59 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

how long are the stacks and what diameter is the arm???

Hi Ron,

The stacks are .500" long and .510" in diameter. The stack insulation is blue and the epoxy has a reddish-brown tint to it.

[Ron Hershman]

I would safely say that arm was wound for a B-can due to its diameter and it's probably of 1968-70 Vintage. Most everyone was running .500" or so long stacks in '69.

It would also fit an A-can nicely, too.

[Bill from NH]

In the 1971 to 1981 timeframe we ran .510" arms in the Champion C-cans with .525-.530" holes. Lengths for the most part were whatever the manufacturer put on it; most people weren't adding or deleting laminations like in the '60s.

If that Champion blank is light blue/gray in color, it's one of the older ones. If it's royal blue or orange, it's one of the newer blanks.

[dc-65x]

Hi Bill,

It's a blue/grey color. Thanks for your imput. It further places my armature BACK IN TIME.

Thanks to you too, Ron, 16D and B-cans... yummy.

[Steve Deiters]

I just wanted add a couple of things about the Rocket arms.

They were wound by Tom Lindstedt and Dick Wittenaur in Louisville. My spelling might be off on their last names but Linstedt's first name was Tom. They worked together at the GE plant in Appliance Park where they made... appliances. If I remember correctly Tom was an engineer by training - very cerebral - and Dick worked in the plant for GE. They raced in the TriState Series which was a big monthly series of races held in the Ohio and Indiana area at various tracks. Tom was the engineering brainy type and Dick transformed his ideas into hardware.

I was in their shop once with Bob Collins and Art Deitrich who were also Tri-State racers. They had an impressive winding facility, vacuum chamber for epoxying the arms, and of course the balancer.

As far as did they use Mura or Champion blanks the answer is they probably used both. At the time (late '60s-early '70s) the manufacturers ran hot and cold on selling blanks to independent winders for a variety of reasons.

One was there was such a demand for their products they just weren't any surplus available for sale. They had a hard time keeping up with orders for their own armatures and motors.

The second was why sell armature blanks to someone who makes a product that means one less of ours armatures will be sold? Their logic may have been off a little bit, but I understand where they were coming from.

The third was many of these winders were "insufficently capitalized," if you want to put it in business parlance, and just didn't have the cash to buy the minimum number of blanks required for an order on a regular basis.

They were fun times and it was people like Dick and Tom, John Thorpe, Ron Mura, Bob (?) Lenz, Bob Green, Jim Greenaway, Joel "Monty" Montague, Pete Zimmerman (my vote for one of the best winders), the Steubes, Tim (?) Reedy (Reetez arms), Ben Krume (anyone remember him?), and other winders that help take the slot racing to the next technical level of innovation and set the stage for succeeding innovations.

Maybe a new topic should be added just discussing winders from the era. The technological excellence and progress could be witnessed on almost a weekly basis. It was fascinating to watch and interesting to be a participant, at least on the fringes.

[Noose]

Ben Krume (anyone remember him?)

Sure do! Had the raceway in Berwyn and his wife Helen did painting, too.

[Ron Hershman]

It was Mike Reedy who went on to become the motor guru at Associated R/C. Don't forget Neil McCurdy and Jim Greenmeyer.

Anyone know who wound the arms at Certus???

[tonyp]

Carl Certus? I thought they were rebadged Muras???

[tonyp]

I thought Bob Kean wound the prettiest stuff at the time out here.

Big Jim Greenaway was not as pretty but made some great power.

[Ron Hershman]

Carl Certus? I thought they were rebadged Muras???

I thought so, too... but had to ask.

Who was the winder for Dyna-Rewind???

[Edo]

About Certus:

"Certus really didn't start until late '66 and grew until '69. They changed their hobby direction in '72-'73 and closed out their slot car motor production. The yellow Mabuchi's were torn down in '66 to supply the first rewind armatures. Later armature supplies were purchased from Tradeship, Mura, Champion, and others.

The main contribution by Certus was the armature rewinds and build-up parts. I recall they were like many of the companies in the day, using items produced by others and fine tuning them to their specifications. They were one of the first to produce the machined spring post protectors. They contracted with a manufacturer in the midwest to produce their springs and brushes. Belden Electric supplied their motor leads.

