Pinecar "wheel turning mandrel"

[itgl72]

I'm leaning towards leaving them as is, after reading a few things here but here is the question.

I have in my tool kit a "Wheel Tuning Mandrel" from pine car I could mount on my dremel too. Unless my eye can not see it (my eyes arent that bad yet either) it seems the wheels I have look pretty smooth.

I noticed one wheel with a #4 mold that had a seem on the edge that was really noticeable. I put that one off to the side.

I have left, 15 stock BSA wheels here (for two of my boys) and we've basically put them on a nail and spun them to see if any look really off.

Is there really any need to put the wheels we want on the mandrel and apply the medium/fine grade sandpaper to them on my dremel?

Should I leave it alone and just go with the graphite on the polished axles we have and go for it?

[FatSebastian]

Should I leave it alone...?

It is questionable whether one improves the runout of modern wheels with a mandrel and sandpaper. Instead, conventional wisdom now suggests measuring the runout of a population of wheels and using the roundest ones.

[TXDerbyDad]

Should I leave it alone...?

It is questionable whether one improves the runout of modern wheels with a mandrel and sandpaper. Instead, conventional wisdom now suggests measuring the runout of a population of wheels and using the roundest ones.

I did that Sunday. Using your paint stick derived runout gauge, I measure one wheel from the 2013 manufactured kits with runout of .001". The rest were all ~.005"

[FatSebastian]

... one wheel from the 2013 manufactured kits with runout of .001". The rest were all ~.005"

So it sounds like the quality of the latest batches are starting to decline... how many wheels constituted "the rest"?

[TXDerbyDad]

... one wheel from the 2013 manufactured kits with runout of .001". The rest were all ~.005"

So it sounds like the quality of the latest batches are starting to decline... how many wheels constituted "the rest"?

Only the wheels out of the five kits I had on hand, so 19 wheels. The rest of the case was in my wife's car and she was visiting her mother. Why 19, instead of 20? One kit had only 3 wheels when we opened it! I talked with two other people in our Pack, and they also only got 3 wheels from kits out of the same case. Very odd.

[itgl72]

I don't have equipment here, at short notice to built that but it looks great. If we do it again next year I'll look into that. Thanks for instructions.

SO, am I leaving off with the fact that I should not lightly sand the wheels? Just leave the outside as is? I'll probably just burnish the bore, and polish axles, break in with graphite, then race.

[TXDerbyDad]

I don't have equipment here, at short notice to built that but it looks great. If we do it again next year I'll look into that. Thanks for instructions.

SO, am I leaving off with the fact that I should not lightly sand the wheels? Just leave the outside as is? I'll probably just burnish the bore, and polish axles, break in with graphite, then race.

I did that last year. My car was a 1/4" thick candy bar with a tungsten canopy. I took the four wheels from a new box, flattened the wheel hubs, and polished and lubed the bores. Everything worked very well and I had a an average track time of 3.0533 seconds with no real tuning.

[Speedster]

I'm interested in that canopy. How heavy was it? Did you take 1st place?