74 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

Thanks Glen,

I just like to tear into things (especially motors ). Go ahead and give a stock one a try. PdL said he's run them OK.

[Jairus]

Only change I would make is make sure the brushes are securely attached to the brass arm and zap the magnet. Otherwise... have fun!

[dc-65x]

Here the side plates with the brass tubes are bolted-up to the motor and jig wheels. A little bending to lower the front of the motor down on the jig and we're ready to solder.



I bent the bottom rails in slightly until they just touched these alignment pins. I bent the top rails in as far as I could to a scribe line in the center of the axle tube. Why, I have no idea. I just thought it looked cool :



After soldering the rails to the axle tube I filed a bird-s mouth into some cross braces and soldered them in place. A wire wheel in the Dremel shined everything up:





Here the body is roughly in place so I can set the guide lead:





The Aristo motor is a little tall at least compared to a Pittman 196. I going to cut the windshield area out and see if a driver will fit OK before I settle on this body...

Onward!

[sportblazer350]

Great workmanship, Rick.

I am truly inspired to start building now that I have your posts here to copy.

[dc-65x]

... I am truly inspired to start building...

Thanks, Glenn. That's what it's all about. Scratchbuilders having fun and sharing there projects and information.

Please post pictures of you project for us all to enjoy .

[Prof. Fate]

Hi Rick,

If you just look under this post you will see a little bar where you tap the button and it lists all the forums here. "2008 Slot Car Convention".

I will add a post so that it will come up "new" and you could, alternately, just hit "new posts".

Fate

[dc-65x]

Thanks for steering me to the convention thread, Rocky. It was interesting reading .

Anyway, this chassis needs a drop arm so I decided to try one like this:



Installed on the chassis it works fine:



I used a Classis axle spacer for a guide tube:



The chassis is finished and ready to assemble:



I'm hoping to get by with just the one body mount. We'll see...

[dc-65x]

During the assembly I decided to use some nice lead wire I found. It's Marklin train wire and the retailer indicated that this particular wire was discontinued in the '90s. I know that a version of Marklin train wire was used back in the day. I don't know if this is exactly the same stuff. The insulation does not appear to be modern silicone, which is good. It comes in red, blue, yellow, brown, and grey colors. Here is a comparison with vintage Cox Superflex lead wire which is on the top in both pictures below:



The color is almost perfect; the Marklin is about .005" larger in diameter and has fewer and larger copper strands than the Cox. It is still nice and flexible though:



Here is the lead wire on my finished rolling chassis:



The wheels are Russkit standard width rears with 30mm German tires and Russkit fronts with Monogram 1/32 rear hard model kit tires. Wheel inserts are Russkit Cooper painted dark gray. Gears are a Wilson 8t steel pinion and an MDC 32t pot metal crown. A small Russkit Slant Guide with REH repro Cox super soft braid combed out completes the package:





The old trick of stretching the brush spring to apply more pressure worked on this motor. At 6 volts the rpms went up at the expense of a little higher amp draw from .85 to about 1 amp.

It's time to get the body and accessories ready for paint...

[MarcusPHagen]

Hi, Rick:

It looks like a piece of jewelry!

A couple of questions -

1) Is the lead wire the only downstop for the drop arm? I couldn't spot any other.

2) Why do you not want silicone-insulated wire - just for historic accuracy, or for other reasons?

[dc-65x]

Thanks, Markus.

I swear in the early days at our local raceway we didn't bother with drop arm down stops. If my memory becomes enlightened I can always add one.

Why do you not want silicone-insulated wire - just for historic accuracy, or for other reasons?

Yes, historical accuracy. I remember the "vintage police" commenting on the use of modern silicone lead wire a while back. Proper lead wire is hard to find, for me anyway. I think this Marklin stuff is pretty close...

[Gary Donahoe]

Hi Rick,

Do you remember me?

Your Cooper brings back memories of the Aristo Craft-powered 1/32 scale F1 BRM that I used to win my first ever main event at R&L Hobby circa 1965, a few months prior to when I raced against you in the tri-store series between R&L, Pasadena Speedway, and Foothill Hobbies.

As I recall the 1/32 scale BRM body was so small that it barely covered the motor. My dad built the chassis and I believe the front axle ran through the magnet mounting holes and was made from Teflon to avoid being magnetized. It was smooth, stable, and easy to drive.

I can see that your craftsmanship and attention to detail is just as outstanding as I remember from forty years back. We have some reminiscing to do. I hope we can talk more.

Gary

[TSR]

Gary,

Welcome to Slotblog!

All, Gary was involved in slot car racing in the 1960s, actually running a slot car shop if I recall correctly. Gary is a bit more famous for being Dan Gurney's All American Racers team manager during the very successful GTP era when the Eagle-Toyotas were untouchable...

Gary will pick up a controller and a D3 car as early as next week, to see if the old juices are still floating.

