3573 replies to this topic

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Sort of an upgrade? I hope to shout as "stock" was a 32!

Glad you are having fun.

Fate

[don.siegel]

Hmm, you mean the stock Wildcat was 32 Rocky? I seem to remember you saying the stock Russkit 23 was 34 - is that right? I would have thought they were roughly comparable...

Another nice looking rewind John! How many turns of 28 are you using (if it's not a trade secret)? I seem to remember using about 45 or 50 of the 28, but I may have actually gone no larger than 29 when I stopped racing in 68...

Don

[havlicek]

Hi Rocky,

Sort of an upgrade? I hope to shout as "stock" was a 32!

Hmmm Rocky, what i said was:

(but still a considerable upgrade from stock)

knowing that the stock motors were pretty anemic. The way this thing is, it would be right at home in some chassis from that time as a "hot" motor, but it really is an "all day runner" and mild by today's standards. The 26awg I did is a whole different thing and is strong even by today's measure, although nowhere near crazy

Hi Don,

Another nice looking rewind John! How many turns of 28 are you using (if it's not a trade secret)? I seem to remember using about 45 or 50 of the 28, but I may have actually gone no larger than 29 when I stopped racing in 68...

...no trade secrets anymore Don. The days when people kept all that stuff close to the vest are long gone. The only secrets nowadays are where to get blanks, hi-temp epoxy and how to perform some functions. Luckily, I've been able to find out some from helpful people, and figure out the rest. For this motor with new D can magnets, I did 40 turns of 28 and it's about perfect for what I had intended. Zippy, low current draw and almost no heat to speak of. Once again...THANKS Don.

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Don, the 23 is a previous generation from the "wildcat" which uses the same can as the SP80, but endbell drive.

In that case, the standard mabuchi of the period was a 34 single listed as a "12 volt" wind. The wildcat was an "8 volt" like, oddly, the Pittman 196B and usually ment a 32! Usually measures 1 ohm on the stack.

And John, that is my point. 28 is considerably hotter than the 32 it came with. And 26?

In the day, it was common to build a motor in HOPE that it would survive the race...barely. And where I was racing, the qualifiying was usually laps and sections rather than a hot lap. Usually a pair at a time. It was too easy to have someone ruin your qualification and end up NOT in the 8. Further, it wasn't allowed to have time in the race or between to change major parts. The rules usually specified that.

Thus, the tension was how hot. I MIGHT get a 26 to live for practice, a 2 minute qualifier and a 40 minute A main. But my driving skills were such, that I couldn't rely on qualifying for the A.

I usually went with a 29! I know someone somewhere has a photo of my survivor from 66 in a 66 Ferrari with a piano wire chassis. That car won a lot of races in its day with a 29 in it. One of the first races I was in, I couldn't get to the track in time for qualifying. Was placed LAST in the "N" main. And won every main between that and the A! 100 Foot Orange track. On a 29.

My problem in the day wasn't always as simple as building a faster motor, but one that would live forever!

grin.

Fate

[havlicek]

Hi Rocky,

That was my point when I said it was a substantial upgrade Keep in mind also that these have new magnets and Tradeship EBs, so I doubt the 28 will ever get anything more than a bit warm. The 26 is a stormer for sure, but still not a hand grenade. I wouldn't wanna run it in an enduro though

-john

[brucefl]

first of all as jim greenaway told me he used a single component product from dupont and i spoke with the top engineer there since these compounds are naturalsource products there is a limitation to their capacities dont let koford fool you there is nothing possible at this time that exceeds temp range of the ml coating wire which is 240C temp and even if there was it wouldnt matter because the wire would fail first,unless you use the ceramic magnet wire which goes up to 1200F and is designed for motor wind the price of that wire would come out to $30. per armature when you buy i think a $500. or $1000. spool 1 pound for 24AWG. thinner sizes double or quadruple price,ive got the ml wire a 10 pound spool i used to supply it to some racers in the 60s/70s at nutley raceway,i would get and share my supplies IF I COULD GET SOURCES FOR ARMATURE BLANKES AND COMMUTATORS,IVE SPOKEN TO BEST O THE WEST MOTOR BUILDER AND HE HAD TO BRIBE ONE OF THE TOP COMPANIES FOR THE BEST COMMS BUT (MONTY OHREN) THEY ARE SCARSE AND NOBODIES REVEALING THERE SOURCE MANUFACTURER,GUYS LET ME KNOW WHATS POSSIBLE.

