20 replies to this topic

[Duffy]

This will start out as stuff pulled from other threads, and hopefully will grow into some useful conversation here.

When the SoCal D3 guys started playing with Retro32 this summer, I got all charmed by the cuuute widdle racers. I got to talking with a
couple of the fellows on my block about 'em, and there was some passing interest in the idea as a race class. These past few weeks
I've been putting some cars together to hand around at the track, intending to jump start some building & running.

For convenience & for anyone jumping on here, D3 has posted a set of rules here http://socald3.com/ --no direct link, follow
the menus.

Here's what's happened so far.



I got Bryan Warmack to send me some bits and cobbled together this little roller, using the then-new JK Hawk. The tyres here are
.790" rear & .680" front; this was built before D3 set the rules in place; and mostly I wanted to try out this dear little mill.
Wheelbase 2.92" x 2.25" track.

I draped this Dilworth -repop Ferrari 330P over the chassis. Now, we were talking on the other thread about how this body may have
intended as a "twofer"--there's at least one instance of the car running as a coupe with the cutaway rear like this, and that's what I sorta-used.



Turned out the Hawk was more motor than I needed. At 8/29 gearing I could light up the tyres all the way down the straight with that thing.
Swapped in the now-sanctioned TSR and it started to behave better.

I had fun with this - I was messing with it one day at my local track, and this guy started chortling. "Duffy, if they make that a class, I'm
going back to T-Jets, haw haw haw..." So I handed it to him and let him run it.
He did a few laps.
Offered, "...Oh."
Did a few more.
"Well, you're gonna make me eat my words here...Hey, Kenny! Y'know how bad Scalies are? C'mere and try THIS...."


Still one car don't make a Movement. (What's Arlo Guthrie say about that? I'm skippin' right by "two" and heading for three!)



WeeDoo (I won't explain the name, it's a stupid story anyway) was cobbled together one lonely night from whatever was on hand; I
filed down a JK bracket to run .75" rears and threw the rest on as I found it. This chassis is 3.0" w/b and the max width of 2.5" and it
borrows heavily from Warmack's latest--and it may just be legal: I ran full-length pan hinges here, and built the chassis to clear per
Retro32 rules including those tubes--so, as long as they don't specifically amend to state "nothing below main rails" in this class,
I'm all right. (What's the story, guys?)

And this week, in a creative fever (okay, a real virus-induced fever, but I'm an opportunist & revisionist both--heck, I'm a full-blown
Democrat), I started an a/w frame:



I was pleasantly surprised at how easily I took to this a/w thing: I'd heard how fussy they are & all to set up and align, but a little
clamping-up of the motor and axle tube in their intended relationship let me bend & fit my wire real easy. After that, it was a
matter of one bend, fit, next bend & so on.

Comin' along pretty nice so far.



So:
If I get back to building after dinner, we'll see more later tonight. In the meantime, guys, please chime in with related stories,
observations and suggestions, or outright howls of horror. You choose.

Duffy

[Marty Stanley]

Duffy,

Retro(32) East? Is Florida in the East?

BTW, that Ferrari P330 body is very cool. I need to get me one of those.

So, are you using D32 rules? Perhaps we need to keep up the same thoughts as the IRRA vs D3 rules?

A couple of us down south on both the east and west coasts of Florida, have been tinkering with 1/32 cars. They are a blast to drive and run quite well in both inline and anglewinder mode.

Bronco Barney sent along a McLaren M20 that I need to get painted and mounted up.

Here's a photo of my chassis:

So when is the first race in this new program?

[Duffy]

O sweet scented tear from Shiva's Winking Eye, look at that. I am positively tumescent with excitement. Very very cool, O Reptilian Southern Brother.

IRRA has not yet weighed in on the R32 thing.

This summer, when they were running demo races at BPR and sorting out what might go into the final Rules iteration, guys were all chewing fingernails and carping about what it might shake down to--and heck, I just went and built a car, and sure enough it's within the Rule but not pared right down to the bone.

