Vince's thoughts on his hobby.
Question for me? Drop
me a line at 'vincel at mgpmrc dot com' (had to
change the e-mail format due to a large increase in SPAM)
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Feb 12
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I started working on the scenery for my track
earlier in the week. All the base foam is in place. Now
I need to add the texture. I did some research and it was
suggested to use Sculptamold. Now some folks said to apply it
directly then carve the shape, others recommended putting it on
aluminum foil THEN applying it to your base structure. A third
said to add Stroctulite then do the aluminum foil method. I
decided to try without the Stroctulite since I didn't need a 50lb
bag (even though it would only cost $8). I made a mock up and
applied the plaster. The aluminum foil side needs to sit for
24 hours so I'll post an update tomorrow night. After photo uploaded. I like the smooth, rock face texture. |
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| Update Feb 15: I finished the pink foam walls and used up what blue foam I had for ground cover. I will finish the blue tonight as well as start the plastering. I know I don't have enough so I am putting an internet order for a 25lb bag. The 5lb bags at the local hobby store are a tad pricey for me. |
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| One of my fellow racers asked how I did the tach
readings for the motors. I have a simple set up but if I keep
it consistent then I have relative readings that work for me.
I have a variable power supply, a digital meter, a tach, and a tire that has a silver spot painted on it. After I set the power to 12V (as close as I can get). You can see that the meter looks like 12V but is only close. I managed to get it to .01V and the needle didn't look like it moved. I mount the tire on the motor shaft. Put the motor in a vise held by foam (careful not to crush the casing), hook up the power supply then turn the power on. Once the wheel gets a steady sound I take a reading. You can see from this example, my standard scaley motor (rated 18K at 12V) comes out closer to 20K using my method. This ONLY means that this motor reads 20K while others may read 18K or lower. It allows me to take relative readings from a group of motors. |
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Click on the photo to the left to watch a short video |
Feb 10
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I finally started to work on scenery on my track. I tried the pink insulation and spray (expanding) foam but it didn't hold and was extremely messy. I ripped it all out and put more pink board foam in place. The floor, pit areas, and work bench are a mess. We race at my place at the end of the month so I hope to at least have it clean. |
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| The Tres Petite LeMans is coming up soon. One of the requirements is a light kit. I would also like to have a night race on my track. Need light kits. So I went to a site, got a schematic and part list then headed over to gateway electronics. The parts cost $16 for each kit! It would be better to buy an RTR kit then buy/build one using this schematic! I won't give up though. I am going to see what might be overkill in this kit and see if I can come up with something cheaper that will fit a variety of cars. |
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Jan 16
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| I had to paint two cars for the upcoming season. I had spare WOMP chassis and spare B Production so I figures I would build and paint those cars as well. Actually 99% of the build credit goes to Gordon P. I painted my first WOMP and in cleaning my brush I broke it. I ended up borrowing another air brush from Gil to finish off WOMP II and my Thingy. I have 1 more Thingy body to get to so hopefully by the end of the week. |
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One of the club racers was having issues with his GT being a tad slow. I have a tachometer at home and told him I'd check it out along with 2 other motors. The motors came in at 12K, 16K (in car), and 19K. I replaced the motor in the car with the fastest one and ran some times on my track. Though all three were close his car is now faster than the 2 I have. Time for me to do some tuning. | |
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Jan 9
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First thing I want to show off is a car built by Mike Swiss of Chicagoland Raceway. It is a class they run up in the Chicago area. It is a new stamped chassis. It ran great. A few of the folks put a few laps on it. I am hoping to nominate it in the future. I'll be bringing it to the various road courses to see how it handles on each. |
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I was almost ready to run this year. Lots of time to get
things together and what do I do? I show up with cars with no paint
job, no interiors, and no numbers. I have till next week to
get my act together since we have road courses back to back to start
the year.
Both cars ran OK. I need to trim some more of the front of the B-Production as it would tip out of the slot on a turn. The WOMP was OK too. Am learning my new Difalco after selling off my 3rd Eye. I ended up in the middle of the pack in both races but I know I will be moving up as my cars get tuned. |
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| It was an interesting evening of racing. Not so much for the races themselves but the wrecks. We had a few cars fly off the table and end up under. We also had two serious wrecks. Larry's car hit the back of Ken's and shattered. Both were still drivable. In a later heat, when I was marshalling, I caused major body damage to Craig's car. When I was putting a car back in, Craig's car when under my hand and hit fingers, never coming out of the slot, but it completely shattered the front end of his car. I was still drivable as well. Seems some of these Thingy bodies are a tad fragile. Wonder who will make it through the season intact. |
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Jan 3
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Thanks to Craig for opening his home and track so that the club members could come out and test and tune their EuroPlastic Cars. There was a good turn out. A lot of folks pitched in to make sure that not only were folks running, but running well. When the GT and LMP cars got out on the track there was some REALLY close racing Ought to be a good season! |
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Ran into an interesting issue with the 2 magnet marshals. We checked about a dozen cars and all were within 1g on either scale. All but this car. The difference? Button magnet. I then took a car that had a bar magnet and tested it by putting the magnet as close to the center of the bar as possible vs end of the bar. Same result. So the MM are matched as long as you use bar magnets. We did get the same reading when we measured the car by hanging it off the end and putting the magnet over the end of the bar. |
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| Gordon and I also took a road trip out to visit Blake in his new place. He showed us some of the cars he built for the shop (NASCARs with Plafit chassis). We also played on the oval, the HO track, and SCX digital. Nice clean space with good lighting and lots of pit space. Hopefully folks will make it out for the oval races there. |
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I just got my backup LMP car today and fired it up. It sounded horrible. The wheels are out of round as well as the gear. You can see all of this in the short video. I hate having to buy parts! I guess I can try the slot-it ones like the other guys in the club did and see what happens. |