Chassis building on a honeycomb ceramic plate.

[JT Previa]

Thanks Guys, glad you like the idea! It was fun to actually finish a project for a change!

The bass wood was .530 wide by .310 wide. I made mine .475 high. These work well for the Sprites and Minis I tend to build, but larger car builders could use bigger pieces of wood. I was surprised how snug the axle fit a .093 hole. Those screws are 2-56, .75" long pan head. I counterbored from above .093 about .18 deep to ease tapping and reduce wrist fatigue turning those screws!

JT

[bill from nh]

JT, excellent design on these jig wheels! They're not like anything I use or have ever seen before. I like the ability to be adjusted for various different wheel sizes. I'll have to build myself a set too. <G>

[waaytoomuchintothis]

Sure enough, I had some leftover bamboo flooring (unbelievably hard planks), and I made a 1/24th-25th set and a 1/32nd set. I had some 2-56 socket head screws (hell to screw into bamboo, even with slightly larger than usual pilot holes).

Just playing around with it, I can tell this is going to be a blast. I think I'll do a chassis for the Mini-Ute first. Nice and small, and I have a pile of parts waiting to go in it. Yes!

[Retro Racer 44]

A Honeycomb Dilemma - Solved

In one of the posts above I showed pictures of a chassis I am building for a Munter resin Alfa.

I thought I had measured the wheelbase correctly and for the regular body I had, but this one is having a flared body.

Oops! Somewhere in my exuberance to add nice flares to a now lowered Alfa, I must have slightly changed the wheelbase. When I tried to mount the body it became very obvious that my wheelbase was now too long. What to do? (Message to myself- flare the body first and then build to it.)

I knew I didn't want to redo the flares, as they had turned out quite well. The rear had a pod, so the only option was to re-solder the front axle tube. The tube was soldered at three points across the chassis, so I had to use a razor saw and cut the solder so I could remove the tube. When it was mostly all cut, I put an axle in it and used vise-grips to ease it off. The board was already set up one hole shorter, and it was easy to re-solder the tube. I rebuilt the car, ready for testing.

While it was going around the track it just didn't look right as the wheelbase was now too short. Now what will I do?

I determined that I needed a location in between the two rows of holes.

I have great admiration for the inventors of K&S brass tubing and the fact that you can telescope it. I left the pins behind the axle where they were, and then moved the front pins one spot forward, to where they had been originally. Now the axle was loose between the pins. I always keep short scraps of tubing so I determined that a piece of 1/8 with a piece of 5/32 around it would fill the gap and centre the axle.

Result - A perfect centering of the wheels in the wells, and a job well done.

I'm posting this for your info if you run into a similar situation where the desired location falls just between the pin holes.

Happy building,

Keith

[masmojo]

Glad I found this! I bought one of these ceramic plates, when I saw them mentioned elsewhere a couple months ago! Up to now I had been soldering mine using, those little third hand thingys that Xacto makes and you can get @ Harbor Freight OR Calmping/holding things down on a small piece of granite and burning my fingers allot!! :(

This will work MUCH better! I think I bought the wrong plate though, because the holes in mine are VERY small! Might need to find another! :think:

[Retro Racer 44]

[Retro Racer 44]

[masmojo]

I really like the idea of using a pre-existing motor pod that should really make things tons easier!
I have done that on plastic chassis before, but for whatever reason the idea of doing it with brass never got through my thick skull!

[Ember]

Silly question maybe, but how do you attach the pod to the chassis? What size screws?

[Retro Racer 44]

Hi Lynne;

I use #2 x 3/8" flathead Phillips wood screws. I got tired of paying several dollars for screws from slot car companies, and went to the local fastener company and got 100 of these for less than $5.00. I also got 100 motor mounting screws for the same type of price, and 50 2x4mm set screws for less than $10.

I have replaced almost all of my regular pod and body mounting screws with them and am almost out of my second 100. I drill a 3/32 hole in the brass and then use a 3/16 or larger bit to countersink the hole so the head is flush with the bottom.

I discovered that they are easily modified so that the last 1/8 or so under the head has no thread. I put a small piece of wood into my vice, screw it into the wood so the last of the thread still shows and use the edge of a file to take off the thread while turning the screw with a screwdriver in my other hand. Although this is not necessary, these modified screws are less likely to bind as the pod or body moves.

Cheers,

Keith

[Ember]

Thanks Keith. I did the same thing and bought a bunch of screws from MicroFasteners in Melbourne (Vic not FL) but had to buy them in lots of 200. Got 200 brass machine screws and matched nuts and 200 s/s self tapping screws for body mounting, but I figured the M3 size would be a bit big for motor pods. As it is I think I should have gone for M2 or M2.5 instead.

[Retro Racer 44]

A #2 screw is approximately 2.2mm, but the thread is deeper on a wood screw that on a bolt. So a 2-56 bolt may fit fine, but the screw grabs better.

[masmojo]

[LloydL]

[oz10k]

FYI, #18 wire nails from Home Depot work pretty well. Although some had rough edges that I needed to file to get a good fit. The largest size at our store was 3/4", which are a bit short. Go for 1" if you can find them.





Ron