45 replies to this topic

[Bob Kurkowski]

There was a time when racers-builders use to design and build cars from, brass strips, piano wire, and sheet steel that were hand cut, bent, and formed by hand and cut out with a Dremel and not poured out of a bag and just tacked together with a few straight pieces of wire

 

One such racer-builder is fellow by the name of Greg Tufford from Berkley Michigan who showed up at the Shinoda reunion at Downriver Speedways and brought a collection of chassis he built over the years.

 

Coming from the old days and building these types of cars I understand and appreciate Greg's workmanship.

 

Bob K.

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[miko]

Very nice work!

[Eliot]

I placed second in unlimited with one of Greg's chassis!  They are truly pieces of art!  It's seriously the most enjoyable chassis to drive that I have in my entire collection!

[Dominator]

Great looking chassis

[MSwiss]

There was a time when racers-builders use to design and build cars from, brass strips, piano wire, and sheet steel that were hand cut, bent, and formed by hand and cut out with a Dremel and not poured out of a bag and just tacked together with a few straight pieces of wire

The chassis posted look great.

 

While kits are certainly popular in Retro, they still scratchbuild quite a bit in Retro East.

 

http://slotblog.net/...rt-jeff-report/

 

5 of the 6 podium cars, in the 2 classes run that day, are scratchbuilt.

 

Not shown are the the other A Main, great, scratchbuilt cars, of Tom Adams and John Gorski.

 

Note the reference in that thread where it was thought, 7 of the 8 cars, in the Can Am, A Main, were scratchbuilt,( and by at least 4 different builders)

[slotcarone]

Poured out of a bag and tacked together with straight wire? I guess Bob you have never built a Retro chassis!

[Samiam]

The chassis posted look great.

 

While kits are certainly popular in Retro, they still scratchbuild quite a bit in Retro East.

 

http://slotblog.net/...rt-jeff-report/

 

5 of the 6 podium cars, in the 2 classes run that day, are scratchbuilt.

 

Not shown are the the other A Main, great, scratchbuilt cars, of Tom Adams and John Gorski.

 

Note the reference in that thread where it was thought, 7 of the 8 cars, in the Can Am, A Main, were scratchbuilt,( and by at least 4 different builders)

And this is one of the reasons Retro has become so popular. With both returnees and newbies. Being able to design, build then race your creation is a big  attraction to so many, including myself. While I have some kit cars, building one from the "K&S kit" gives me the most satisfaction.

 

The chassis pictured here are some of my favorite to collect and run. Load up a H-Power Green Can Mura in one of those, mount up a pair of orange tires  and grab your Koford external resistor controller and go for it. Don't forget some "Stick-It Brown".

[Bob Kurkowski]

Never assembled a retro car out of a bag but I have scratchbuilt retro cars with every component hand made.

 

Bob K.

 

 

 

 

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[havlicek]

Yep.  I second Mike's and Sam's comments.  There sure still seems to be a lot of scratchbuilding-for-racing (*and some scratchbuilding for recreating old classics) going on.  Having said all that, the chassis all look really nice.  Being anglewinders, and some with steel center-sections and nose-pieces ups the ante as well.  Then again, Tony P is still cranking-out masterpieces (*I don't know how the heck he does it), and there are very few who know about "how scratch-building used to be" like he does!

Anyway, great looking chassis!

[Eddie Fleming]

 Ouch, just a slap in the face of us that don't build kits but enjoy building and racing our creations. If you look at the race reports sure you see a lot of JK and RGO kits but you see a lot of individual creations too. Look at the race reports from out west and you see very few kits. Even the kit built cars usually are more creative than just tacking a kit together.

 

 Mr Tufford has some very nice chassis and it looks like he does fine work, but there are excellent builders around building cars today for today.

[Bob Kurkowski]

Ed,

 

No slap in the face, its just some truthful commentary on the way it use to be.

 

Bob K.

[Brian Cochrane]

It takes both to make retro work

[Samiam]

Bob,

Nice piece of Motor Art. I just got an idea of what to do with all my obsolete lawnmower parts.

[Brian Cochrane]

Scratch building proves you can always come up with something better each time. I love to design and build them as much as I love to race them. No disrespect to the companies and friends that supply kits.It takes everyones efforts to make slot racing work. Thank god we still have and can do it...

[Bob Kurkowski]

Sam,

 

You weren't suppose to see that. Now you have to try and describe what you saw.

 

I can't get photos to post in full size on this website, it always chops sections off. If Greg Wells is watching this please send me a email and I'll send you the photos and maybe you can post them in the full format.

 

Merry Christmas...Bob K.

[Tex]

I've debated myself internally, about saving time by buying chassis' from the top builders with winning provenance. But I never do; building and racing my own chassis always wins out. I start out with a general idea which usually devolves quickly into a Rube Goldberg contraption because I forgot about "this", so I do "that" to accomodate, which in turn creates more hurdles further down the build... never fails. But with every new chassis comes the dream that THIS chassis may be "the one"... still waiting.  LOL

[Uncle Fred]

I'm glad you did that internally Rich, although in Denton it might not matter.....  Seriously, Rich doesn't give himself enough credit. His chassis are fast, strong and unique. Did I mention he won Can Am at the Texas Two Step in Dallas last month?

[MSwiss]

Greg T did a lot of terrific hand-cutting, but he also appears to use prefab parts quite a bit.

Guys were hand-cutting parts out of necessity, not because they necessarily liked doing it.

Almost 100% of the top cars from the late 60's, early 70's, used some sort of prefab droparm from Cobra, Nutley, Associated, etc.

And if appropriate pans were available, they were used.

It was the same in the 80's.

Guys that were great at hand-cutting steel sections, like Csaba, were also the first guys, getting stuff made on an EDM.

We were racing and trying to figure out the best way to get race cars built and win races.

I won the 88 World's with a chassis, I handcut the center section, from A2 air-hardening steel.

I won the Nat's, 2 month's later, with a Koford, EDM cut, factory center section.

I didn't feel any more proud of one win, vs. the other.

Even though I won $2,500 with the hand cut center chassis, shortly after the race, I stripped all the pcs. I wanted to save for another chassis, like the wire motor brace, and threw it in the garbage, because the center rail had snapped twice in the race.

It meant nothing to me.

It was just a broken race car part.

[kvanpelt]

Back to basics for me. Planning on only self builds in 2018.

 

Not worrying about motors any more either. Traded or sold all but my RH 7R motors.

 

SCM's aren't going to ruin slots for me. 

[JerseyJohn]

A few scratch builts..

[Bob Kurkowski]

A few more.

 

Bob K.

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[MSwiss]

Great looking piece, Bob.

Maybe it's time for Greg to add a "Scratchbuiding as Sculpture" forum, to Slotblog, for works like the above, Marinko Mueller, and the super-talented French builder's, Frédéric Presles and Régis Baron.

Some of Frédéric's and Régis's terrific work;

http://slotblog.net/.../60101-go-kart/

http://slotblog.net/...ntage-inspired/

[Gene/ZR1]

A few more.

 

Bob K.

MINE!  I want a kart!

[Don Weaver]

Now that's some kind of clever build  !!

 

Don

[don.siegel]

Amen, great looking Kart Bob. 

 

Don