29 replies to this topic

[Steve Okeefe]

In the early R&C races for sports cars and coupes, most of the available bodies were close to scale - which is to say they were narrow - well under the three inches allowed by the rules.

 

Those same R&C rules also required the front wheels remain inside the body and not be visible from the top, where the rear tires could extend past the body by 1/16" on each side.  Nevertheless, if the body you wanted to use was only 2-3/4" wide, this still won't get you to the three inches you are allowed.

 

In 1966, you didn't just chuck the body and find a different one that "fit" better (mostly because there weren't any!) instead you made what you had work.  One of the ways builders coped with this situation was to flare the fender wells to make the body wider.  How this was done has become one of the "lost arts" of building early slot racing cars.

 

At this point I must admit I've never actually done this! But I do remember reading that builders would literally tie an old teaspoon (using metal - perhaps copper - wire) to a small soldering iron with the tip of the iron inside the bowl of the spoon to heat it up just enough to use this whole contraption to soften and form the edges of the wheel wells into a flared shape (very clever!) 

 

Amongst all of the SlotBlog members out there, surely there are a few who have experience with this "lost art" and could explain how they did it for the benefit of those of us who would like to replicate this practice for our R&C builds.

 

If you've done any fender flaring in the past, and you remember how you did it, please tell us! 

[Tex]

I flared the wheelwells on my first (and only) Retro Jail Door car. I used a McLaren MkII made of PETG.... probably acquired from Tom Anderson(?). Hearing that spoons were somehow used to accomplish the task in the old days, I tried to improvise with an old spoon. I cut off most of the handle of a spoon, removed the tip from my soldering iron, and inserted the spoon. But there wasn't enough surface area making contact with the heating element to be practical. So, I improvised. I'm kind of embarrassed to say what I did next. I used a socket wrench. I slipped just the socket over my soldering iron. Once I figured it was "up to heat", I slid the socket off onto something that wouldn't melt or catch fire and pressed the handle into the socket. Then I held the heated socket to the wheelwell of the body. It takes a little practice to figure out how long to hold it there, to soften the PETG sufficiently but not TOO much. I kinda rotated the socket against the wheelwell until I saw it starting to become "mallable"(?). You just have to work with it, rotating the socket and pulling "up" slightly against the wheelwell to get the wheelwell to begin flaring. If I recall correctly, I had to reheat the socket a couple of times as the handle acted as a giant heatsink, sucking the heat out of the socket pretty quickly.
 
I'll try tying the spoon to the iron next time. LOL
 
Oh yeah, buy a couple of bodies for your first try; use one body to practice on before working on the one to actually be used. I'll post a picture later this evening after I get home from work.

[SlotStox#53]

Sounds a real work of art doing this, one technique this R&C builder would love to recreate! So will be very interested hearing the different ways

Like the sound of using the heated spoon, just like Rick when he's formed or bubbled an interior by heating a jig motor with a soldering iron then pushing the heated motor into the interior ,gaining clearance without showing the motor

[S.O. Watt]

A heated up socket somewhere around a 3/4" (OD somewhere around 1" IIRC) worked quite well for me back then. Lotus 40s rocked when flared out.

[Tex]

At the time I did mine, I didn't have a... a?.... one of those doohickeys to control the heat to your iron(rheostat device). Using one of those to moderate/modulate the heat would be VERY advisable. I "think" if you have your spoon/socket/iron too hot and leave the PETG in contact with it too long, it will stick and it's game over.

[MSwiss]

I would think it would work if you left the socket on the iron,and regulated the heat with a heat control/rheostat.

[Tex]

I would think it would work if you left the socket on the iron,and regulated the heat with a heat control/rheostat.

 

Yes, but the trick would be to SECURE the socket to the iron, so it doesn't just wobble and rotate around the iron.

[Noose]

I used a lighter to heat the spoon and then flared the wheel well. 

[Lone Wolf]

Police Officer - Why are you heating up that spoon with a lighter?

 

Unsavory character ( read junkie, not Noose) - I am using it to flare the wheel wells on my McLaren

 

Police Officer - OK, I believe you

[Pablo]

Same as Noose.  We used normal size spoons, not teaspoons.

[Michael Rigsby]

Back when I did this, my mom donated one of her old teaspoons, which I modified slightly, then used champion rewinding wire to tie it to a 25 watt soldering iron I got from Lafayette Radio store (we called it Laffin' Idiot Radio).  I kept this in my box at home for when I did my bodies and it worked great. Used to do mine and for several other folks as well.  I could really make some pretty flares with that thing.  Wasn't hard to master at all and I don't remember messing up any bodies as the heat from the 25 watt iron was just about right.

[gascarnut]

I remember Mike Steube (or perhaps it was Tony P) saying that they used a socket, but that they coated it with ATF and heated till the ATF started smoking. That stopped the socket sticking to the body.

[SlotStox#53]

All noted down and will be put to use, the Porsche needs a bit of widening

[Tex]

I used a lighter to heat the spoon and then flared the wheel well. 

 

 

LOL

 

I could just see me trying to juggle the hot spoon without anything to insulate the handle.

 

Using the lighter sounds like the simplest idea so far. Sure, you'd have to reheat the spoon, but talk about "low tech" that works!

[Noose]

Hey at 14 years old I made do.

[Tex]

Hey at 14 years old I made do.

 

Spoken like a true shade-tree mechanic that most scratchbuilders are!

[Tom Eatherly]

What Dennis said. I'm pretty sure that little tidbit came from Steube.

[gascarnut]

Hey at 14 years old I made do.

At 14 years old you had a lighter??

[Tex]

At 14 years old you had a lighter??

 

How did YOU light YOUR cigarettes at 14?!

[S.O. Watt]

Is butyrate the same or similar to what is used now for pulling bodies, excluding polycarbonate?

 

When using the socket, I had probably a 6" extension in it and heated the socket over the natural gas range in the family kitchen, the same one I used for bending up the rear legs of the spring steel chassis I used to build.

[gascarnut]

 
How did YOU light YOUR cigarettes at 14?!

I didn't smoke at that age, but those that did used matches. Proper wooden ones, Not those funny paper things you had here in the US.

!

[Tex]

Here's my McLaren MkII with flared fenders. The body was originally 2 - 3/4" wide; the fenders have been flared out to 3". I sent it out to BP for a JD race a few years back; don't ask what happened. LOL  The car has been repaired better than ever.

 

[Tex]

I didn't smoke at that age, but those that did used matches. Proper wooden ones, Not those funny paper things you had here in the US.

!

 

THOSE "matchboxes" were used for other purposes around '67/'68.

[Tim Neja]

Most bodies today are Lexan!! You didn't have that back in the 60's!!  The temperature melting point is a little closer to the flash point I believe!! You're gonna have to be CAREFUL!! On my hardbody plastic cars--it's easy to heat the plastic with a "heat gun"--then shape it with whatever I need for a form!!   But expanding lexan is a bit more of a challenge!!

[MSwiss]

Just curious.

 

Back in the day was flaring the fenders expressly allowed or was it a grey area deal?

 

Who was the arbiter of were they done neatly enough?