Post by mrb on Jun 9, 2017 5:25:36 GMT -5
5/27/17
I have several shaped and drilled bodies I can start with but I'm going to start from scratch with a piece of sugar pine. I believe this blank came from Bulldog when I bought one of his Wheel Prep Blocks.
I will be using Derby Evolution 47SRB axles on the rear of the car. The machining is really good, super smooth and I like how the ends are rounded.
For the DFW axle I'll be using either a Goat Boy axle or a Gravity X axle because they have machined flats to use a wrench to adjust the steer.
These are my FWU wheels I'll be using.
In the next few days I have to get with my neighbor who is a wood worker to have him route out the weight pockets. Then I can mark the body for drilling in my Goat Boy drill fixture and at some point start to shape the body. More pictures to follow.
5/28/17
Here are some of the tools I will be using to build my FWU car.
For shaping, narrowing and sanding the body I have an oscillating spindle sander and various grits of sand paper.
For drilling the body my Goat Boy drill jig, drill bit and reamer.
To polish the axles, Dremel rotary tool, wet dry sand paper and various polishing compounds. I might not use the rotary tool, the Derby Evolution axles are really good out of the bag, so I might polish them by hand.
For aligning the bearings in the wheels, a Goat Boy bearing alignment tool.
I'm sure there will be other tools I'll use.
5/30/17
A set back has happened in my FWU build. I was having the neighbor getting ready to route out the weight pockets in the body. But first we put the blank through the planer to thin it down. This is what happened to the blank even though the cutters were brand new.
Needless to say I won't be using this body. But I have a couple of other bodies that have the weight pockets routed out and are shaped. I'll be using one of those for my build. It will save a bunch of time this way.
In the mean time I have polished my axles and they are ready to go. This was a tricky step as Maglev mentioned. Polish the axles too much and the bearings are too loose on the axle. Not enough polishing and you have to force the bearings onto the axle. Let's just say I was a little over zealous with my polishing and now one of my axles is only good to be a guide pin.
5/31/17
Ok... I will be using a solid body. I have an older body that has the weight pockets routed out and it's shaped but needs to be narrowed in the front. I will sand a dip into the top of the body between the axle holes to lighten the body a bit. I will have to drill the axle holes and narrow the front so the rear wheels will be centered on the track.
Here is the routed out weight pockets.
Next I drew lines on the top of the body to indicate the axle locations. 5/8" from the rear of the body and 4-3/4" wheelbase.
I then put the body into my drill jig lining up the pencil line with the scribe marks on the drill jig. Using a pin vice I drilled the axle holes. 3 degree cant drill in the rear, straight drill in the front.
A word of caution here. If the body is too wide to fit in the drill jig, sand it down so it fits snugly so you don't have to force it into the jig. If the body is loose in the jig, add painters tape to the sides of the body until the body fits snugly. In my case the body fit the jig without having to do any additional work to it.
6/5/17
Here is my drilled and shaped body. Since this is a solid body, in order to lighten the body I used my belt sander to add a dip in the top of the body between the axles. I have not weighed the body but I would guess its in the 10 to 12 gram range. I will be fine sanding the body and add a vinyl covering.
I didn't take any pictures while shaping the body because I think most of the racers have done this on their own cars. I used my spindle sander to narrow the right front of the body so that the rear wheels will stay centered over the rails as the car runs down the track.
I think I have this correct, but generally, when you do a slow roll of your car on a piece of track, if the right rear wheel tracks close to the track, the front of the body needs to be narrowed. If the left rear wheel tracks close to the rail the right front wheel needs to be spaced away from the body. You would do the opposite of this if the left front wheel is being used to steer the car.
Remember to check the track of your car with the axles you are going to use. The amount of the bend in your steering axle will affect how the car will track. I will fine tune the rear wheel tracking by moving the right front axle in or out of the body.
6/7/17
I have started to work on my wheels. Before doing any prep work I look at the wheels to make sure there are no defects with them. Things I looked for were if the wheels are out of round. Lighter weight wheels are more flexible, can warp and get out of round pretty easily. Any nicks on the edges where the wheel rides on the track. Are the bearing mounting areas clean and smooth. I look for areas on the wheels where plastic residue from machining might remain. Is there any dirt and grime that I need to clean up. If you do find something major like the wheel is not round, find nicks on the tread edges or the bores have deep scratches, send the wheels back to the vendor and get replacements.
Next up was washing the wheels in Dawn Dishwasher Detergent to remove any dirt, grime and plastic mold release agent. I use a tooth brush for the all of the major cleaning. I do not use pipe cleaners in the bores of my wheels. It is too easy to scratch the inside of wheel bores with the wire in the pipe cleaners. In this case, since bearings are being installed in the the wheels I did use a pipe cleaner to clean the bores. I used some 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper to clean up some plastic residue on the inside of the wheels and in the area where the bearings mount.
