Derby Talk

Absolutely awesome!

It looks like you made your own windshield. If so, can you say a few words on how you accomplished that?

I've had only limited time to pursue this further during the week, but it looks like the balancing issues are greater than I thought. The whole assembly shows fairly extreme "chatter" beyond a relatively low speed. I tried doing a static balance by identifying the heavy side and attempting...

Yes, balance is definitely a concern -- there's a clear heavy point at present. Lead flashing seems not to be of uniform thickness, although I can't tell how much that's due to handling after it leaves the store. I may look at melting lead if there's a "v2.0". I'm pretty ambivalent about t...

A recent derbytalk.com thread ( http://www.derbytalk.com/viewtopic.php?t=4420 ) inspired me to try building Stan Pope's spin testing rig described at http://www.stanpope.net/pwafm.htm . I found building the rig to be a project in itself, and wanted to share the details of the experience here. The go...

We've had decent results painting the main body color first, masking with masking tape, and then spraying the stripe color over. The resulting edge was quite good, with only small defects that were noticeable only under close inspection. An alternative we've used for the pinstripe effect you're desc...

You may have been looking for this: http://derbytalk.com/viewtopic.php?p=32018#32018, which shows the technique of using a drill bit to tilt the pro body tool by a known amount, for a specific cant.

We're obliged to use the slots, but can fill them. We use five-minute epoxy, which works well, with these two caveats: 1. It's necessary to clamp wax paper on both sides of the block, otherwise the epoxy will flow out the sides of the slot, just where it's most needed. 2. The packaging on five-minut...

I can confirm that a #44 brad point bit (from Fuller) drills holes that are significantly looser than those drilled with a conventional HSS bit. I drilled axle holes using each bit in a drill press, and then again using each bit in pin vise with a Pro Body Tool. Both brad point holes were looser tha...

Here's a pretty cool belt sander stand from Instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Belt-Sander-Stand/.

I recently built a stand based on this, but I haven't tried it at a workshop yet.

/JEP

For the last two seasons, we've been using Q-tip shafts (that is, with the little cotton balls cut off) for polishing wheel bores (in the style of Doc Jobe, http://www.pinewoodderbyphysics.com/pdf%20files/Lecture%2017.pdf ) and for burnishing graphite into the bore. This year, my wife bought a new p...