105 replies to this topic

[Greg VanPeenen]

Ron

Thanks for the info.

Greg

[Fast Freddie]

I also have some RJR Pink Dots. The tips are short and wide. It seems to me that they would be more of a torque magnet unless I have the theory wrong. I never could get them to out perform even my standard Mura setups.
I have only one set of Red Dots but I noticed something unusual about them. The corner of the tips are not pointed and it looks like they were either molded or filed that way. This is also true with some of the 16D magnets (EP/EXP) I have. Is this suppose to affect performance in some way?

[Ron Hershman]

Ron, what were the RJR "pink dot" magnets?

All RJR magnets were "cut/machined" from block material. They were not "radially oriented" and this is why they never performed well when compared to Mura magnets.

[Ron Hershman]

Ron,

How much longer? A few thou, 1/16"?

Yep

[HarV Wallbanger III]

"Champion had the white dots for a long time... Champion sold them to Mura... then Champion had the WD tooling modified to produce a shorter length WD magnet and this was called the "red dot". RDs were the same as WDs, just shorter in length. This would have been around 1985-88. Would have to do some digging to make sure."

I made the first short ones so it would have been after mine came out (1986) around 87/ 88 for Red Dots as I remember..... I'm getting too old....

The first magnets Front Line products sold were Allen Bradly Champion white dots blanchard ground to .500". My magnet company hated the AB material and I suffered through all the bad chipped and flaked ones till I had my "Pro Techs" magnets machined from a wet press Sumitomo ingots.

I still have several ingots and used 2 on a old hose reel cart for a magnetic sweeper "Magna Sweep" I used to pick up floor junk from building custom bumpers and rocker guards for Early Broncos after I sold Front Line.... I still have it!

Attached Images

• 
• 

[Ron Hershman]

I made the first short ones so it would have been after mine came out (1986) around 87/ 88 for Red Dots as I remember..... I'm getting too old....

Well the first short length ceramic magnets I seen were made by Rich Ball who cut down White Dots in length in 1983. The Lee Richardson of Southside Raceway in Steger, Il had White Dots cut down in both length and heigth in 1983/84. Both were used in Int 15 racing. There were probably others elsewhere doing this, but there were the first two guys in the Midwest I seen do it.

Then IIRC.... Koford came out with the short length and height "Yellow Dot" magnets for Int 15 racing in 1984/85. The first "production" magnet specifically for INT 15 racing.

Then Barney came out with his "Pro Techs"? in 1986. Which were short in length and height.

It was after this that Champion made the "short" legnth "full" height magnets for C-Cans..... then Mura followed.

[Mike K]

I still have several ingots and used 2 on a old hose reel cart for a magnetic sweeper "Magna Sweep" I used to pick up floor junk from building custom bumpers and rocker guards for Early Broncos after I sold Front Line.... I still have it!

We need to run that around the flat track at BP before we run euros next time.....too many broken magnets due to debris in the slots!

[Ron Hershman]

Hey Barn..... I have a few pairs of those "Kodak" magnets too.......lol

[Rick]

Fritz came to a race once and showed me boxes of the Kodak magnets, I'll bet he still has hundreds , maybe 1000's of them...............

[Ron Hershman]

Fritz came to a race once and showed me boxes of the Kodak magnets, I'll bet he still has hundreds , maybe 1000's of them...............

All out of Mabuchi motors he had purchased at Radio Shack.......LOL Radio Shack sold 3 Mabuchi motors for .99 cents..... Fritz was selling those magnets for 6 bucks a pair LMAO

Kodak had nothing to do with it, but he had everybody fooled that the magnets came from Kodak.

[Rick]

That's much different than the story I was told. I know/heard about the RS 36D's, some actually still had the pull outs in them? I guess this is just the lore of slot car tales.............

[HarV Wallbanger III]

I never saw "production" short WD's before I came out with mine in1986. I just shortened mine to take weight out of the motor. I'll have to go back and make sure but I think my Pro Techs (machined) came out in 1987. It is in the adds SARN.

[Rick]

The pairs of Champion Red Dots I have seen in the bag were always long. I didn't open until 1988.......

[Ron Hershman]

That's much different than the story I was told. I know/heard about the RS 36D's, some actually still had the pull outs in them? I guess this is just the lore of slot car tales.............

Well tell your story........ I remember Fritz showing up at Cincinnati for a Tri-State race and claiming they were the hot magnet...this was 87/88. He gave me a couple of pairs to try. He claimed they came from Kodak and being he lived in Rochester NY home of Kodak...most believed him.

Then in the early 90's when Fritz was out of slot racing..... I had a discussion with one of his racing buddies and asked about the Kodak mags and the voice on the other side of the phone laughed and said those magnets DID NOT come from Kodak and they came from the Mabuchi 16-d sized motors sold at Radio Shack. So I went to Radio Shack and bought the last package of three motors for .99 cents...went home and took them apart and sure enough..... they were the same magnets.

I went back to Radio Shack to buy/order more and those packages/motors had been discontinued and none were to be found in the Radio Shack network of store country wide.

I never saw "production" short WD's before I came out with mine in1986. I just shortened mine to take weight out of the motor. I'll have to go back and make sure but I think my Pro Techs (machined) came out in 1987. It is in the adds SARN.

