39 replies to this topic

[Dave Fiedler]

Don,
On the F1 front end. It is designed as suspension, although Tom does admit, he was never much of a builder. However he was quite a driver.
It was great talking with him, reliving some of my fonder memories of the sixties, racing slots here in the chicago area. Matter of fact, my best ever
big race back then, Tom and I went one two in the A consy, one two in the semi, and one two in the main. It was the 1969 Berwyn Invitational and I felt
honored to finish second to him in that race. I must also mention, how great it was sharing our memories of Dave Bloom. I have many, Tom has many more.

[chaparrAL]

Me too I was there.
The Berwyn track was surrounded by the best pastry shops and delis

[MSwiss]

A small correction for the guys looking for historical accuracy.

Sano Dave had time to "interrogate" his marshaling partner,Tom W., pretty thoroughly between heats on Friday night.

After Sano pointed out the lack of engraving on the drop arm of the below pictured car,
and some slightly different build details, Tom conceded it might of been built by
Mike Staskie's Certus teammate, John Nelson (not to be confused with Charlie Nelson).

[tonyp]

That looks like it was made with the square wire Rehco used to sell.

[MSwiss]

It makes a cool looking chassis except for the mini-kinks at the bends.

[tonyp]

It did kink and actually wasn't very flat. The good stuff was the stuff you took to a machine shop and had them grind the .063" wire on both sides so it was .047" thick. I used to do mine on just one side so the top was still round.

 

Flat wire another idea from Jerry Brady. Jerry built like crap but figured out low CoG real early on. He never used a full bracket on his inlines to keep things lower.

[juice]

I like those Dodge stock car body shells.

Who made them, and are they still availiable?

[S.O. Watt]

Yeah, that square wire was terrible stuff, crooked, and twisted. I used flat wire made by Bob Green... ... It was the most sano stuff on the left coast.

It did kink and actually wasn't very flat. The good stuff was the stuff you took to a machine shop and had them grind the .063" wire on both sides so it was .047" thick. I used to do mine on just one side so the top was still round.

 

Flat wire another idea from Jerry Brady. Jerry built like crap but figured out low CoG real early on. He never used a full bracket on his inlines to keep things lower.

[tonyp]

The REHCo stuff I believe was extruded. Real flat wire like the stuff Bob made was ground down .063" done on an electromagnetic surface grinder.

[S.O. Watt]

Yeah, Bob didn't particularly like making flat wire and was pretty happy it didn't become "the thing" for chassis building.

A nice collection of period cars. and good memories they bring back.

[MSwiss]

Right before our Wednesday night racing started, I was surprised by a visit from Tom Wisvader.

 

He looks great at 85 years old.

 

He hung around to watch both races, and we got to talk old times.

 

Along with Hinsdale slot car talk, I also got some insight on his 1/8 gas R/C days, racing for Marker Machine, and with Roy Moody and Dave Bloom.

[Mark Johnson]

I had .078 wire ground on one side to .063 just inside irra legality .

[Pete L.]

When I enlarged the pics of the GP car I noticed that there's only one pin tube mount amidships on the chassis. Then after closer investigation, I noticed that the front axle hole in the body is underslung beneath the wire axle and acting as a catch to keep the body from swinging up off the chassis.

Looks as though this feature also allowed for a loose or floppy mounting of the body... nice idea !

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[Pablo]

Very cool

[MSwiss]

I got a visit today from 88 year old, Tom, who gets his car serviced at the Lincoln-Mercury dealer, across the street from me.
 
He still looks great, and gave me a little more insight on his good friend, Dave Bloom.