[brucefl]

THE WILDEST WIND JIM WOUND WAS A PURELY EXPERIMENTAL DOUBLE 26 TALK ABOUT SCREAMING WOW THAT WOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO SINGLE 23 AND THAT WAS AROUND 40 YEARS AGO.RICK BOLTIZAR WON OFTEN WITH JIMS DOUBLE 27.

[havlicek]

Hi Bruce,

first of all as jim greenaway told me he used a single component product from dupont and i spoke with the top engineer there since these compounds are naturalsource products there is a limitation to their capacities dont let koford fool you there is nothing possible at this time that exceeds temp range of the ml coating wire which is 240C temp and even if there was it wouldnt matter because the wire would fail first

That's what I've and others here have figured as well when talking about this stuff with folks here who mention the Koford stuff. In any case, I doubt that people who still race in the fastest divisions would even consider going with a home-wound arm. With the costs of those motors and the technology involved with producing them, those people have put themselves way out of range of what's doable "in the basement". Then again, they're not using piano wire and plate chassis either, so it's become a speed-at-all-cost thing ...BUT that has produced insanely fast cars and lap times, amazing!

IF I COULD GET SOURCES FOR ARMATURE BLANKES AND COMMUTATORS,IVE SPOKEN TO BEST O THE WEST MOTOR BUILDER AND HE HAD TO BRIBE ONE OF THE TOP COMPANIES FOR THE BEST COMMS BUT (MONTY OHREN)

Sadly, obtaining blanks and coms is ridiculously difficult still and the days when you could buy that stuff OTC at your local raceway from several different manufacturers are loooooong gone. There are some vintage pieces around on Electric Dreams and from private sellers and doing the old Mabuchis is still as much fun for me as it ever was. The 16D stuff (which is the most appealing for me) is seemingly more difficult to obtain than the larger sizes though. I may ask Rick ("RGEO") about a 26D and 36D fixture for my winding crank someday. Mura will sell arm blanks in either .007" or .014" lams, powder coated and assembled to whatever stack length and they seem fine although I have had some difficulties with shaft trueness and don't have any predictable way to true the shafts (although I have worked out some ways to get pretty much "there"). Mura will also sell their "Diamond Cut" coms which seem to be of very good quality to me. Even so, the Mura stuff is expensive and figuring the arm/com/HT epoxy/magnet wire and other doo-dads, the cost per arm comes out to near $20 just for the materials. It seems really odd that the manufacturers other than Mura won't sell the stuff (I've tried) as obviously the vast majority of people would rather buy complete arms over the counter.

You may want to try Ron Hershman here also as he was going to wind a bunch of arms for Rick and apparently has/had some blanks and coms???

THE WILDEST WIND JIM WOUND WAS A PURELY EXPERIMENTAL DOUBLE 26 TALK ABOUT SCREAMING WOW THAT WOULD BE EQUIVALENT TO SINGLE 23 AND THAT WAS AROUND 40 YEARS AGO.RICK BOLTIZAR WON OFTEN WITH JIMS DOUBLE 27.

Yeah...I've done a couple #26dbl winds and a bunch of #23 sgl winds and they're crazy hot. The biggest problem is the com attachment and I had some failures of the hottest winds but have since gone to welding/brazing the com attachment on all winds hotter than #26 sgl. I've started using "Solder It" for #26 and milder winds (of course, the vintage stuff like the Tradeship coms can't (as far as I can figure) be welded anyway. The "Solder It" silver solder/flux paste melts and flows at 430°F and supposedly will only remelt afterwards at around 650°F so it seems an excellent solution for this application and other in slot car building and the syringe applicator makes it ideal for precision soldering tasks in general.

