Page 1 of 1

Polishing the axles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:24 am
by clemsontigerfanatic
I have been doing the pinewood derby and polishing those axles
1000 grit sandpaper, 1500 grit sandpaper, 2000 grit sandpaper and finally
Mothers Alum Polish.


I did the same to the axles for this years Cubmobile. Is anybody else doing this? I really see a differnce in the look of the axle mirror finish.

Our race is in a couple of weeks. I plan on posting some pictures after the race.
We are going to lubricate using NyOilII and WD-40.

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:05 am
by Pinewood Daddy
clemsontigerfanatic wrote:I have been doing the pinewood derby and polishing those axles
1000 grit sandpaper, 1500 grit sandpaper, 2000 grit sandpaper and finally
Mothers Alum Polish.
The axels look pretty shiny out of the box. Wouldn't sanding rough them up before polishing??

Anyone with a digital microscope to do some experiments and post the pictures??

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:59 am
by clemsontigerfanatic
Those grits are very fine . The kind you find at a auto part store to sand your car before you paint . After you go over it with the MOthers polish you wont have any scracthes. Instead you you get a mirror like finish.

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 11:58 am
by Pinewood Daddy
clemsontigerfanatic wrote:Those grits are very fine . The kind you find at a auto part store to sand your car before you paint . After you go over it with the MOthers polish you wont have any scracthes. Instead you you get a mirror like finish.
I bought some papers online (2 full sheets each) 1000, 1500,2000 & 2500 for $10. Using all of those grits was alot of work. I'm going to make some more axels in the next couple of weeks. I'll do it both ways. And get some Mother's (vs. the polish I got from work). I think my kids may have a microscope.

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:13 pm
by clemsontigerfanatic
Pinewood Daddy wrote:I bought some papers online (2 full sheets each) 1000, 1500,2000 & 2500 for $10. Using all of those grits was alot of work. I'm going to make some more axels in the next couple of weeks. I'll do it both ways. And get some Mother's (vs. the polish I got from work). I think my kids may have a microscope.
Are you talking about the pinewood derby axles? I'm talking about the Cubmobile.

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 1:42 am
by sporty
I polished the axles on the my sons cubmobile, with mothers a buffed. I did the same on my sons pine wood derby car.

However with the cubmobile. The outer bearing is resting on the axle bolt and not spinning, only the inner bearing is.

My thoughts are the spin time and ease of spin with the wheels. I also mounted the axle bolts under the 2x4 with u clamps with semi hard rubber to damped some of the ground shock/vibration. I found this very effective. My sons cubmoible was the fastest car there.


recall in previous posting on here, i mentioned using dot 4 break oil to clean the bearings and loosen the stiffness up on the wheel bearings, Then used wd 40.

in between each race, i would add another quick shot of wd-40 and lift the wheel up and spin. did this to all 4. Seemed to work well.

pre practice runs worked for my son the best. previous 2 weeks we took to a small lope and let him get use to the handling of the cubmobile.

sporty

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 5:32 am
by clemsontigerfanatic
sporty wrote:I

I also mounted the axle bolts under the 2x4 with u clamps with semi hard rubber to damped some of the ground shock/vibration. I found this very effective. My sons cubmoible was the fastest car there.


recall in previous posting on here, i mentioned using dot 4 break oil to clean the bearings and loosen the stiffness up on the wheel bearings, Then used wd 40.

in between each race, i would add another quick shot of wd-40 and lift the wheel up and spin. did this to all 4. Seemed to work well.

sporty
We are using 5/8" rod stock with 1" pipe U bolts underneath the 2 x4.
We also are polishing with mothers. It seems to really smooth out the surface.
I'm curious about the rubber to lessen the vibration. We also are using the WD-40. We have sleeves on each side of the wheel not ball bearings.
We just sparyed it down with WD-40. Our race is still aways off April 2nd .

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 3:58 pm
by sporty
Glad to see a reply,

Im hoping that this forum becomes more active as the season comes into play.

I felt the rubber around the clamp or axle where mounted to the wood. Does help. U said u used 1 inch u clamp. I used something simulair, was for mounting electrical pipe, it came with the rubber on the clamp.

I bet we spent 2 hours just making sure all the angles were good. Meaning that the distance from left front tire center axel bolt to right rear center axle bolt were the same and vice versa.

Making sure that the distance was coorrect was a little hard, because of the one lag bolt mounting the rear 2x4 and same for the front, Exp the front cuz thats your turning center point.

Not to mention ensuring the wheels were trait up and down and not slightly angled.

I actually e-mailed a areo dyanamic specialist. They felt at the low speed and not very long runs. that No factor would come into play with a more areo design of the cub-mobile.


sporty

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 10:46 am
by clemsontigerfanatic
I got a call last night from our District Rep. He said that he was'nt sure we are going to have a race this year becuase there may not be enough cars. :shock:

I've read from other posts that the rod stock is better than lag bolts. Our District has run this race pretty regular for at least the last 12 yrs.
They had 10 cars +/- last yr. One thing they say is its OK to use lag bolts but all thread or rod stock is perfered.

I have read other people's specs that say the minimum distance the stop blocks can be is 1/4" . That's our maximum. We also put rubber on our stop blocks. We have some good specs from what I can tell. They say no nails, use screws. But then they go on to say to use bolts at critical areas.
Well lets just say its almost all put together with bolts!

Lot of engineers around here. We do go down a big hill though much like the soap box derby race I'm used to.

Re: Polishing the axles

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 1:09 pm
by clemsontigerfanatic
Got a call today Good Friday :D There's going to be around 8 cars.