Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - Printable Version

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - MrFlippant - 22nd-Apr-21

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - BAracer - 23rd-Apr-21

#53

"Happy Anniversary"

It's amazing to think that this Chat has been going for a full year now. I can remember when it started, it was just a group of grown up children enjoying chatting about their favourite hobby and sharing top tips, all in black and white, and just look at it now...

John Kitt has gone colour with his castings. And each one is a unique shade, mainly because he hasn't managed to consistently mix the pigments yet. Wayne preferred "1958 blue" to "1975 red". Paul has no problem with his colours...only blue and yellow. Although he did this time with the yellow as it wasn't paint but decal...he decided it was still a work in progress. 

Dennis showed us all something that has been hidden in plain sight, certainly for me and, I think, some of the hardened slotters on the chat...BRMs with cambered wheels. Front cambered wheels, not a problem, angled stub axles. Rear powered cambered wheels, how do they do that? Dennis showed us their secret...gasps all round. Strangely, some BRMs had cambered front, some had cambered rear, none had all four. It was agreed it was a great way to minimise grip levels due to the reduced contact area of the tyres to the track. But it was agreed that this was a minor set back because it allowed the inside rear wheel to lift every time you went round a corner, and this was generally agreed to be a good thing. Later on, Paul showed us a 3D printed chassis he'd bought that allowed all four wheels to point in different directions, all at the same time. Based on the knowledge shared between Chatters over the past year. everyone agreed this was not a good thing. Look away now if you don't like seeing chassis being broken live on air. And Paul clarified it wasn't a chassis he had printed, as his 3D printer was still safely in it's box. The first ever 'Shelf Queen' 3D printer?

"What you got there, Lough?" Oh that's just another stunning routed track he's been working on since breakfast. Fully 3D hill climb circuit. Just finishing off the scenery by tea time. He also showed us his latest slot car innovation, which suggests he doesn't accept all the logical tuning advice given out over the past year...a slot car where the driver sits in a seat on a sliding rail. So when the car accelerates, the seat and driver slide to the backstops on the rails. Or as Lough puts it, he transfers his weight over the rear wheels on acceleration to enhance grip levels. And when the car brakes, the driver and seat slide forward till they hit the frontstops on the rails. Or as Lough puts it, he transfers his weight over the front wheels to enhance grip under braking. Or did he just forget to glue the driver in place?

Greg was intending to announce a loyalty reward scheme for anyone who has watched all the previous 52 Chats, but John Kitt got in first. In fact, instead of just finishing off every announcement that Greg made in the Chat, John anticipated most of them, leaving Greg with the worst possible punishment for the Canadian, 10 mute minutes in the Sin Bin. Once he got out though, JK announced his own 'loyalty' scheme...anyone who votes for him in the forthcoming Chat chairmanship election will receive one of his little chequered flag trophies.

Wayne gave us a masterclass in plastic track refurbishment, or more specifically the rail elements. Only using ingredients found in a typical kitchen, he tried every combination of fluids to try and get the metal back to the original, better than showroom, 'Chris Walker' finish. Despite having to stop to actually clean the oven halfway through, as far as I could tell, he clearly and scientifically proved, that rather than use wet and dry paper like last week, if you use tin foil & water, then vinegar, then egg white, then oven cleaner, and then wet and dry paper, you get a much better finish. 

He also gave a really clear explanation involving a simple screwdriver on how to refurbish the pins that link the rail sections together.

"To get power to your car, first you must get power to all the rails"

Newcomer Mark had something to show that even had Dennis asking questions. Who is familiar with a recent slot cat that uses a rubber disc as a pinion and a motor that moves on sprung loaded rails? Lough obviously wasn't, as I saw him taking notes on that one. Mark then showed us another rarely seen item...a BUM slot car. The only one not taking notes on that one was Paul as he has a couple of bummier ones. So much so, that it only took a bit of winding up for him to lose his grip and demonstrate what the sound of a car body snapping in half sounds like. 

And did anyone else notice that all the while this was happening, Greg was sitting there playing with his Rubik's Cube?

Come on Greg, GET A GRIP!