I've done a bunch of #24/#25/#26 winds and those that I've done after starting to weld the coms seem to be really fast. I've had several people tell me that the cars will simply spin the tires all the way down the straight and will burn-up rubber pretty quickly. Sounds like fun to me! Anyway, doing all this for fun even all the way down to the really hot winds is a blast and quite doable with some patience and experimenting. Koford and the other manufacturers have nothing to worry about from the average home winder both because there really isn't a demand or class in racing circles for strictly home-wound arms and the open stuff is beyond what can be done at home. There is however GREAT enjoyment to be had for the enthusiast!

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

In the day, in my area, almost all the arms were factory. There were 4 of us making arms. And all of us did a 22!

None of us had a controller that would deal with that! Ceramic magnets!

And as jokes, we fabricated ones with coat hanger" that didn't run. In a race, I don't remember any success given MY limits as a driver with any arm hotter than a 25, though. I still have a couple 24s around that I didn't build, and one I got from Bob Green in 26, but none of the silly stuff survived that I know.

As for spinning tires.... I was doing some 1/32 club racing a bit ago and often ran this Mosler in Gulf colors that would do that. I didn't win much with it. The locals were asking why I was bothering. Explaining that it was FUN to listen to the tires spin all the way down the straight!

Then and now, racers don't seem to enjoy the motor part like we do John!

Fate

[havlicek]

As for spinning tires.... I was doing some 1/32 club racing a bit ago and often ran this Mosler in Gulf colors that would do that. I didn't win much with it. The locals were asking why I was bothering. Explaining that it was FUN to listen to the tires spin all the way down the straight!

It's pretty hard to understand why they wouldn't "get" that Rocky. I pretty much figured that hot rodding and blasting around was a universal guy thing

Then and now, racers don't seem to enjoy the motor part like we do John!

Oh...there's a few folks out there that still get a charge out of all this Rocky. Not many apparently...but some!

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

The locals are obsessed with "fair and equal" racing. One group ONLY allows Ninco NC1s, the weakest slot motor in any car. The others just have all these complex rules about "fair" motors.

When they buy NSRs they always downgrade the motor.

For a while, I tried just running the car and disqualifying myself from the results. That got ended.

Too serious about the racing.

One of those, you will like this. They had a stock rtr race and were a little loose about defining things. So, I ran a Dynamic anglewider from 1969 with a rewind and foam tires. Lovely car. When they banned it..I claimed "grandfathering".

And, in the first race, I disqualified myself. Just like the car and building motors!

Fate

[havlicek]

Finished-off three for a blogger while smelling the Easter ham cooking...mmmmmm. Anyway, he had three blanks, two salvaged from Parma 16D motors and one Mura as well as three salvaged Mura coms. One of the salvaged coms had a tab break off when I went to crimp it closed so that one had to be undone and got a new com...stuff happens


-john

[Dooner]

John, I always enjoyed the motor building part of slot cars, but never learned how to wind an arm.

I know you are a humble man, but I say you are a "pro" in my book. It is not the quantity, but the quality, and you do quality.


Keep up the motor building posts. I read them.

Your thread has been looked at 8,274 times... so it is not just me.

[havlicek]

Hi Tom,

The most I'd be willing to say is that "I'm getting there". You really should have a go at winding sometime as the actual concepts involved are very simple. The techniques do take a while though and all the different blanks and wire gauges need different winding patterns just because of how things work out. Doing a few of the same or similar type and gauge at the same time helps a little because things tend to stay the same from arm-to-arm. Anyway, thanks for looking and the encouragement. The BEST is when I get good feedback from someone using one of these arms!

