22 replies to this topic

[stevefzr]

Hi folks,

I bought a few motor bits off a fellow blogger recently as they included (I think) some early cobalt motors. I have nothing from this period of slot cars. In fact, I know very little at all about the period between the first C-cans and modern strap cobalt motors. Here are the bits that I think are Koford Feather motors. Is that correct?



Do these use an early cobalt mag or are they just a small ceramic? What era do they date from? Is it early '80s like I suspect? If so, what sort of chassis and body would they have run in? I assume it's a wing car of some kind.

Lastly, does anyone have any spare endbells or hardware to sell for these? Please PM me if you do. I assume that regular C-can hardware won't fit. If it will, then I have plenty, but still need a couple of endbells.



Thanks,

[Ron Hershman]

The motor on the left of the picture is a Pro Slot "Hex" motor and the other two (center and right) are Koford Feather motors I think. Mike Swiss would know for sure and if they are not Kofords, they could be Pro Slot "Cube" motors. Early to mid-'80s and yes, with cobalt mags.

They would have been used in Wing Car racing at the time.

Spare parts??? Hard to find, but someone here may have some. If I remember correctly, they may have used older style Mura endbells "turned" down to fit these motors and old style Mura hardware could be used on them.

[tonyp]

They look like the style motors we were using when I stopped racing. I think we OEM'ed the cans from Koford.

[Bob Campbell]

I remember some things called P-Nut motors in the very early '80s when I was quitting (no tracks by me) and starting 1/10 scale electric off-road R/C.

Does anyone have info on these? I think they were also a early cobalt strap motor.

Bob C.

PS: Tony, I had many "Joel Johnson Monster Horsepower" R/C motors!

[TSR]

OK, what is THIS Koford animal and what year(s) was it used?







?????

[Ron Hershman]

Could that could be a Camen "Little Black Box" or a Foamy "special"?

[tonyp]

I believe the peanut motors were the ones made from the Monogram SP40 cans by P. A. Watson?

[MSwiss]

OK, what is THIS Koford animal and what year(s) was it used?

That is a Koford Micro, circa 1981. It was the first production, small magnet, samarium cobalt setup.

Stuart went to this design when the earlier, full C-can size, samarium cobalt magnets were usually "bound up" magnetically. I seem to remember an exception was a motor Foamy had at a big race that was legendarily fast.

Even the pictured Micro, with magnets about 1/3 the size, seemed to have too much field strength. They didn't seem to hit their stride until guys started trimming the cans. That inspired the next generation which is the Feather which is pictured on the left in post #1.

[tonyp]

Mike, I think the one on the right was the can we bought OEM.

[TSR]

Mike,

Thanks! I got this can in an eBay lot and it was never used. Do you remember what arm daimeter and type would have been in it? I'd like to put it together for the museum display. It does look really cool and is well finished.

I have one of those PS motors as shown in the first picture in a triangular steel frame by Tom Hansen (Leilani II it says), ex-Anderson, but it has a broken magnet.

[MSwiss]

Tony,

I'm pretty sure before you guys were buying OEM Koford stuff, you had a competing,
slightly-bigger motor called the Black Box (maybe done in conjunction with Camen and/or Pro Slot).

I wound up with a bunch of those when I bought Tyree Phillips' slot box.

[MSwiss]

PdL,

I would check the air gap with some calipers and just use something .010" smaller. My guess is it uses a .500" arm, but I got back into slots right at the end of the Micro's run.

[TSR]

Sure thing. Thanks Mike!

[stevefzr]

The motor on the left of the picture is a Pro Slot "Hex" motor and the other two (center and right) are Koford Feather motors I think. .....They would have been used in Wing Car racing at the time.

So would they have used a wire tripod chassis? Is there a site that shows the Nats winners for all the classes year by year? That would be a great guide to dating this stuff from the dark ages.

Thanks,

Steve

[Ron Hershman]

So would they have used a wire tripod chassis? Is there a site that shows the Nats winners for all the classes year by year? That would be a great guide to dating this stuff from the dark ages.

Thanks,

Steve

No...they would have used more like steel center section chassis with brass or steel bat pans or early perimeter chassis..... will try and post a pic here later.

Mike will know for sure.

[Ron Hershman]

No...they would have used more like steel center section chassis with brass or steel bat pans or early perimeter chassis..... will try and post a pic here later.

Mike will know for sure.

Here we go........