Using these wet/dry sanding pads I lightly cleaned up the wheel edges where they will run on the track. If you want to see how this is done, reference the video Joel made awhile back on cleaning wheel edges with 1000 grit sand paper. I then checked the fit of my bearings into the wheels. You don't want to have to force the bearings into the wheels but yet you don't want them to fall out either.
I would usually put a wheel on a pin gauge and put the pin gauge in my rotary tool to polish the wheel tread, hubs and inside edge surfaces. But I don't have a large enough pin gauge to do that with this type of wheel, so I'll be doing most of the wheel polishing by hand. I cleaned up all of the inner surface edges using the sanding pads by putting the pads on a solid flat surface and then lightly wet sanded them in a circular motion to take out any marks left by the lathe process. I used each pad from roughest to finest grit being careful to not reduce the wheel width. You can do this on FWU wheels because the inner hubs are shortened below the inner surface of the wheels. Using a felt pad in my rotary tool and some plastic polish, I polished all other areas of the wheels and then re-washed the wheels.
6/9/17
I don't know if it was necessary on FWU wheels, but I gave all of the surfaces of the wheels a light polish. This was done by hand. I wore rubber gloves, spread polishing compound all over the wheels and used my fingers to work the polish into the wheels.
Then using a soft microfiber towel I cleaned all of the surfaces of the wheels. Then I laid a folder microfiber towel on my table, put a wheel on it outer hub down on it and used a circular motion to polish them. I did this until the wheels had a shine to them. I did the same process for the inner surfaces of the wheels until they had a nice shine too.
A quick re-wash in Dawn Dishwasher Detergent removed any remaining polishing compound. At some point I'll wax the inner surface of the front wheel that runs against the rail.
Just a personal note about my wheels. For this build thread I went a head and polished them but I may not use these wheels. If you zoom in on the outer hubs you will see lathe marks and on the wheel on the right there is what looks to me to be bumps and the surface is not smooth. I am not sure if the bearings are suppose to seat all of the way to the bottom surface or not. If the bearings are to seat to the bottom of the machined bore I have a feeling they will not seat well and may be in the wheels at an angle.
6/12/17
Here is my covered body using scrap tan vinyl from a local sign shop. To prepare the body for the vinyl I sanded all of the surfaces until they were very smooth. To make sure the vinyl sticks well and looks good, Wipe the body clean or use compressed air to remove any sanding dust from shaping and sanding the body. Cut the vinyl a little larger than the body, peel the packing off and stick it on the top. I used a small wallpaper squeegee to remove any air bubbles working from the center of the body out to either end. Use a sharp razor blade to trim off the excess vinyl. I lightly sanded the edge of the body where the vinyl meets it to clean the edge up. Then I held the body under a 100 watt light bulb to heat the vinyl up and make it stick really well. For the most part I like my cars to look plain, but perhaps at some point I will add some black trim.
To get the axles to fit I reamed the axle holes. I put a small dab of wood glue in the axle holes to hold the axles in place and inserted them into the body. Just enough of the large diameter part of the axle sticks out of the body so I can adjust or remove the axles when I do a slow roll of the car. I'll put a drop of glue on the front axle once I get the steer set.
6/15/17
These are the bearings I will be using on this car. I bought them through McMaster Carr.
I soak my bearings in mineral spirits to flush out any oil, dirt or dust. You can see in the upper right corner all of the dirt that came out of these bearings. I give the bearings a quick wipe with a NPWDRL towel before installing them in the wheels.
I use my Goat Boy Bearing jig to install the bearings in my wheels.
Place 1 bearing on the jig over the pin flange down.
Set a wheel inner hub down over the pin and the bearing. slight pressure is all that is needed to start the bearing in the inner hub
Take a second bearing, flange up and slide it over the pin and over the bore of the outer hub.
Use the bearing setter tool with firm pressure to seat the bearing in the outer hub.
Take the wheel off of the jig, turn it over and slide it with the bearings over the pin of the jig. Use the bearing setter tool with firm pressure to make sure the bearing is seated in the inner hub.
I put the wheel with the bearings in it on an old Unlimited rear axle. Then i spin the wheel to make sure it does not wobble. I also spin the wheel and bearings with compressed air to clean out any mineral spirits in the bearings.
Here are my wheels with the bearings installed.
I also installed a set of bearings in one wheel without using the Goat Boy Bearing jig. When I spun the wheel it had a slight wobble, so I re-installed the bearings using the bearing jig and after spinning the wheel the wobble was gone. I think that getting the bearings aligned with the axle will give me more speed.
