence, a couple years before this, when I was with the Johnny Mars band.

For MY chassis, though, the lyric's a little different:

The pan gonna tremble, gear gonna strip
The wall is gonna come to harm
And all it'll take to chase this HooDoo down
is a little Puppy Dog with a Chinese arm

Born on the Bayou
Born on the Bayou
Born on the Bayou

[Duffy]

Okay, while my Frens're all having fun at Slots-A-Lot with Retro East, here I am all lonely and cold & coughing
my wasted youth out like Mimi in her garret, only I don't sing as good.

But, thanks God, I can build. A litle wire & tube, some holdin' contrapt'ns, and--bassoon!*--a Retro32
anglewinder crawls out of the swamp and shakes off its Primordial Flux.



I had a wonderful afternoon bending wire! Who says these a/w chassis are hard? The key for me was to set
up my jig with motor and rear assembly so I could bend&fit until I had everything lying the way I want. This
required a Z-clamp for my motor, overbent just enough to provide some tension and snugness on the can.



Once I'd shoved the motor around a little and decided how wide I might get my rear tyres (.56" using Roger
Schmitt's "Ruffs" whose hubs are recessed an extra .05" to clear the spur boss) I could stack up my rear carrier
and notch it out. R-Geo sells these little screw collars, ostensibly for spacing out axles in your running set-up,
but they're real handy for locking everything down here.

Now I can bend & fit & tweak to my heart's content, starting from the rear upright and moving forward one bend
at a time. It also gave me a chance to think ahead on what I was gonna do up forward, and how I'd hang my
pans and such. --Still thinking, by the way, but Robin'll be home soon and I got other plans for the rest of this evening.




Once everything laid down nice, I could tack the uprights and a spot or two at front of the half-rails, then free the
clamps and soak the rest.
The motor'll tack along the inners of the two rails, but I see no upper braces in pics of current R32 a/w practice:
do you guys really find they''re not needed?

What fun. More tomorrow.
Duffy

*--well, I know how tired you guys are of "and--viola!..." Besides, I'm a woodwind guy.

[Duffy]

Jeez, I hope we get enough posts up here that we move on and we can stop looking at that idiot at the
top of page 2.


As I said elsewhere, I've put Pro Paint bodies on some of my cars,because they look so beautiful there
on the track and frankly inspire me to run better. I think. Recently I got Noose to do me a Duffy Livery--
once I get my Hot Chassis dialed in, the new shells are gettin' draped over the tops and I'm running in
style. At the same time, though, I've been gearing up to paint my own rides.

Most of my equipment dates from my IPMS days, so I recently upgraded to a wonderfully gusty Galaxy
compressor (thanks for the tip Noose)--and now I find my vintage Thayer & Chandler airbrush is on its
last legs. I did some serious maintenance last week and found at least one functional ankle, so as a
warmup exercise I painted THIS:




This is Tamiya "Burnt Metal" fogged along the sharp lines, followed by a dark-dark gray overall. The masking's
Bob Diveley's liquid mask and O Lord do I wish I'd trimmed it better, but it's an exercise, right?--I'll cover the
sloppies on the outside with a cheat line...

Well, the airbrush is working okay. the next one'll be nicer.

Now to unsack the Teeny Brushes and start renewing my uneasy acquaintance with my grumpy neighbor Mr. Lettering.

Listen, guys, part of what I do here is to invite observations & comments on what I'm doing. I am by no means
In Control of my craft nor my reasoning behind what I do, and I do not think of myself as any sort of Innovator or
Authority: I'm feeling my way through all the aspects of my hobby, and I'm looking to draw out opinions from others;
and not just for me, as this sort of discussion might be stumbled over by some future Slots Guy with even less of a
Life than we have; and he may pick up something. Or run screaming to Facebook Farming or something sensible.

Duffy

[GearBear]

Duffster, you mean I have a tool you don't!

Get yourself one of these and you can make your own paint masks! Now, if I could just get some time to sit down at the 'puter to draw up some nice masks, I'd be set.

[Marty Stanley]

Duffy,

Hey my friend, it's looking very, very good. I'm liking what I'm seeing.

So you are taking the plunge into the 1/32 scratchbuilt stuff as well? Both Rick Moore and I have built a couple o 1/32 chassis and they are a ball. We kinda sorta did a 'paraphrase' of the D32 rules. Made it a lot easier to build.

Those 1/32 cars look awesome with .810 wide tires stuffed under a 2.5 inch wide body. I did an inline chassis, Rick did an anglewinder with the wide tires. Not only slick, but quite sick as well. They were a blast to run on "The Colossus of Riverview" and if you ever decide to make a trip south to enjoy the balmy weather, we'll head on down there and just enjoy ourselves running our little toy cars on that big old track!

Keep up the work - it's all looking good.

[Duffy]

Duffster, you mean I have a tool you don't!

Every quarter not for laundry money goes into a jar for this.

[Duffy]

So you are taking the plunge into the 1/32 scratchbuilt stuff as well?

I've been hesitating to split off a new thread--but maybe it's time to start "WEEDOO" and "WEEMAY"...


Maybe tomorrow. If I'm still sick.

[Mopar Rob]

Duffy:

Why are you mounting the Batmobile and not some retro body?

[Marty Stanley]

I've been hesitating to split off a new thread--but maybe it's time to start "WEEDOO" and "WEEMAY"...


Maybe tomorrow. If I'm still sick.

