Derby Talk

My thought was to use your cantilevered weight allignement method. Allign the DFW to track straight with weight on the nose. Take a couple allignment passes to ensure the rear wheels are also tracking straight. Then allign one rear wheel (Either, but I expect the right, or DFW side, or the side that...

Wow, that's an interesting car.

Graphite will be semi-permenant. It'll slow down after a couple dozen heats, but I've got cars from five years ago that still pass the spin test. Spray on teflon might be even better, especially as you're not interested in it as a high end lube.

Stan, Is there a measurable effect in spin time or track speed as you polish down the microns? I'd think that it wouldn't make a difference as long as there's no irregularities across the axle, even if you had regular 80 grit paper grooves WITH the direction of wheel rotation. It might even retain a...

What if you could set the DFW to neutral steer-in with a very low COM so it approaches zero effect on the steering, and have the right rear alligned to cause the DFW to veer onto the rail? It seems this strategy would break past the standing problems with a low COM, provided your allignment was spot...

VERY nice build in that time frame!

I remember seeing all the leaders cars race when I was a kid and noticing that they were all flat or wedge shapes. It never occurred to me that I should be actually trying that myself.

Definitely, Stan. Or, it should be. :) What results do we get when using a compound in which 99% of the particles are exactly 1.00 microns, and the other 1% are between 1.1 microns and 3 microns? As far as I know, manufacturer reputation is the only way to measure the quality of an abrasive within m...

Just tungsten putty. I pulled some axles off some older cars for comparison once, but that's about it. I REALLY like to build a new car for a new year, top to bottom, and keep the old car pristine. That way you have a physical documentation of prior art.

Okay, so results from running the car last night. It actually started drifting the other way (same setup: no front wheels, same board orientation, graphite tape on the nose, etc) about the same amount. So I'm calling it as straight as I can get it with my current setup and skill level. After shimmin...

If I remember right, it was about .5" at four feet, but I could easily be wrong. I'll try to remeasure tonight.
I did consider that it's exponential, especially with the nose drag. As it's pushed out from the center, it drags and flings the car more and more.

THAT way, you don't have to worry about the kids car breaking if it jumps the track!

Stan, at least by proxy just on this site, you, Sporty, and others have probably built several thousand cars each. I know you guys have saved me hundreds of hours of experimenting to reinvent the wheel (pun intended) and allowed me to start experimenting in the fun stuff at the cutting edge almost f...

Ooh, sorry. That's 3.5" over eight feet. My bad.
Yeah, I would really want to look at my drilling setup if that were the case.

0.o

How about axles? My feeling is that bent axles for camber and tuning are much less abuse resistant than drilling at an angle and shimming for fine tuning.

Okay, I'm almost ashamed to ask, but here goes. The car is rolling about 3.5" to the left over 8" [EDIT: That's eight feet, not eight inches. Thanks, Sporty. :shhh: ]. No DFW on, just the rear wheels. Using Sporty's method (graphite tape on nose, rolling down a slight incline), how on eart...

John 4840, I've seen the the video you have posted about it. prior to painting the cars I make I like to use a wood hardner such as minwax to harden the wood. Have any of you tryed it on your cars? Never used minwax's wood hardner, but I do brush a coat of slow drying epoxy onto my builds. It wicks...