I have several shaped and drilled bodies I can start with but I'm going to start from scratch with a piece of sugar pine. I believe this blank came from Bulldog when I bought one of his Wheel Prep Blocks.
I will be using Derby Evolution 47SRB axles on the rear of the car. The machining is really good, super smooth and I like how the ends are rounded.
For the DFW axle I'll be using either a Goat Boy axle or a Gravity X axle because they have machined flats to use a wrench to adjust the steer.
These are my FWU wheels I'll be using.
In the next few days I have to get with my neighbor who is a wood worker to have him route out the weight pockets. Then I can mark the body for drilling in my Goat Boy drill fixture and at some point start to shape the body. More pictures to follow.
5/28/17
Here are some of the tools I will be using to build my FWU car.
For shaping, narrowing and sanding the body I have an oscillating spindle sander and various grits of sand paper.
For drilling the body my Goat Boy drill jig, drill bit and reamer.
To polish the axles, Dremel rotary tool, wet dry sand paper and various polishing compounds. I might not use the rotary tool, the Derby Evolution axles are really good out of the bag, so I might polish them by hand.
For aligning the bearings in the wheels, a Goat Boy bearing alignment tool.
I'm sure there will be other tools I'll use.
5/30/17
A set back has happened in my FWU build. I was having the neighbor getting ready to route out the weight pockets in the body. But first we put the blank through the planer to thin it down. This is what happened to the blank even though the cutters were brand new.
Needless to say I won't be using this body. But I have a couple of other bodies that have the weight pockets routed out and are shaped. I'll be using one of those for my build. It will save a bunch of time this way.
In the mean time I have polished my axles and they are ready to go. This was a tricky step as Maglev mentioned. Polish the axles too much and the bearings are too loose on the axle. Not enough polishing and you have to force the bearings onto the axle. Let's just say I was a little over zealous with my polishing and now one of my axles is only good to be a guide pin.
5/31/17
Ok... I will be using a solid body. I have an older body that has the weight pockets routed out and it's shaped but needs to be narrowed in the front. I will sand a dip into the top of the body between the axle holes to lighten the body a bit. I will have to drill the axle holes and narrow the front so the rear wheels will be centered on the track.
Here is the routed out weight pockets.
Next I drew lines on the top of the body to indicate the axle locations. 5/8" from the rear of the body and 4-3/4" wheelbase.
I then put the body into my drill jig lining up the pencil line with the scribe marks on the drill jig. Using a pin vice I drilled the axle holes. 3 degree cant drill in the rear, straight drill in the front.
A word of caution here. If the body is too wide to fit in the drill jig, sand it down so it fits snugly so you don't have to force it into the jig. If the body is loose in the jig, add painters tape to the sides of the body until the body fits snugly. In my case the body fit the jig without having to do any additional work to it.
6/5/17
Here is my drilled and shaped body. Since this is a solid body, in order to lighten the body I used my belt sander to add a dip in the top of the body between the axles. I have not weighed the body but I would guess its in the 10 to 12 gram range. I will be fine sanding the body and add a vinyl covering.
I didn't take any pictures while shaping the body because I think most of the racers have done this on their own cars. I used my spindle sander to narrow the right front of the body so that the rear wheels will stay centered over the rails as the car runs down the track.
I think I have this correct, but generally, when you do a slow roll of your car on a piece of track, if the right rear wheel tracks close to the track, the front of the body needs to be narrowed. If the left rear wheel tracks close to the rail the right front wheel needs to be spaced away from the body. You would do the opposite of this if the left front wheel is being used to steer the car.
Remember to check the track of your car with the axles you are going to use. The amount of the bend in your steering axle will affect how the car will track. I will fine tune the rear wheel tracking by moving the right front axle in or out of the body.
6/7/17
I have started to work on my wheels. Before doing any prep work I look at the wheels to make sure there are no defects with them. Things I looked for were if the wheels are out of round. Lighter weight wheels are more flexible, can warp and get out of round pretty easily. Any nicks on the edges where the wheel rides on the track. Are the bearing mounting areas clean and smooth. I look for areas on the wheels where plastic residue from machining might remain. Is there any dirt and grime that I need to clean up. If you do find something major like the wheel is not round, find nicks on the tread edges or the bores have deep scratches, send the wheels back to the vendor and get replacements.
Next up was washing the wheels in Dawn Dishwasher Detergent to remove any dirt, grime and plastic mold release agent. I use a tooth brush for the all of the major cleaning. I do not use pipe cleaners in the bores of my wheels. It is too easy to scratch the inside of wheel bores with the wire in the pipe cleaners. In this case, since bearings are being installed in the the wheels I did use a pipe cleaner to clean the bores. I used some 1000 grit wet/dry sandpaper to clean up some plastic residue on the inside of the wheels and in the area where the bearings mount.