Duffy,

Perhaps you can do one like the tone of that old, old cigarette commercial where they had the camera rolling as they drove though towns around the USA asking the crowds to "Show us your Lark!" I often wonder what they got shown when they went through "The Bowery"?

Maybe we can see if there is any interest in 1/32 retro, other then out on the west coast.

I mean even if there is none, I still don't see that as a reason to not build a 1/32 retro car.

Keep up that HooDoo that you do so well!

[Duffy]

Duffy: Why are you mounting the Batmobile and not some retro body?

Har--
Would've been more effective if I'd kept the rear cheeks. There just wasn't room if the body flexes.




This one's for the inline roller from earlier; the little a/w chassis, I'll wrap a proper Ti-22 over.

I may try to split the 1/32 stuff off into its own DOO tonight if the meds kick in.

Duffy

[tonyp]

Duffy, I had a caravan with those same stripes up the side except the base color was black instead of burnt metal. Nice. No package yet, maybe todayH.

[Duffy]

No package yet, maybe today.

Worried now.

[Marty Stanley]

Worried now.

Yep, that rye bread does not do well after a couple of days!

[Duffy]

Once I forgot my wife's birthday. Remembered a day late. Called the "Day-Old Bakery" and tried to make an order. They did not understand.

[Marty Stanley]

Have you ever noticed that married men only forget their wives birthdays . . . . ONCE!

Perhaps that is the only chance we are allowed to miss it. In 1979 we were moving from our rental house to our current house. It just so happened on my wife's birthday. From about 7 AM to well after dark I was moving furniture, appliances, clothing and all sorts of other stuff.

After we had everything moved in a single day, with 2 kids to watch after, I had just laid down to fall blissfully asleep when my wife started singing . . . . "Happy Birthday to me".

Needless to say, I knew I was caught and caught bad! There was no squeeking out of that situation. Yes, it was costly and trust me I knew that I had used up my one and only one 'gimmee'.

I do like the 'day old bread' concept though.

Kind of reminds me about when a good friend of mine wanted to buy a boat. His wife told him they could only afford a 'used' one, so don't look at the new ones. A couple of weeks later they decided to buy a new couch for the living room. Of course I suggested that he inform his wife that she shoule be looking at a 'used' couch. He wouldn't even tell her of my suggestion! Wimp!

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

My wife, the love of my life, was not a crier. She did not suffer in silence! So, once, stupidly, I agreed with the family to hold a surprise party. Needed a 100 mile drive and she started with a storm cloud over her head and got worse. Finally, she threw a hissy fit, demanded I pull off at the next exit, made a big production of buying a twinkie a the convenience store.....and singing "happy birthday to me".

And was chagrined at reaching the destination and finding a party and mounts of chocolate cake.

R

[Duffy]

Update.

I've been whittling the motion off HooDoo 2, and just feeling better and better about it. Now, I've been putting up copious laps at the same
time, so maybe I'm getting more dialed in myself too--but the Hot Guys who are keeping tabs on me tell me the car is at least no less reliable
as I pull the wiggle out. Finally got so I stuffed shims right up to the chocks. Pretty good.

So, having some time to mess around, I've decided to approach from the other direction, and build a basic torsion chassis for comparison.
Yes, I've heard they do & don't work under this&that circumstance, but--well, Google "George Plimpton." Sometimes the education's more
entertaining than the established truism.



So, I spat obscene epithets at my Stock Rack and no solid pan flew off the shelf and slapped me, so I took wire & brass and bent & soldered
in the way you see here. My first exposure to the phrase "Torsion Rod" was from the Chrysler advertisements in Popular Science, ca.~1958,
& so I figured I'd do what I recalled from those pics.



R-Geo bracket. Main rail's .078" and the rest's 1/16" including all brass plate. Bone-dry chassis was, I believe, 55gr.



Here's a Proof Shot for Pablo, as I time in my front axle. The stackup of wires in front reflects my insecurity--I resisted putting a second strap
across the guide-tongue plate, trusting the transverse axle gachinkus to keep the front end from splitting like an antelope skull in a hard impact.



The rear stop takes advantage of the holes Rick drills in his bracket for something resembling this purpose: it's a grommet-in-grommet ball
joint arrangement. The big grommet is sanded down in length to go flush with the inside of the bracket and soldered in there, and then the rear
stop wires got snaked in & fixed in place, finally the small grommet soldered to the wires. You see inside the bracket on the far side, where the
wire loops around to fetch up against the ear of the bracket. I get a touch of up/down shake, no sidewise, and then there's springy slop from the
ball joint. If that don't work out, we limit it with a bite bar.

If I am lucky, I will start playing this week with this, concurrent with the plumber chassis. Get some practical experience & knowledge also, if I'm
even luckier.

Duffy

[Pablo]

Well executed, Michael. Proofed, Duffied, and Timed.
The stars and planets have aligned favorably tonight.
Engineering/Mechanics, meet Art and Style.

You have reached full Duffy level six, Sir. Now, take the third elevator to the left, and upon exiting, stand by for Duffy level twelve.

HooDoo !!!!!!!!!

[Bill from NH]

Duffy, I like that leadwire holder made from what looks to be .032 piano wire.

[Duffy]

Well executed, Michael. Proofed, Duffied, and Timed. The stars and planets have aligned favorably tonight. Engineering/Mechanics, meet Art and Style. You have reached full Duffy level six, Sir. Now, take the third elevator to the left, and upon exiting, stand by for Duffy level twelve. HooDoo !!!!!!!!!

Um..
Ahhh......
Errr.............
....................Is that a------GOOD thing?...