I believe the early green rewinds were not rewinds but Classic Comp arms that had winds removed. I think it was either a 30-31 gauge wire. About 10-15 winds were taken off each pole and then resoldered, balanced, and epoxy-coated. The total epoxy didn't last long as the weakness was found to be the standard commutators. The standard timed (brown phenolic resin) was the first attempt to correct this problem. This was in late '67 early '68.

Then Tradeship came out with the explosion-proof commutators (36D size and weld or fold over tabs to hold the mag wire). These led to use/modifying of endbells to fit on the 16Ds and use the 36D brushes. Better heat transfer, heavier brushes displace less and provide better electrical conductivity. With the no-blow commutator and the balancing, the wires began to be thrown. This required the string epoxy setup you see in the product that I am selling.

The black cans begin to appear in late '67. The first winds were the same as what I am currently selling, single-24, 25, 26; double 27s. They also produced a few double 24-25s, 25-26s and some triple 28-28-27, 29-28-28.

Some silver rewinds were tried but few entered production they were mostly test. Silver mag wire fell out of favor as the price kept increasing in relation to copper. It finally reached a point where economics dictated they drop silver rewinds.

They also built Group 7-specific arms to comply with rules that were then in effect."

As written by Randy on SlotForum:

Vintage&Collector's Corner

[68Caddy]

Edo,

Love it, you are so good with information, thank you for taking notes to keep us up to date of the past.

Nesta aka 68Caddy

[havlicek]

I'm looking forward to seeing this motor built, and hearing what the result is. Unless it was mentioned and I missed it, is there any record of what wind this #25 is? It looks from the pictures to be less than 20 turns??? It sure is inspiring to see all the great "old-style muscle cars" that guys like you, Jairus, and others put together.

When I was a kid, I could only dream (on a paperboy's salary) of owning cars like these and here we are all these years later seeing them come to life again.

[dc-65x]

We're on the same page, John . I love to see how the old cars "move".

As for this armature, I have to decide what to put it in. It looks like I can go 1969 to 1971 or so and that means A, B, and C-cans are a possibility.

Thanks to everyone for their input .

[havlicek]

... a big 10-4, Rick. The whole retro thing is interesting to me and that includes especially cars and motors like these. I did have a couple of store-bought "hot" motors as a kid, but I had to learn to "roll my own" out of necessity ($$$).

The cool thing is that became one of my favorite aspects of slot cars (after destroying various red, yellow, and gold Mabuchis figuring out how). Later... I got something I think called a "Green Giant"(?) that was another real "stomper" also.

This "Rocket" looks like it will be true to its name once it gets to "live again"!

[Prof. Fate]

Hi,

In the era, I remember several "green" motors on the market.

There was, of course, the Dynamic "Green Hornet" stuff, which I don't remember anyone running.

There was a guy in the intermountain west named "Ricky Green" who did motors he called "Green Monsters".

And then there was "Bob Green" who was later the guy who introduced me to what are now C-cans and later was senior in Mura. In his case, he called his arms "Vulcans", and all of us at the time referred to all C-cans generically as "Green Cans".

I am sure P knows about more, but those are the ones I remember seeing at the counter "in the day".

While P flirts with European socialism, we still talk slot cars!

Grin...

Fate

[havlicek]

My first thought was that it was somehow associated with Bob Green, but I don't know that to be the case and I am pretty sure the motor was bagged and tagged as "Green Giant". A lot of stuff from back then is lost to me now though.

In any case, this "Rocket" (honest wear and all) sure is pretty.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi,

Well, in the early '60s, I even painted my rewinds green. No one in North Carolina had seen the green Tradeship cans, and I was the only rewinder for a few hours drive. in the RACE, I wanted to know who was running my motors, so I painted them green just to be able to see them.

Ironically, decades later, this NUT named John Cauthen had a war online with PdL. And in an early post while we were still arguing slots; out of nowhere JC said he had heard of me in North Carolina and mentioned green cans!

Sigh.

Remembered by NUTS.

But I didn't name them. The track I was working out of in Goldsboro, NC, was having me do a lot of stuff.

Fate

[Bill from NH]

So just maybe John wasn't always nuts?

[S.O. Watt]

I remember the boys from PeeWee Valley! Good group of guys that were fun. Never ran any but did get offered once or twice. Thanks for the memory jog.

[Jon Laster]

Looks like I will be updating my "Pro Racing Motors" timeline...

