Update- NEW Dash Chassis is Ready !

[Ralphthe3rd]

The NEW DASH T-Jet Chassis is Complete ! Testing is being done by Tom Stumpf and others. The chassis will be called "T-Dash" and btw- price will be $11.99. The actual chassis will come with slightly wider tires. Here are some pix....

[Ralphthe3rd]

BTW, Dan(of Dash) just replied to a question and added further details about his chassis.
(Question)What do the arms ohm at?Who makes the brushes?

Dan replies >
The brushes in the prototypes I sent out are Wizzard brushes. Our brushes are still being sourced/produced. We hope to have brushes on par with the awesome Wizzard brushes used for these first 10 cars.

Also, the tires on the prototypes are not correct. We didnt have rear tires the right width and profile. These are also items that are in the works and will be on our production cars.

A note about the armature.

It's similar to an Autoworld arm in that it's a trilam arm with resistance about 16 to 17 per pole. That's where the similarity ends. As you can see, we have a copper comm plate and there is a plastic spacer between the comm plate and the comm stack. This spacer prevents the comm plate from being distorted, bent, skewed, screwed up, pushed up towards the comm stack, etc as the bottom bushing is pressed into place and further secures the comm plate on the shaft and to the comm stack tabs. We ran through about 10 rounds of samples with these arms and we have a solid, well made product where the shafts are on straight, the comm plate is perpendicular to the shaft and the bottom bushing is a consistent distance from the bottom of the shaft. This helps to ensure that the comm plate is a consistent distance from the bottom of the chassis. It spins true and flat, not 'oblique' and off center. We are very satisfied with this armature.

The tri-lam is our work horse. It will be used in the T-Dash, the magna trac equivalent of the T-Dash, the 4 gear equivalent of the T-Dash, etc. This will be our base for future armature modifications which will include other variations of the tri-lam arm with multiple resistance levels. A future modification will include a 17 ohm 2-lam arm to help satisfy the Legacy Aurora crowd.

[Ralphthe3rd]

More Dash Specs: FYI, I asked Dan the following Question >

Originally Posted by Ralphthe3rd:
Question about the chassis material... is it made from Nylatron, or some other type plastic, delrin, or nylon ? From the pix, the chassis looks Black, is this true ?

>Dan's Reply>
Chassis material has not been finalized. We wanted Delrin, but the shrinkage of delrin disqualified itself. We found that pieces weren't fitting together very well, wheel base was affected, etc... Nylon has some of the same shrinkage issues plus it absorbs moisture which causes isses. the prototypes are actually molded in black polycarbonate.

Tough stuff, doesnt shrink, dimensionally stable, can take a beating, etc. But it's not that great for wear and friction. ABS is another material he have had some samples made of.

what will most likely happen is that it will be a PC or ABS 'alloy' with additives to help out with increasing wear and reducing friction.

Hope this answered your question.

[BIG E]

Good job, Ralph -- I'll have to give my friend Tom a call! -- Ernie

[Ralphthe3rd]

MORE Good NEWS from DASH !
Dan writes >

When I first started this, like 7 years ago, there was a company I worked with that produced my first 8 to 10 bodies. A few years ago, that company folded up. Along with that company was the access to the molds for those first cars.

Those cars included the Super Mod, Hot Rod, Cheetah Roadster, 69 Road Runner, 65 GTO, Lead Sled, Avanti, Galaxie (hardtop and convertible) and Henry J.

Every once in a while I would do a search on the name and see what popped up. Well, a few months ago I saw that the site was operational again so I tried to contact them. I reached someone who told me that the old company did indeed close but that they were opening it back up. He also told me that although the company I dealt with had closed, the factory that made and stored the molds was still in operation.

He was able to work with the factory and locate every mold except the Super Mod and the main Hot Rod body. Hot Rod pieces like exhaust pipes, window frame and hardtop were in a later mold than the Super Mod and were found.

I had to pay them to run tests of the molds and those parts arrived this week! They look AWESOME! The molds were apparently well maintained.