For instance, the Rule levies minimum tyre diameters at .74" R & .615" F (I'll let you read the various widths), and as you see all my cars so far have exceeded that--the first, because that's what Warmack was building, and the rest, because LIKE Warmack I believe there's a certain aesthetic to tyre size and by Damn I'll hew to that!

--And, Marty, unless&until WE depart from D3 Rules and form a splinter group, that hinges-in-two-axes thing is a no-no.
But it's pretty cool anyway. Actually waaay daaaamn cool.
We'll run 'em when I come down there.

Gotta go hang some front axle uprights. More later.

Df

ps: & I'll see if I can squeeze more Fezzis out of Howmet this week.

[68Caddy]

Marty, what motor bracket is used in the build? Looks darn good to.


Nesta

[Marty Stanley]

Nesta,

That is the Professor Motor BWA-type of bracket. Still avaialble from Professor Motor.



Duffy,

When fellow builder in Florida Rick Moore, aka CMF3 on other slot car racing websites, and I talked about doing 1/32, we decided that we would use our own rules, which are greatly simplified.

Motor - you need at least 1, your choice - no whining permitted because you chose incorrectly!
Rear Axle/Gear/Tires - required.
Front Axle/Tires - required.
Chassis - must be scratchbuilt.
Width - can't see tires sticking out from sides of body.
Wheelbase - must fit wheel openings.
Clearance - must have some. If any car does not have clearance, it will be verified and if verification fails, it will be doused in flammable liquid and set on fire.
Body - must have at least one.

Nice simple and friendly rules by which to race. So, according to our rules, moving in multiple directions simultaneously is quite acceptable!

We might have another builder that is joing in, so we will have 3 for our first race. But neither Rick nor I care about that, we just built these little devils to have some fun and try new things in chassis. BTW, it's a real handful witht he Group 12 motor in it! On the "Colossus of Riverview" it's an orange streak heading through the banked turn. I like it!

[Tex]

Bravo!

[BillyBob]

BTW, that Ferrari P330 body is very cool. I need to get me one of those.

Bronco Barney sent along a McLaren M20 that I need to get painted and mounted up.

Barney also has the Ferrari P330 from Betta. Looks great

[Duffy]

Continuing with the build of my Retro32 a/w--
It was suggested I distinguish this line from the "HooDoo" pedigree, to avoid confusion (I dunno why anybody'd
question THIS confusion over all that I cause, but--) and so I designate this one: Tagboard, chassis #1. There.
Like that's important.

Now, as a relatively noobie guy on this block, I figure what I can do best is post noobie builds and get talk going
about what noobs need to think about. So, I hark back to my initial posts about this chassis--what fun I'm having
laying it up & bending & forgetting to turn off the iron at night, &c. &c.--part of what frees me up to do all this and
just have fun is, using a good building jig.


Remember, I set my axles in place, drew out my outside parameters & intended wheel / tyre sizes, clamped the
motor & gear mesh in and just started bending wire? About this time, a guy PM'd me about how I hadn't plotted
it all out on graph paper first, the Old Good Way--yup, right, didn't have to! It's as close to "build in the air" as you
can get, and it just empowered me to go at it and make the thing up. I don't think I would've been so bold, had I
not the third fifth & ninth hands a jig affords me.

So we'll continue in that manner, with the pans.




Here's the basic central rig with front axle carrier & guide tongue in place, nothing fancy and Pablo's happy about
that. So, to get my pans cut out, I stuck down a piece of paper 2.5" wide and laid the center unit on top--you can
see how I shoved my jig pins through to hold everything right--and I traced my shapes onto the paper, including
wheel cutouts & everything.




Now I got out some 1/32 stock and sliced it down to pan width and derived length with my Dremel, and then placed
paper on top and "traced" the necessary cutouts with an x-Acto knife. I've been deliberately violent here so you can
clearly see the cut paper that gave its integrity for the accurate layout line--that's then darkened with a Sharpie. All
ready to cut out.




The wheel cutouts & chamfer were done with the two pans clamped together, so to make 'em the same, then the
different rear cuts. Also see here, I've filed little reliefs for the hinge gudgeons, and chamfered an angle on the top
of the pans in that relief to provide further clearance for the gudgeon tubes. You see those tubes and the hinge
wires all bent and ready.