A very nice Vasili Labs chassis built by Bill Metrose. Bill's last chassis he built with brass pans.



Same chassis with a Pro-Slot Hex motor



Is the builder of this chassis is unknown, but with P-S Hex Motor

[Ron Hershman]

More motors..................... I was incorrect in my earlier posts about the P-S Hex motors..... they are a bit more rounded at the top of the can where it meets the sides of the can....

Here is two P-S Hex motors..... the silver colored one is a "prototype" can that Dan DeBella had given to Bob Green to test and Bob gave it to me years later.




A collection of Koford Feather motors



A side view of the Koford Feather motors....... note the motor in the middle.... note the can screws... I believe this is a modified P-S Cube motor with cut- out on the top of the can to resemble a Koford Feather motor. This motor came from John Pierce.



This motor appears to be a Koford Feather with unusual cutting/hole pattern.



And a very rare PK ( Potential Kinetics ) motors that probably started out as either a Camen can or a hand made can by Dan Miller himself. he was not too sure when I showed it to him, but he thought it was a hand made can.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Bob, about P cans. Myself and others were building one offs in 71-3 period. The hobby was in collapse and I don't remember seeing talk in any of the mags about them. We were taking SP40 and X50 and the like cans and pulling the housing and putting in a flat plate, turning down C can endbells to make them. In 74 or so, I don't know that there were 10 functioning tracks outside of texas in the country. And magazines weren't around like they had been. Dark indeed.

Anyway, in 76 or 77 a couple of english companies were drawing "P" cans. I have a couple of those by 101. And a couple companies, again, I think in England, were molding endbells to fit.

Where I was racing, in the rural west, if they noticed the P can during tech, they would usually ban it as not readily available. Much more common was to have C cans cut up without mercy to get them light. I thought there was some irony that travelling to the few remaining tracks got a lot of hostility over the equipment. The owners trying to protect their local customers from "furrin'" ideas.

Even now, the thing I don't see show up on the collector markets are the production P cans and endbells. I have always suspected that this is the darkest of the "dark ages".

Fate

[Ron Hershman]

To me the most interesting story I can tell about small motors comes from the 1979 Nationals at Buzz-a-rama. While watching the novice race ( which my father was racing in ) Jim Stevens, an old friend from Michigan slot racing, begins a conversation with me about magnetic fields and how the can controls them.

Yes and a few short years later..... we cut the tops and bottoms of the cans....... so much for the can controlling the magnetic fields.

[gascarnut]

Yes and a few short years later..... we cut the tops and bottoms of the cans....... so much for the can controlling the magnetic fields.

Well, as I remember it, we cut the cans to REDUCE the strength of the magnetic fields.

I remember using the early ProSlot Cubes in 1/32 scale wing cars, I bought some from Dan DeBella back in 1982 when he was still in SoCal. We had enormous problems getting our 38T27 armatures to run as fast in them as they did in the "peanut" motors with the polymer cobalt magnets, until we cut the cans down.

Those early samarium cobalt magnets were also too short, which we tried to compensate for by reducing the airgap as far as we could. Later on we used smaller diamter armatures which also helped, but I think by then the manufacturers had figured out what needed to be done.

I have two of the British Inphinity motors at home, will take photos when I remember. They were a little bigger than the peanut motors made from the Johnson 111 cans, also had the polymer cobalt magnets and initally used machined Mura endbells. The cans were thicker material than a Johnson, a bit more accurately made too, as it was a folded can, but I felt that the 111 can motors worked a bit better as they were lighter.

Here's a 111 can motor in one of my frames from that period:



Note how we used to use the can as an integral part of the frame. That changed quickly when we started using the Cubes and Feathers and others with glued-in magnets, as you could loosen a magnet easily if the can flexed in a crash. I know - I dropped my TQ car at a National just before the Final............

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Hey Phillippe send me the size of the magnet (HxLxW) and I may have one loose to replace it. I have a lot of the older Cobalt can mags and stuff from the early 80's.

Mike,

Thanks! I got this can in an eBay lot and it was never used. Do you remember what arm daimeter and type would have been in it? I'd like to put it together for the museum display. It does look really cool and is well finished.

I have one of those PS motors as shown in the first picture in a triangular steel frame by Tom Hansen (Leilani II it says), ex-Anderson, but it has a broken magnet.

[TSR]

Thanks Barney, I will dig the the thing and let you know.

[MSwiss]

TTT for muskie guy