So I now have access again to molds of some really awesome cars (Cheetah roadster excluded, that car sucked).

Cars that I will be offering again in the near future in kit form (unpainted, unassembled) will be the 69 Road Runner, 65 GTO and Galaxie hardtop and convertible.

Dan

[BIG E]

As Mr. Lennon and Mr. McCartney said... it's getting better all the time! -- Ernie

[Ralphthe3rd]

Just a tidbit of News to update you with this time. But when the chassis finally do become available, they will be distributed through THREE Retailers, and they are(in no particular order) - "JAG Hobbies" , "SlotsnStuff" and "Tom Stumpf" . Thats all for now :)

[Ralphthe3rd]

[dge467]

Thanks for the info and updates on the chassis Ralph. I would like to pick up a few to try.

[bolts69]

Just wondering if Tom would have any of the Dash Chassis at the Cleveland Slot Car Show?

[Slot Demon]

I cannot wait...First really good slot car news in a while...I hope the mold maker either finds or replaces the lost hot rod / modified bodies, It would be nice to be able to get roofs and chrome though
Trent

[Ralphthe3rd]

This NEWS Straight from Mr. Dash(Dan Cashmer) himself...
"I'm expecting to roll out the first production T-Dash chassis in the next 4 to 6 weeks. These will be available from the following sources:

Tom Stumpf
Jim Gase (Jag Hobbies)
Andy Tedesco (Slot-n-stuff)

Retail price is set at $11.99 and I'm working on some 'Commemorative Inaugural' packaging.

Since the majority of the chassis is being assembled by me, it will take some time to get these into the hands of these guys. So that no one has an unfair selling advantage, I will ship the same number to each of them at the same time.

Everyone has waiting a long time for this to happen, and it's finally here! Thank you to everyone for your help, patience, comments (positive and negative, they all had some positive impact on this project) and support!



Dan "

[Ralphthe3rd]

A Message posted a little more than an hour ago by Mr. Dash (Dan Cashmer) himself...
" I dont need or want 'constant kudos'.

What I need is for people to stop pushing their own agendas here.

Yesterday I get an email that a racer thought that adding the RT-HO gears 'would make it quieter'. Well, no *%$#... It would also add $30 to the cost. The same email said that this racer took out the shoe springs that came on the car and installed Dr Oogan springs. HELLOOOO!!!!! Dr Oogans WERE ON the car to begin with. The first 10,000 will all have Dr Oogan springs. this wasn't done to make it a 'race car'. It was done because Dr Oogans are great springs and I was able to source some these parts at a good price from an American supplier. the same dude took off my BSRT clone shoes and put on BSRT shoes. WTF??? Why?

I wish this 'racer' didnt get his hands on my car because the last thing I wanted was for it to be evaluated as a 'race chassis'. It's for that same reason that I purposely made the arm on these first 10,000 under 16 ohms per pole. Because I wanted a solid, reliable product first, without the baggage of catering to the race crowd. Then a later product would possibly have more 'race mods'.

But no. I get it from the racer end that this is maybe a 'good start'. I get it from Ralphie that the color better not glow in the freaking dark, and curse you Lenny for not telling me the material because after all, I AM RALPH!!! I hear that the tester who posted the videos is a personal friend (he's not, never even met the dude) and that's why the review was so good. I hear the axles splines are 'too aggressive'. I hear that my wheels better not be 'happy meal turd wheels' and if they don't take inserts, they'll be crap...

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't.

This has cost way more to develop that I expected, and the hassle just isn't worth it. I'll be very lucky if I come close to breaking even here. after this, I'll stick to bodies. "

[Slot Demon]

Thank you for doing this. I appreciate your effort
Trent Bradbury

[KsRacer]

I have been watching this thread for a while, and I want to let you know that these cars are what is pulling back towards HO scale. I liked them back in the 70's because they were inexpensive, they looked good and were very fun to race with. Me and my friends run countless hours with them back then. These will make an excellant box stock for 4x8 layouts. Thank you for your efforts with this project, I have been looking for an AFX set, but haven't decided which one. LOL
Dave K.