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Cars #149, 20, 23, 4, 44b, 54 & 77 all had a copper glaze on their wheels, BEFORE they arrived at Cornerstone!

Just wondering...
How many of the cars listed run on copper taped tracks?

How many use some sort of fluid to clean their tires? Or combine that with sticky pads?

I stopped using tire juices and othe tire cleaning methods a couple of years back when running the U13 proxy. After we were unable to run the "faster" class, aweful, no grip at all, we noticed the glaze. Too late, cars moved on to the next host.

That Sunday I took about 6 hours to strip my track down, the grip is now fine with silicone and urethane tires. I only clean the tires with a water/alcohol (Very little, less than 1/2 oz.) blend.

My track is also covered since the stripping, minimal wipe down required now, rarely do I find a spot that the copper needs cleaning for contact reasons. Pretty much remove cover, swifter the track and go have fun!

I know this is a hot topic, and don't want to start a tire war, just interested in the cars noted above.

The difference before and after is amazing! Wish I documented it now, but qualifying 30 cars took quite a long time.

Cars were run at 10 volts for 15 laps, and the best time was recorded.

Please be kind! I only know what works here. Just looking for some feedback :text-thankyouyellow:

Bob <><

Not sure what you're seeing on these tires. My oval is copper tape about eight years old now not cleaned very much at all :violence-smack: and I've never seen any issues like this running rubber and urethane tires

I've seen the copper glaze that you're talking about, Bob. Usually, as you say, it's when the cars were last run on a coppe rtape track that has some age on the copper tape. Not easy to get off. I usually run the cars that way that they came to me.

Would be interesting to know if the cars that showed the glaze in your quali run were on rubber or urethane; there's a mix of these two tire types in this proxy.

Thanks for the clean-up!

Allan

My cars were one of the cars affected by this. I am running PGT urethane tires and never have used any kind of fluid on them. They were fresh out of the bag, and only glued and trued. My home track is Carrera set track so has no copper.

Because my car finished in 6th in qualifying where it was a midpacker on the previous race, I have to assume that the tire cleaning was in order, and I thank you for taking the time to address what you were seeing. I am not sure if there is one other single thing that can improve a cars performance better then trued clean tires.

I am very happy to see this result as it gives some qualitative measure of the Gift Card chassis I have been experimenting with, and your attention to the details gave it a good shot.

For the hunt for a common denominator though my tires were raw PGT urethanes

Cheers


Dan

Good day all.
First off my back marker #77 ran on BOSA urerthane. Thought that it would be a good chance to use this relatively new product and support their efforts. Car was run here on 4x8 Scalextric Sport track. Tires trued on Tire Razor using dish soap and water as lubricant in process. No tire treatment used. Interesting thread.
Aloha
Dale

Those cars were run on my track last. I don't have copper tape on my track. I haven't seen any of that glazing on my other cars tires either. But one of my cars was infected. Interesting! I have seen brass gears cause that on a few cars before.Wearing off like a fine powder.

I think my old Ford is 23, and it has PG standard tires on it. No trick juise or otherwise.
So i dont know where the copper glaze comes from. Never seen anything like it before.
I only use water or saliva to clean my tires so it must have picked up something along the way.
Bob

We run copper tape tracks all the time here and one of them is at least 6 years old or older with the same copper tape and one new track with fresh copper tape and have never seen the tires pick up the copper.I'm with dge467 that there might be a car out there dusting the track with a bad gear.

Perhaps rolling the tires over some tape will pull the copper dust off, it certainly is strange, and deserves keeping an eye on.. Until the source is found it would likely be
wise to check,the tires of all cars before the races. The running order on some cars may cleannup,the track after the source , hence some cars with copper or bronze dust and some with out. It may be easier to isolate while doing quali laps , and checking each car after it has ran. Then look at it and the car before . Im sure the source car would pick up some of its own deposits.
Just a thought
Bob

We have seen this before on the track we race on and there does seem to be a pattern to it.
We regularly wash the track before racing to keep it clean and the rags also show the copper tinge after cleaning.
The odd time when we don't wash the track before racing the tires collected the copper residue sticking to the tires.
We believe the copper oxidizes and what we are seeing is the residue.
This shows up with urethane and Scalextric tires more so than NSR or Slot-it tires - no idea why this is the case.
I guess the best way to combat this would be to polish the copper to remove the oxidization and see how long that would last and wash the tires with something like fuelite or isopropal to get them clean.
Maybe for the PanAm Fun Run the cars just need the tires washed before they get run to make sure the cars perform as intended.
Just my 10 cents worth.
Otherwise good luck to all for this truely awesome event. Looking forward to running them in Auckland.
Cheers guys - Dave.

DRW21, I agree with you, "the cars just need the tires washed (cleaned) before they get run to make sure the cars perform as intended"
My experience is that any tire cleaning fluid, such as Simple Green, makes it worse! It's a cleaning fluid, which then scrubs the track, spreads what is picked up to the copper, loosens any oxidation, this then sticks to the tires, then the timing system starts acting up, the controller starts to act intermittently... and so on! :P

Especially if sticky back labels are used for tire cleaning. Just my experience, please don't shoot the messenger. :roll:

I had no experience with Tapatalk till late Saturday night, or I would have taken more pictures, but especially pictures of the tires in question. Nice app when set up!

So here's what I have put together... and I still can't figure out:
•Car (one of) is built and tested on a braided track (dge467)
•Car runs 1st round on a braided track
•Car runs 2nd round on a braided track, the same track the car was built and tested on (dge467)
•Car arrives at Cornerstone with copper glaze! And was never run!?!?!?!? It must have been added during the delivery and hand-off by Allan! :angry-tappingfoot:

I was looking at the low gear causing copper dust, but the car was always run on braid!!! Built, tested, qualified and raced in rounds 1 & 2!!!

Oh well, in conclusion, I will make sure the track and tires are clean before the race on Saturday. :auto-driving:

And before you send your car off to a proxy, make sure those tires are clean, never know what the post office does to those tires in transit :laughing-rolling:

BTW, DRW21, what do you wash the track with?
Also, I haven't experienced any of this oxidation since I covered my track. And I now can run silicone and urethane tires! It's all good.

Thanks everyone for your input, glad this didn't get out of control, good job guys! :text-bravo:

I would prefer my tires to be run over the sticky side of some packing tape. No stress on the gears, and it only takes a couple of passes to get the debris off of them.

I think my car is running nylon gears as well so it shouldn't be producing any brass dust for the rest of you.

Cheers

Dan

My "almost back marker" #129 is running Shotgun Ninco urethanes, just fyi.

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