-john

[havlicek]

The start of a bit of restoration and re-winding for a blogger. I was sent two Russkit cans that were in pretty rough shape a couple of Tradeship coms and three old Mabuchi arms. So in preparation for winding them I:

-Disassembled them
-Stripped the cans (those Dremel Scotchbrite pads work well) inside and out
-Drilled one of the cans for screws (one was drilled already)
-Shot a couple of coats of a color that resembles the Russkit color, baking between coats
-Dewound the old arms
-Straightened out the stacks as best I could and epoxied the fiber end insulators to them
-Trimmed the insulators flush to the stack
-Cleaned up the arms and applied my "secret sauce" (two steps actually) to them...baking the arms again between each step
-Cleaned-up the arms once again to remove any "secret sauce" that got on the outside of the stacks.
-Since I only had two Tradeship coms, I rescued a Mabuchi com and epoxied two fiber washers to the end and reshaped it just above the tabs so it would fit all the way to the endbell bearings and to hopefully strengthen it a bit with the two fiberwashers. I also trimmed the fiberwashers about flush with the com on the lathe. Since it was an "extra"...I figured I had nothing to lose.
-Set the coms with epoxy and baked all the arms again (I just noticed that the tabs are NOT centered on each com segment with the Tradeship coms before setting these...DOH!)
-I noticed that both endbells seemed to have hairline cracks around the area that retains the bearings, so I removed the bearings, cleaned them up and epoxied them in. I figure the outer race of the bearings will then be adding strength to the endbell.
*oops!, I forgot that I had to polsih the shaft ends on all three because they were splined and wouldn't fit the endbell bearings!

Several hours later and I'm finally ready to start winding



-john

[Jairus]

Old School is COOL!

[havlicek]

Hi Jairus,

I have to admit that my favorite motors are still regular plain-jane current Mura C cans...but guys like you have shown me the light The old Mabuchis have reminded me of how much fun I had as a kid and why...they could really be immensely improved with basic "stone-axe" type tools so everyone could be a "hot rodder". It struck me doing these two that the time really adds up and I stopped and wrote down what I was actually doing so I could figure out why this stuff takes so long. Even doing so, I forgot to add polishing-out the long ends of the arm shafts because they were splined and wouldn't fit the bearings. My wife is certain I've completely lost it.

[Hworth08]

John,

Your arms look better every time I come back to this thread.

In the day it was very common to replace the Mabuchi shaft with 2mm drill blank. Philippe once described the Mabuchi shaft as being made of "toy steel"! It can be a little tricky not to enlarge the lams when changing the shaft and I have no tips as to the process as we had ours done at a machine shop.

[havlicek]

Hi Don and thanks! For sure drill blanks are the way to go...better yet, arm blanks with drill blank shafts already installed...(sigh). I have replaced the shaft on a few by using screw clamps with a hole drilled through one side...sometimes it works, sometimes you can't budge those things. Another thing I've done is to cut off the factory shaft flush with the stack on one end and use a drill blank and a mallet to tap the rest of the old shaft out. A machine shop would no doubt have a press that would make short work of such a mundane task. Thing is, none of these Mabuchi rewinds is likely to see racing and as "fun runners" should be just fine with the factory shafts.

-john

[Jairus]

Agreed!
Feet on the ground there John!

[havlicek]

I wound/tied/epoxied/balanced/finished the three arms for the mystery blogger From top to bottom (and in ascending order of zip posed for their beauty shot) a #29, another #29 and a #28. Just a little assembly to take care of and they'll be off to their owner...ba da bing!



-john

[Jairus]

Be nice if someone could print us up some RUSSKIT STICKERS!!!!!

(For heavens sake....)


Beautiful work there John, as usual!

[havlicek]

Hey thanks as always Jairus for all your encouragement This group came out really nice and even I'm happy with them I agree that some Russkit stickers would be a really nice touch too!

-john

[Edo]

I finished the three arms for the mystery blogger...

Some people are really lucky!!!
SUPER LOVELY mots, John!
E

[havlicek]

Thanks very much Edo.

Some people are really lucky!!!

...well, some people make their own luck!

The three arms range from "un po'speziato" to "bello rammendato caldo" (at least for the motor type). The #28awg arm should probably go in a can with a Tradeship endbell if it is to be run for any extended period of time. However, none of them are by any means "le armi di distruzione di massa!"