Champion got their C-can on the market before Mura introduced theirs.

Otherwise it'd be called a "M" can!

But the exact timeline might be that Mura's B-can endbell was the basis for early Green and others cut-downs, but Champion had the first complete and seriously flawed package.

Jon Laster

[Ron Hershman]

The B-can program was a complete flop for Mura due to the magnets...

Bob Green was hired to get Mura out of the jam and he was told by George Mura that there could be no new tooling. Bob developed the "Green" C-can using the B endbell with "shims" and magnets from Stackpole. Mura had to break down and pay for new can tooling to make the C-can, and after the B endbell stock was depleted, Mura then sprung for new endbell tooling so shims were not needed.

The rest is history.

[brucefl]

HI ARE YOU THE BASKETBALL PLAYER? ABOUT ARMATURE WINDING,WHAT DO YOU USE FOR WINDING,WIRE MWS 240c DEGREE ,EPOXY DUPONT 600 DEGREE F ,THESE ARE WHAT I AM AWARE OF THAT JIM GREENAWAY USED AND THEY ARE STILL AVAILABLE,THE BLANKS AND COMMUTATORS ON THE OTHER HAND I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHERE THEY COULD BE GOTTEN IF YOU WOULD BE WILLING TO SHARE INFO ON THESE SUPPLIES I JUST WOULD LIKE TO FIDDLE,AND IVE WOUND IN THE 70s FOR MYSELF ONLY BY HAND RECENTLY I FOUND SOME REALLY INTERESTING CRANK WINDERS HOW DO YOU WIND,THANKS FOR YOUR HELP SINCERLY BRUCE A SCHWARTZ
I don't know anything about the history of all the beautiful vintage pieces I see posted about here, but to me that is a beautiful piece of horsepower... vintage or not... and whoever did the work sure as heck did it right from the looks of it, Rick. To me... a Cosworth is just as beautiful as a blown "Rat" motor; I think what you got there is closer to the "Rat". It looks like it's timed way up there!

It looks to me that the pitting might not be much of a functional problem since the arm will be riding on the still-there high spots, but that running it in bearings should make what's left wear longer since the bearing race should be doing the turning. If the shaft still mikes at or close to spec (comparing to the not-pitted spots) it should run just fine for a limited amount of actual track time. I suppose that silver-soldering the pitting might help, but that getting the solder to really flow into the pits means using acid and I wouldn't want to do that if it were mine. Then there's the heat involved with soldering... no way to know how even "getting in and out fast" with the heat will affect the arm.


... all my so-far "favorite" winds come in right at .2 ohms. The "83" (the seeming best of the #23s I've done) I posted about in the Scratchbuilding forum is one of them. Thanks to both you and Jairus for the props, too.

[mrprostreet]

January 1973

[TSR]

Thanks Vinny for posting this so that people can see the correct spelling of Dick's name.
I will post pictures of actual NOS Rocket arms bagged in their original pale blue cards next time I will go to LA.
Both Tom Lindstedt and Dick Wittenauer were great guys. I met both in 1971 after a visit in Berwyn at Ben Krum's track. I also have some of Ben' armatures and they were quite good.

Rick, the C-can you show with the body machined down is indeed a Camen. The Champion drawn C cans are absolute junk, but the thicker stamped cans were very good. They are not so hard to find and someone just sold about a half dozen of them, NOS in original package, one at a time, on E-Pay just a month ago. You could get a perfect one for under twenty bucks.
The red end bells for them are not so easy to find as they were NOT a Mura head but a Champion part and they had clearance molded in for the can's "ears" that were fastened with a top and bottom flat-head screw. Hard parts to find today.

To respond to another question, the armature winder at Dyna-Rewind was Ted Lech. He was an absolute genius as far as DC motors were concerned. He was, as Bud Stordhal, the Dyna-Rewind's owner, an engineer at General Motors.
Ted absconded in 1971, abandoning wife and children, and literally vanished along with a young blonde thing who was into substance abuse. No one knows of his or her whereabouts to this day. It is believed that they fled to Canada.
I have a full chapter about Dyna-Rewind with great pictures, ready to cook.
I thank Brad Blohm for his help on that particular chapter as he was able to get me in contact with Bud, now retired in Oregon. I had a fine interview with him last year as I visited MacMinville and its Evergreen aircraft museum, where Bud volunteers work.