BSA wheels

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Scobod
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BSA wheels

Post by Scobod »

Currently working on a car and decided I wanted to steer away from the typical black BSA wheel and go for the blue. I watch some YouTube videos on how to prepare wheels and axles for better speed. One of the tips was shaving down the inside hub where it makes contact with the car body. The blue wheels that I have already tapered down. In fact, I don't really see any flaws within the wheels that need tuning or adjusted. Usual tournament rules state that we cannot shave the outer tread of the wheel or use graphite on the outside tread other than inside the hub and where the axle contacts wheel. Am I missing any important steps that I need to do to the wheels? I feel like putting them on as they are and just adding graphite is a mistake. I'm talking about the wheels not the axles. I've taken all the proper steps for axles. Thanks in advance for your time.
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Vitamin K
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Re: BSA wheels

Post by Vitamin K »

Modifying wheels can be really tricky if you don't have a good tooling setup for it. It's easy to do more harm than good, if you aren't careful.

I would recommend that you polish the bores. You can search through this or other forums for how to do it, but the most common method is with a q-tip stick and some plastic polish (like Novus 2). You can also apply a wax to the bore (such as Liquid Glass or Rejex), which is more crucial for oil, but seems to have some benefit for graphite as well.

One small modification that you might try would be removing the double-step on the outer hubs. The Derbyworx Pro Hub Shaver actually works okay for this.

When you add graphite, be sure to read up on burnishing.
Speedster
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Re: BSA wheels

Post by Speedster »

I agree with Vitamin K. The wheel bore is very important. I like to use wheels that are round. There is a book titled "Build a Winning Pinewood Derby Car" by Troy Thorne, 2013 edition. Page 64 shows how to build a concentricity gauge, courtesy of Fat Sebastian. You can also buy a gauge from Derby Evolution that was designed by Knotthed. If you buy a few extra wheels you can choose the 3 best ones assuming you will be building a 3 wheel rail rider. You can also buy wheels from vendors that have the preferred mold numbers. These may or may not give you a better chance of getting better wheels.
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whodathunkit
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BSA wheels

Post by whodathunkit »

I'm with Vitamin K & Speedster on this.

However...
before you do any polishing of the wheel bores .
You'll want to wash the wheels and wheel bores out with some good dish soap and warm water.
And dry them out with a pipe cleaner or compressed air.
This is so you make sure there is no trash inside the bores before you start any polishing.

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