I finally got a day off and have been able to stay in town for a few days (thanks to the weather)so this is what I have been working on. This little project has been going on for over a month now. I have been sending "Boss" sneak previews and asking for his input. I set out to make a late model dirt car however I'm not so sure it doesn't look more like a Daytona Prototype. Now I would like to show the first one to the group and see what you guys think. For some of you that may not know, (I noticed a couple of names I have not seen before on the site) I am on a mission to salvage damaged, and/or left for dead slot cars, and have started my own organization: "PETS" People for the ethical treatment of Slotcars. Anyway, as you can probably tell the main part of this little darlin is a Shadow body

About a week before Christmas I was looking through Bud's listings on the bay when I saw this body for sale, being the Camaro fan I am I had to have one. Even though I had just purchased several other bodies from him minutes before and felt like I had spent enough money for one day,(is there really a limit?) I decided I would purchase only one of these figuring there would be plenty more if I liked it. When it arrived I put it on one of my souped up TJet chassis and although I liked it I decided it would look even better if I lowered it to look more realistic. After about an hour of trimming and test fitting with the dremel tool (I also had to trim the top of the chassis a bit) I had it like I wanted it. This has quickly become my newest favorite TJet. Lowering it not only (in my opinion) made it look better, but it also made it handle better ie: lower center of gravity. Now, all that being said, I decided I would order a couple more and guess what?

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I really appreciate a neat, clean, and well organized place to work. I am a carpenter by trade (when I'm not fighting fires) and have been very blessed over the years by being able to have a shop that I could only dream of in my younger days. I also have become somewhat of a neat freak grasping tightly onto the concept that everything has it's place and when not being used it should be there. Some of my employees over the years called me the anal carpenter. I have in the last few months been able to regain custody of the basement as the kids finally vacated the premises, and I have slowly been trying to get things more organized. Although I'm not quite there yet I thought it might make for an interesting topic to show and see some of your setups. After all this is where we slip into seclusion far away from the day to day chaos and don our white lab coats to become our own version of Dr. Frankenjet.

Here is a little trick I discovered that will definately save some time and foul verbage. While pondering the process of transforming some Shadow bodies into custom outlaws, I was dreading the painstaking step of taping off the little pin headed driver as I have done in the past. I got to wondering if there might be an easier/faster way to keep the little guy (who sits on the wrong side of the car) from getting covered up with Krylon. It occured to me that if I had a semi rigid material that would take form to cover the cockpit area it might indeed provide positive results. I considered a small piece of metallic tubing, or a straw etc. I was rumaging through a coffee can of plastic what nots that you know; "I don't want to throw that away it might come in handy sometime" when I found the item in the picture. I wish I could tell you what it is or was, but, truth be known, I have no idea. Anyway, it seemed to work just fine.

Ok Tony, you asked for a couple more pics of the Shadow Modifed. Well, here they are. I also uploaded a sneek peek at the next one out of the stable.

I mentioned in my last blog that I was working on another project that started with another old body. Tony mentioned in his comment about my last one that maybe I should utilize a Shadow body because they are so readily available. Well either he has ESP, or maybe the old saying "great minds think alike" could come into to play here. Either way what your looking at is the first out of the stable "Shadow Modified" I thought it turned out pretty well so I have 2 more in the paint drying stages as these words are being pecked on the key board. The one pictured is on the Bay

The other day I was rummaging through a stash of old bodies trying to decide what was worth keeping and what might could be discarded when I ran across this old Porsche body. As you can tell by the "Before" pic this car would not quiet qualify as "Minty" As I recall a few (emphasis on few) years back I was wanting an open wheel AFX. At the time, prior to the G-Plus release, there just wasn't much out there. So, as many of us did during that time, I boldly took on the task to transform this little jewel into something else, more than likely with only a dull pocket knife. Again, as you can see the results were, well, it is what it is. Ok, back to the present. I was holding this little gem in my hand wondering what, or why would I want to keep it, when I happen to look over and see an old AFX Bronco sitting there that appeared to be saying look at me! look at me!

Well it's been a while since I contributed anything to the site. I have been taking advantage of the cooler fall weather here in west Texas and spending a lot of time outdoors. I have over the last few months managed to squeeze in a little slot car time and these are the latest in my never ending quest to never discard a vintage slot car. Both of these have been with me since childhood, the 63 was roughly modified to allow for larger wheels and tires as we used to do. I decided to smooth those rough cuts up by making the openings larger and then decided to lower the body to make it look the way it does now. It is sitting on a vintage solid rivet chassis, with matched and zapped magnets, a mean green, silver v groove brushes, silver pickup shoes with wires soldered to the brush tabs.

The ad reads "Fast Trackers were rated first in speed and cornering when tested against ALL popular national slot car brands".

I recently bought the car in the picture (and yes I am man enough to admit that I like Jeff Gordon. I am also 6'3" and 235lbs if any of you want to make fun of it). The picture shows the car in a severe slide on the high banks of my track because this is where it spent most of it's time when tested. I will say the car accelerates as fast if not faster than any slot car I have ever run, I think this is largely due to the big rear

Nu-Rora 69 Z/28 Camaro Rally Sport

 This is without a doubt my favorite slot car due mostly to the fact I had a real one in high school. The car is mounted on a tjet chassis and while it is a good runner this one spends most of it's time on display or carefully being driven only on special occassions. The car in my opinion, is a great replication of a great car. Wheels and tires by Road Race Replicas which by the way is also owned by Phil Pignon, owner of Nu-Rora.

 

69 Z/28