Well Barn I am not sure exactly what year the "short" Champ Red Dots came out.... I am thinking 87-89 but still need to do some digging. Champion was still advertising White Dots up to 88/89.

Bob I says his Champ Yellow Dots ( which are Mura mags ) are from 1990..... I don't remember Champion selling the Mura mags that early as WD's and RD's were still available in 1990, but maybe Champion was selling all three at the same time?

[Rick]

One day at a race that Fritz and Billy had also shown up for, I was outside having a smoke. We got on the magnet discussion and he went to his car and brought back a couple of boxes full of magnets, had to be a couple of thousand pairs easily. I was told later by someone else that Fritz had run into these at some surplus electronis place in Rochester and they were billed as camera magnets, possibly from the motor of the instant camera that Kodak had been shut down, by Poloroid?? noone knows that for certain, but since Kodak was in Rochester they used that scenario and called them Kodak Magnets. I wsn't aware of RS having 16d motor, the only deal like that I ever heard about was from Paul Meires as he bought the same deal 3/99 but they were 36ds and thats how he got some pull-outs.

I know I had never seen so many magnets and surplus story sounded valid. They were boxed in those green lid boxes and about 4 or 6 layers per box. If he bought them from RS, he had to have bought hundreds and hundreds to come up with this many magnets and he also told me, no worries, I have more.........

[Ron Hershman]

OK did a little more digging for you guys........... All of these pics are from Old Scale Auto Racing News.

Could not find any Champion Red Dot info...... I am pretty sure these came out 1986-87 and Champion was more into RC racing than slot racing so they didn't advertise much slot racing in this time frame.

Not that this has anything to do with Ceramic magnets....but the Mura Big Foot brushes were released in Feb 84....check out that low price now but was high then...but still cheaper than Mabuchi Pull Outs.





Mura released the Wasp motor in Mar 83 it had short length cut from bar stock magnets in them. In Sept 84 Mura offered the short length magnets separate. So these would have actually been the "first" short length C-Can magnets. These magnets were real crap.





Koford released the Yellow Dot Int 15 magnets in Sept 84 and these were short in both length and height.




Mura releases the Mura II 12 motor Aug 85




Mura Magnum X molded short length full height C-Can magnets released Oct 85 these are what I have called "Stage 1"




Nov/Dec 85.... Front Line cut down White Dot mags for Int 15 racing are released

[Ron Hershman]

Mura Balanced X-12 "Illegal" arms and motors are released Mar 86




Mura Super Wasp and Challenger balanced arms released Dec 86

[Ron Hershman]

Mura Super Magnum X magnets are released Apr 87 These are the "Stage 2" magnets.




Front Line Pro Tech Int 15 mags are released Mar 87




Champion Force motors and magnets are released May 92

[Ron Hershman]

If he bought them from RS, he had to have bought hundreds and hundreds to come up with this many magnets and he also told me, no worries, I have more.........

Yes he bought hundreds of motors and "knocked" them all apart to get the magnets out of the motors....... threw everything away except the magnets I was told.

[Champion 507]

Ron, very interesting and informative!

If and when PdL comes out with his book, you might be the source to write a book on the modern era slot car history. It would be nice to preserve even the modern day stuff because there are more people still around and memories aren't quite as fuzzy as with the older stuff. Of course they might be fuzzy from other things but we won't go into that right now.

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Thanks Ron! Now I don't have ta dig fer'um

[CFL Mike]

So even til today, Im assuming that Mura still makes ProSlots and Kofords magnets right? So if people were to argue about wether Mura, ProSlots or Kofords are better, would it be safe for me to assume this is foolish? Or is there more to this (assuming the first statement is true)?

[Fast Freddie]

Not necessarly. Even if Mura does make the magnets for Proslot and Koford they may want different receipes. The material in the magnets is what gives the magnets their strength. That could be why Mega II magnets or older Mura magnets even though they are longer are weaker than the newer Mega III and Koford .450 magnets. Made by the same company? Ones cornbread the others corn mush. Same stuff different receipe.

[CFL Mike]

Not necessarly. Even if Mura does make the magnets for Proslot and Koford they may want different receipes. The material in the magnets is what gives the magnets their strength. That could be why Mega II magnets or older Mura magnets even though they are longer are weaker than the newer Mega III and Koford .450 magnets. Made by the same company? Ones cornbread the others corn mush. Same stuff different receipe.

How so? Arent they just all ceramic wet charged magnets? I dont know a whole lot about this, but I was assuming they are made out of 100% ceramic, not leaving much room to deviate; other than size and shape.

Also what were you saying about the Mega IIs and old Muras? I dont think you finished that sentence the way you wanted lol. I actually have some old Muras (90s), but im not sure if they out date before Mura had their own wet charging process. I went through and started reading this thread, and it sounds like they have quite a rocky market history, so it maybe makes me think they werent.

[Fast Freddie]

The sentence is complete. What I mean about the Mega II and Older Mura magnets is that they appear to be identical in size and shape have a weaker gauss reading than the Mega III (.450 length) and Koford .450 long GP12 magnets and they are .050 shorter.

The receipe for the ceramic magnet can vary. That's why some are stronger and some are more brittle than others. That's also why some magnets if the same run can have a gauss 50 points different then others in the same batch. Which is why some of us buy 6 pair at a time while other racers buy 25-50 pair at a time. Getting very closely matched sets of magnets is an important element in motor building.