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Other than beauty (not a quality to be underrated in any way) is there any benefit to a jail door chassis over other kinds?

I'm no expert on scratch-built brass chassis but I understand that one of the advantages of a jail door chassis is that it is easier to solder. The thin brass rod will not draw heat away from the solder site as efficiently as say, brass sheet which for this reason can be more difficult to solder. Depending on the design a jail door chassis allows a controlled degree of flex also.
Steve

You're right, Ember, some of the heavily engineered fabricated chassis are a joy to look at, but as a late "returner" to slot cars, I can't help thinking that all that engineering only matters if you're engaged in the field of supersonic speeds, and huge semi-professional tracks.

For the kind of racing that sensible people do on home tracks,I think "anything that works" is probably good enough - I've seen people making perfectly lovely chassis out of lollipop sticks.

David.

H'mmm, lots of good discussion opportunities here.

I've got some work to do to get back online - stay tuned.

Most jail door type chassis are used with the clear lexan type bodies. I've not tried to use one with a hard body as of yet. But some of the advantages of the brass jail door chassis are things like hinged body mounts to isolate the body from chassis vibrations, controlled flex to keep the rear tires planted on the track while the body rolls in the corners. Body mounts that slide forward under braking to transfer weight to the guide when entering corners and slide to the rear to transfer weight to the rear tires under acceleration. In the two clubs I race with we have scratch built jail door chassis with NO magnets and foam tires that can run with plastic chassis cars that are stuck down with 500grams of magnet and 40,000RPM motors.

I'm not chasing mega-performance at all. I'm only a track pootling, pleasure driver. I suppose the works that particularly inspired me to ask the question are those of Jairus Watson. Absolutely beautiful. But I know there's years of experience there.

It just seems like a nice elegant solution to a brass chassis. Seems like it should be readily adaptable to odd shaped cars and the like. But there is so much I don't know.

Been doing some soldering practice, and I think I'm getting the hang of it.

That's terrific work.you'll easily do the sort of chassis people do here.

Look at some of Harry's "how-to" tutorials on 1/24 jalopies. Then just make them the size you want.

Some of the fancy engineering, even the speed-obsessed don't do any more.


David.

Jaildoor chassis were built to a formula dictated by a series sponsored by Rod and Custom magazine
back in the 'sixties. There was a movement a few years ago to revive this type of car, but it died out.
I built several, and along with a few other local commercial track racers, I bring them out for a night
of fun and frivolity from time to time.

i used to build chassis all out of spaced brass rod in the 60's, and i made some pretty serious ones if i do say. remember the vintage Champion chrome-plated, open wheel variety? like that, same era, but mostly closed fender full-width ones in sports and gt. i still have my most successful one, which never lost a heat or a feature in two years of running in our club. (it was the first anglewinder anywhere around as well ('66?), born out of the necessity to get the gears to meet up.)
the next evolution was to us some hinged brass pans and drop arms mixed in, which took a bunch of the work out of it. as the cars got faster, they didn't come apart as much either, as some of the solder joints required with the rod cars did not lend themselves to making good mechanical joints and just relid on some solder. plus, the brass plate let you get some weight down low and where you neded it. they were kind of a cross between a solid brass car and the 40-individual piece ones.
not sure if that's what you were talking about or not, after seing Embr's nice (luggage) rack. (sorry about that chief.) (runs from forum)
speedy

very nice.
looks like one to me, even down to the weight on the drop arm(?). i used to have to put some down low with these things just behind the front axle on the outsides as well, but with the huge flag lead that might be moot. those lotus 40 bodies never handled well for me, though.
no side play in the front axle?

MG, where are you from out there? just curious.
speedy

It's all very fine that they are doing it on the west coast. But I am not going to travel
5000 miles round trip each week to race at BPR. It died in the midwest, and the closest
thing is IRRA. And the IRRA cars are not exactly like the cars they are supposed to represent
were back then.

Retro East guys, on the east coast, have been running jail door cars too, mostly F1 cars. They're not being run as often on the west coast since Mike Steube & others have stopped racing slot cars.

speedy, MG is from IL.