Derby Talk

Moisture is of huge concern for me. Seattle weather mixed in with over 400 gallons of 8.2 ph(corrosive) freshwater sitting in my livingroom aquarium(s). I use gun cases for my cars. Cheap, lockable, dry and durable. They store pretty nice, too. I just throw in a couple silica gels for an added measu...

I live 20 miles East of the Pacific Ocean and about 20 miles south of the Quinault Rain Forest. The corrosion is horrible. We just had the rainiest June on record since the 1890s. No way am I going to use Krytox with all the rain. Stick to the ol' hobelub I usually nickel plate, decided to skip this...

Thanks for sharing. Those are some great tips. If I ever build one of these cubmobiles I know who to come to. Do you fiberglass your 2x4? Glassed basswood would be cool. You could really lay a sweet coat of paint. How bout grooving axles and lube? Corvid

Maybe something to do with the earths angular velocity at that given point in time and place. The earth spinning has to be taken into account. 15 pounds is a lot of weight though, enough to blow my theory out of the water. Stan, think were gonna need your'e help on this one! Corvid

So can a steering dampener/stabilizer be intalled to minimize steering wheel twitch. Then if the course needs corrected the results wont be as drastic. I could really have a lot of fun with this sport if the rules permitted. Imagine the year 2029- GPS Auto Pilot is used to keep steering fixed and ta...

One thing I was curious about is the weight limits. Are there different weight classes, do you have to add weight to cars to keep the playing field level.

4000 micro mesh is the most comparable from what I can tell. Heres what I do. 2500 grit wet sandpaper to 4000mm to 6000 mm to 8000 mm to 12000micromesh, and finally mothers.

One thing to look out for if you do use the brass bushing, if the flange of the bushing does not seat properly against the outer wheel hub, where it would then take a little pressure tightening the mandrel screw to get it to seat properly. The end result of this mixed with just a little heat from tu...

Lets hope that they played this game after the normal race! But then again, for the top three cars to play this game would be asking for trouble. Undoubtably, the crowd would want to see the first place race winner in this game. Then the poor kid wonders why his car was faster at pack than districts...

I am by far no expert on nickel plating. Caswell plug and play has an affordable(under $50) electroplating kit. I have had the kit for only a few months and am pleased with it. It can be kinda finicky though to get everything just right. Right now my learning of properly nickel plating axles has tak...

Yes, I do nickel plate myself. I only mentioned the fact about kids because I have had others jump down my throat at the mere mention of me using muriatic acid. Assuming that since it is a pine car a chid would be involved which is not the case for me. I guess in this case I thought I would clear th...

After zinc removal, I polish the bare steel and then nickel plate. I am fully aware of the danger, that is why I where a full face respirator and rubber gloves outside. And to anyone who is going to ask or point this out- no I dont have kids, nor do I expect to have anyone elses kids anywhere near t...

I usually go up to 12,000 micromesh. Then Mothers mag and aluminum and finally mothers Billet. Been thinking of buying some 20,000 and 50,000 diamond polishing paste. I would like to hear more about Mothers leaving a film on the axles. Is there a way to test and know for sure that a film is left beh...

I dealt with this problem by scrapping the mandrel. I can get much better results by using the proper size gauge pin in tandem with a highly polished brass fitting. It is critical that the brass fitting is exact tolerance to the gauge pin and the wheel bore. Tapered wheelbore though, no problem. Mig...

I was unable to find a satisfactory answer using the search function so I apologize if this has been previously discussed. Ok: if the majority agrees with the physics that state that friction is independent of surface area, then why do we even bother with techniques such as coning the hubs and bevel...