Gary also owns a really cool two-door NASCAR-like Galaxie...

[dc-65x]

Hi Gary,

It's great to hear from you again! I'd catch a glimpse of you on TV in the All American Racers pits and thought how great it was that your passion for cars and road racing had turned into your profession.

I remember your fire-breathing first generation Mustang Trans Am car and our times at Scotty Myers Chevron. "Yes sir, we'll have your Corvette Sting Ray all serviced in a few hours. We'll give you a ride home and pick you up when we're done..." WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Hot laps for all the lucky workers that day!

What I wish I remembered more of is our time racing slot cars though...

I’ll PM you with my email address.

[Gary Donahoe]

Philippe and Rick, thanks for the kind words.

I started racing at R&L hobby in Pasadena the summer of 1964 when I was 11, then on to GP Racing (Leon's) and finally US Raceway in Alhambra. I never ran a shop however my first job at 14 years old was selling track time at US Raceway.

After leaving Gurney's at the end of the 1997 season, I sold the Galaxie just before moving to Michigan to take a job with the Dayton Indy Lights Championship. In early 2002 I migrated back to SoCal. My fun street car now is a Porsche 914-6 that is reminiscent of the Peter Gregg/Hurley Heywood IMSA racecar of the early seventies.

Rick, I will drop you a note; we have a lot of catching up to do.

Gary

[TSR]

Thanks, Gary! And you and I will go do some practicing at BP sometimes next week to re-acquaint you with real racing!

[dc-65x]

I thought this car was looking a little plain with its skinny little tires sitting all alone out in space even though that's how we used to race these "cigar cars":



Then I remembered the pictures our friend Bryan Warmack sent me of his original '60s cars. In particular one of, if not the, most beautiful Pro race car I have ever seen. I'm not talking about a motorized model for concours but a real race car. I'm going to build my own version of this car someday so I thought I'd try my hand at putting suspension pieces on using Bryan's car for inspiration. I know there are a lot more elaborate examples out there but this is my first attempt so I wanted to not get too complicated:



I think Bryan used 5/32" tube for bushings and soldered directly to them. I had to come up with something a little different since I'm using huge 1/4" ball bearings. So I soldered the suspension to the axle bracket:



I made up some coilover shocks with a ballpoint pen spring, NSR axle spacers, and some brass tube:



I think they look OK installed for my first attempt :





For the front A-arms I think Bryan soldered his to the lower frame rails. Since my lower rails angle up to meet the axle tube I had to do some extra bending and came up with these:



They slide into the lower rail's hole and get soldered on, like so:



I made the upper control arm out of sheet brass and soldered it on top of the upper frame rails:





I think the suspension pieces will stand out a lot more when the body is painted but here's how it looks so far.





Next up is making exhaust pipes, velocity stacks, roll bar, and the interior...

Onward...

[TSR]

That's a pretty cool car. Please keep up the good work, for the sake of good craftsmanship. Lord knows it is rapidly becoming a lost art.

[Jairus]

Nice work, Rick! You just have to keep raising the bar huh?

[68Caddy]

Rick,

Best stuff I have seen in a long time, thats what I call thinking out of the box.

That is forward progress instead of re-hatching the PAST.

Thank you so much.

Totally cool.

Respect,

Nesta aka 68Caddy

[Vay Jonynas]

The motor I choose is a 6 volt version of the Aristo Craft open frame job.

Is this the same Aristo-Craft company that now makes the 1/29 scale model trains?

[don.siegel]

I believe it is, Vay, at least indirectly.

Aristo-Craft was the house brand for Polks Hobbies, which was one of the leading hobby shops and distributors starting in the '30s - and helped introduce slot racing to the country by importing the original Scalextric sets, then setting up a wood track in their New York shop in the early '60s. They imported a lot of slot stuff from Japan, like this motor, sold under the Aristo-Craft label.

I don't remember the exact story, but after the shop closed ('70s or '80s), there was still the distribution business, including mostly model train stuff, and they had also branched out into some manufacturing, and this is the descendant... what I don't remember if it was any of the original people and/or company, or if it was just the brand that was purchased...

Don

[TSR]

Yes, it is. Aristo-Craft is a trademark of Polk's Hobbies in NYC.

[tonyp]

Polk was also the Mabuchi importer for the USA right? I know Mabuchi was in the Polk building...

[TSR]

Correct, which explains all the Mabuchi or KMK (same thing) motors inside Aristo-Craft packaging.

[newso]

Inspirational stuff, Rick!

Along with the work that Jairus shows us from time to time, especially the BRM. It reminds me of having to get back to the bench and start a project or two.

Running RTR cars is what I do at the moment and you have jogged me into thinking how easily I have been led down that track.

One thing I would like to know is that most of my scratchbuilts have been using piano wire combos, and you guys seem to use brass rod almost exclusively. Is there any reason for that, or is it more of a cosmetic thing?

Looking forward to seeing the build progress.

Best regards,