Also, at this point I've pulled out my little jig pins, counting on the rear axle and guide tongue to hold everything in
place, and have set pins in the jig to define the outer width of the pans.




And here're the pans in place, awaiting bite bar and pin tubes.

More over the weekend, but it still won't e ready for the track Sunday. No body!

Duffy

[68Caddy]

Where is Popeye? Only kidding, I bet its going to be a sweet ride.


Nesta

[Duffy]

Chassis ready for hardware & software:



I was delighted this week at the stonebrain-simple application of bite bar limits that
Marty used in his "Try Your Hand" build; Jeez, when I think of the math I've done, the
searching for shims and stackups...part of the trouble with being a Compulsive
Overthinker is constantly drowning out that still small voice of Reason.



Don't y' love how gloriously I mismatched the dogleg pan? Better on the next build.

Inspirational boatbuilder & mentor Pete Culler once advised: "Just go build it, don't
hesitate; what matter if there's a lump or two? There'll be one much less lumpy
further down the line."

Now to go mount & paint a big flat Ti-22.

Duffy

[tonyp]

Cute

[Duffy]

Just as a bump up, maybe--HERE'S why I love 1/32.

[Rick Moore]

Is that a wire-less chassis?

[Duffy]

.......Where IS the "Like" button when we really need it?.......

[Marty Stanley]

Is that a wire-less chassis?

Cute! I thought it was a rather weak imitation of the Sauber Mercedes of AEG that raced at LeMans in 1989!

But I do agree, we need a 'like button' here on Slotblog.


BTW - Duffy, I truly think we need to use the rules for the retroanglewinder for the 1/32 retro class. Basically it is an advanced class that allows you to build a chassis with any number of non-centerline hinges of any orientation. I also chose to use .050 clearance fore and aft. The car works very well with narrowed tires and a Mini-Brute in it. It handles very well and is a lot of fun to run around the track. Yep, bring it on. I know of a couple of other folks that have wire and brass 1/32 chassis that live south of I-10.

[Duffy]

You've seen these pics already in the Gallery (if you looked), but I'll give a little more info here and also tell some of what's been developing in the Event-Building arena.

Here're three of four teeny chassis for R32, based on the sortacool OXCART torsion chassis I've been campaigning in the normal 1/24 events (hence the name "TAGBOARD" for the teenies!--Google if you need, or care). I rushed one to completion a while back so I could mail it off to a guy, and it got lost...so then there were three.



All-Duffy components here, all .040" brass; bracket's a hypoid (with .715" tyres & .032" rear clearance, the term's almost academic) just wide enough to get dropdead clearance with an FK can & .055" main rail.



All perimeter & front axle wire is .047"--I had my stepson's Physics tutor run the numbers on the wire sizes, scaling down the cross-sections to approximate the torsional properties of the big chassis. As if that's gonna mean anything for either size, but it was a fun activity.

So, pretty soon there'll be three of these toodling around at RE events to add to the small stable of small cars already in the area. Hope this thing takes off, they are a perfect ball to build (small wire's EASY!) and and just a giggle to drive.

I'll be working on an anglewinder or two pretty soon, too. A whole 'nother set of rules to write...

Duffy

[Bill from NH]

Very interesting chassis, Duffy! I'll be looking for the reports back on how they handled.

[Duffy]

Forgot to mention: the pans are soldered to the perimeter wire just back to the notch, about 20% back, and are free abaft that. Downstop is the rear pintube. These tip 26.5gr as they sit now.

Yah, I'm anxious to get some of these dressed and on the pavement! Claiming these are scaled-down from something is pure folly, the mass distribution & motion dynamics are entirely different. Most guys I see in 1/32 are running some sort of flop or shake, so this is more for gathering data on the other side of the experiment. We'll see.

Duffy

[S.O. Watt]

I sure like the angle winder 1/32s, lots of fun.

[John Streisguth]

Nice work Duffy, it will be interesting to see how these lightweights work vs. the lead sleds you built previously. Since we have about a months break after the Port Jeff race, that's when I'm going to build my little guy.

[Mark Johnson]

VERY SPIFFY!!