Using these wet/dry sanding pads I lightly cleaned up the wheel edges where they will run on the track. If you want to see how this is done, reference the video Joel made awhile back on cleaning wheel edges with 1000 grit sand paper. I then checked the fit of my bearings into the wheels. You don't want to have to force the bearings into the wheels but yet you don't want them to fall out either.
I would usually put a wheel on a pin gauge and put the pin gauge in my rotary tool to polish the wheel tread, hubs and inside edge surfaces. But I don't have a large enough pin gauge to do that with this type of wheel, so I'll be doing most of the wheel polishing by hand. I cleaned up all of the inner surface edges using the sanding pads by putting the pads on a solid flat surface and then lightly wet sanded them in a circular motion to take out any marks left by the lathe process. I used each pad from roughest to finest grit being careful to not reduce the wheel width. You can do this on FWU wheels because the inner hubs are shortened below the inner surface of the wheels. Using a felt pad in my rotary tool and some plastic polish, I polished all other areas of the wheels and then re-washed the wheels.
6/9/17
I don't know if it was necessary on FWU wheels, but I gave all of the surfaces of the wheels a light polish. This was done by hand. I wore rubber gloves, spread polishing compound all over the wheels and used my fingers to work the polish into the wheels.
Then using a soft microfiber towel I cleaned all of the surfaces of the wheels. Then I laid a folder microfiber towel on my table, put a wheel on it outer hub down on it and used a circular motion to polish them. I did this until the wheels had a shine to them. I did the same process for the inner surfaces of the wheels until they had a nice shine too.
A quick re-wash in Dawn Dishwasher Detergent removed any remaining polishing compound. At some point I'll wax the inner surface of the front wheel that runs against the rail.
Just a personal note about my wheels. For this build thread I went a head and polished them but I may not use these wheels. If you zoom in on the outer hubs you will see lathe marks and on the wheel on the right there is what looks to me to be bumps and the surface is not smooth. I am not sure if the bearings are suppose to seat all of the way to the bottom surface or not. If the bearings are to seat to the bottom of the machined bore I have a feeling they will not seat well and may be in the wheels at an angle.
6/12/17
Here is my covered body using scrap tan vinyl from a local sign shop. To prepare the body for the vinyl I sanded all of the surfaces until they were very smooth. To make sure the vinyl sticks well and looks good, Wipe the body clean or use compressed air to remove any sanding dust from shaping and sanding the body. Cut the vinyl a little larger than the body, peel the packing off and stick it on the top. I used a small wallpaper squeegee to remove any air bubbles working from the center of the body out to either end. Use a sharp razor blade to trim off the excess vinyl. I lightly sanded the edge of the body where the vinyl meets it to clean the edge up. Then I held the body under a 100 watt light bulb to heat the vinyl up and make it stick really well. For the most part I like my cars to look plain, but perhaps at some point I will add some black trim.
To get the axles to fit I reamed the axle holes. I put a small dab of wood glue in the axle holes to hold the axles in place and inserted them into the body. Just enough of the large diameter part of the axle sticks out of the body so I can adjust or remove the axles when I do a slow roll of the car. I'll put a drop of glue on the front axle once I get the steer set.
6/15/17
These are the bearings I will be using on this car. I bought them through McMaster Carr.
I soak my bearings in mineral spirits to flush out any oil, dirt or dust. You can see in the upper right corner all of the dirt that came out of these bearings. I give the bearings a quick wipe with a NPWDRL towel before installing them in the wheels.
I use my Goat Boy Bearing jig to install the bearings in my wheels.
Place 1 bearing on the jig over the pin flange down.
Set a wheel inner hub down over the pin and the bearing. slight pressure is all that is needed to start the bearing in the inner hub
Take a second bearing, flange up and slide it over the pin and over the bore of the outer hub.
Use the bearing setter tool with firm pressure to seat the bearing in the outer hub.
Take the wheel off of the jig, turn it over and slide it with the bearings over the pin of the jig. Use the bearing setter tool with firm pressure to make sure the bearing is seated in the inner hub.
I put the wheel with the bearings in it on an old Unlimited rear axle. Then i spin the wheel to make sure it does not wobble. I also spin the wheel and bearings with compressed air to clean out any mineral spirits in the bearings.
Here are my wheels with the bearings installed.
I also installed a set of bearings in one wheel without using the Goat Boy Bearing jig. When I spun the wheel it had a slight wobble, so I re-installed the bearings using the bearing jig and after spinning the wheel the wobble was gone. I think that getting the bearings aligned with the axle will give me more speed.
