Derby Talk

I shot a car across the shop with sander this year too. One sec it's in your hand and dust is flying, the next sec your hands are empty and it's across the room hitting someone in the leg.

So Sporty - sounds like your saying you can take too much off. Making the axle smaller isn't a good idea?

I've been reading about axles being oval. The someone posts that they're round when they finish and there's a light debate on which is better. Along the way someone said something about making the diameter of the axles too small. Here's the question, can you over polish your axles and make it too sm...

I've been reading alot the last week on making a 4 wheel rail rider. The how to thread is very helpful and I understand the concept. Now it's How to implement? I read about 2.5 degrees of negative cant, 1.5 degrees of toe in, etc. My first question is how do you guys measure degrees of cant and toe?

We use a drill press to drill weight holes and axles. Each has a fence that you hold the block/car against. The bottom of the car fits against the fence and the drill is set not to drill through the car. Using the size bit we do, we know that one hole will equal about 1oz of lead. Parents usually ho...

We did do that a little too. I used the mandrle and slowly rotated with some graphite on my fingers. I like your method. Again, another use for the drill press I bought!

Somehow it jumped the track and hit the floor, must have been a rough joint or something. I had really pushed the limits of shaving down the wheels so they were very fragile. Last night I was tearing it down and cracked another by accident.

You can also pursue the spring body design. Check http://www.goaskgrandpa.com/sample01.htm" target="_blank for a great write-up on that. oooooooooooohhhh. Now there's some interesting stuff over there. Imagine what he could do with graphte and tungsten! Anyone tried those theories? Offset...

Well we tried it the old "new" way at the pack and came in 2nd for modified and 4th for unmodified. :( We came home and treated the wheels to a graphite bath as always and got 1st place modified and 3rd place unmodified. Makes the argument for graphite baths appealing. We have a month or s...

Kids were safe from me in unmodified, but gosh my car looked good!

My modified was really cooking, until it broke a wheel. I let it go with a broken wheel and finished last.

I really enjoy having the drill press. I polish my axles in it and feel it's better control than a dremel. I also can't imagine drilling a hole in anything without it anymore. I used it to press my axles/wheels into the car last night. It's becoming one of those tools that I keep finding more and mo...

Alignment? I still don't have that figured out. I tried and tried last year and just stink at it. I learn by mentor and have no one local.

I put graphite in the bore and rubbed both the inner and outer hub. I also rubbed the inside edge of the wheel, thinking it could rub the rail. It's still messy dealing with all the graphite during wheel install, but once assembled their easy to handle. BTW, my son is skeptical about this whole thin...

Ok, I left the tread alone. We'll see how it goes this year.

Well I tried the q-tip and graphite this year. We'll see how they do. Someone said wheels might squeek - they were right. Sometimes however the bores were larger or smaller. Out of 24 wheels I found 3 different bore sizes. Interesting.