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - MrFlippant - 27th-Apr-21

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - MrFlippant - 29th-Apr-21

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - BAracer - 29th-Apr-21

#54

The Good Old Days of Heavy Metal


A simple, but open, question from Greg got everyone's memories going of the good old days of slot car racing...what would you do to refresh an old slot car you found at the bottom of a box of forgotten bits and pieces? Apart from a set of new tyres and braids, the chatters took the opportunity to use bring out some 'lessons learnt' tips of what they would do differently today compared to what they did at their entry into the hobby. And the subject of weight began to focus everyones thoughts.

So, is the current trend to make cars lighter and lighter the only tool on our workbench, and is the magical 40/60 weight distribution the holy grail of tip top car performance? The answer from one expert was...

"The car will tell you what it wants."

So trust your instincts when you run it. The track, motor, tyres, centre of gravity, etc will means every car handles differently and needs a different solution. Not for Dave however. When he was a lad, you took your brass chassis and you laid a slab of lead across the top of it, then you fixed an aerodynamic body on top to create downforce. And that was only his starting point for fine tuning it into one of his two racing categories...a radiator killer, or a ceiling denter. 

Dennis showed up his more recent chassis build history, and how he has developed his weights, magnets, flexing and rods over the years to refine his scratch builds. Chris showed us a 'work in progress' NSR F1 body of his. Most people would have been happy with how it looked, he still had plenty to do. Then he showed us the driver and cockpit...best seat belts ever!

And now that a week has passed since the last Chat, I can report that the non-disclosure agreement he forced me into has now lapsed. In last weeks Chat, Greg very kindly donated a slot car as a prize for anyone who has watched one of the Grammarly adverts that pop up in this videos all the way through. So in this weeks chat, he put together a random list of all the people who managed it last week. My name was at the top of the list, but no, it still had to be randomised again. Then Leo's name appeared at the top of the list, but no, a late objection from Graham and the list had to be randomised again. Oh, surprise surprise, the actual winning name then looked suspiciously like an anagram of Greg Gaub...

Following an admission from one of the Chatters that they had been rather tired and emotional during last weeks Chat, Chris had to repeat his spellbinding story on how to firstly, select a good motor (without having to buy it first!), and then why you might want to run it in quickly, and then how to run it in properly. Following the theme of the evening, the discussion then drifted into the art of tuning serious motors from the good old days. Not much of this knowledge can be applied to the mass produced units most of us run in our plastic slot cars, but it still is a fascinating listen and a wonderful glimpse back into the history of the hobby. 

Not so much a glimpse into the past, Dave's fully immersive, hands on demonstration of the history of controllers has to be seen to be believed. He must have heard all the  comments being shouted out by everyone lots of times before, as he managed to keep a smile off his face for most of the time. But he cracked a smile in the end as wave after wave of incoming banter finally broke his stiff upper lip. Again, slot car history nuggets.

And we finished off with a possible glimpse into the future...3D printed tyres. Perhaps an idea a little ahead of it's time, but if this Slot Car Lesson taught us anything, it's that nothing stays the same for long in this fast moving hobby.

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - MrFlippant - 4th-May-21

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - Sports Racer - 8th-May-21

Great meeting / seeing you guys today, even if you all don’t know how to setup a fast slot car. 

Does anyone know which forum Wayne uses? I need to get his address to post a car to and prove heavy cars are much better than lightweight ones. 

Thanks

Paul

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - BAracer - 8th-May-21

Paul 

Welcome to the home of next year's touring car proxy winners...

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - Nonfractal - 8th-May-21

(8th-May-21, 03:45 AM)Sports Racer Wrote:  Great meeting / seeing you guys today, even if you all don’t know how to setup a fast slot car. 

Does anyone know which forum Wayne uses? I need to get his address to post a car to and prove heavy cars are much better than lightweight ones. 

Thanks

Paul

Paul,
Wayne is on slotforum.com and has the ID
reflexuk

I would very much like the opportunity put your car through its paces at MiltonKeynes Racewars (wood) and London LSC (scaleysport)
I'll try to stay in the loop with Wayne on this 

Alan. W

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RE: Worldwide slot car chat on Zoom! - Scuderia_Turini - 8th-May-21

Hello Paul, greetings from Scotland.
Great chat last night.  Most of the regular UK World-Wide chat participants are on here, Wayne has not joined here yet, its fair to say that he is not very active on these forums.

Leo

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