Hitting Paydirt

Living temporarily-and that is read optimistically hopeful at this juncture- in my childhood home while my mother regains a better measure of her independence has had rewards besides those that cannot be measured. Of course the downside has been a general lack of privacy for my wife and I, and not being able to run my slot cars on Riverside. This is soon to be remedied somewhat by building a break-in board for testing tweeked chassis' and lapping gears. The truth of the matter is that I should have made one a long time ago, as I am reminded of this by the winter temperatures in the garage where Riverside takes up the floor space that one day will be occupied by my restored MGB. This morning I varnished the mounting board with Fornby's Tung Oil Varnish, which seals the wood and preserves it's wonderful patina. Once it dries I can sling Aurora Red Racing Oil all over it without any worries of it soaking into the board. A Start-Finish lock-and-joiner track section and several short straights are on their way from Bob Lucasiewitz of THE SLOT CAR SITE fame, and he threw in a white crown gear as a gesture of good will for the green Hot Rod snafu. Ray also stepped up to the plate with a nice Aurora 22 volt DC-2 transformer and a clip-on terminal that allows current to be delivered to the two track pieces. Since I will have a choice of which length of straight track is best for the project, I will keep the remainder should another box happen to fall on Riverside from the rafters, heaven forbid. I already had a nice steering wheel controller for break-in speed duties and even the wiring will be from my slot car childhood days.

One of the benefits of living here is that virtually all of our toys were saved, so pick a Rubbermaid container and you can take a walk back in time. You can certainly find small parts vials and those clear plastic hinged boxes that were used for holding virtually anything. Ray calls them "tickie-tacky" from that song we would like to forget if you can remember back that far. I use them for storing parts and cars inside the Metalastics Pit Kit and cannot have enough of the rascals. One such box was labelled BAND BOOKS and INDIAN MAGAZINES. We both played clarinet through high school, and I was destined as the first chair All State concert clarinetist to a college music career but forsook that particular path for things of an archaeological bend. Hince the AMERICAN INDIAN CRAFTS AND CULTURE magazines. Photos of Sioux pow-wows and Sun Dance ceremonies were far more interesting than tooting my horn on some Baroque melody I assure you. The hope here was to stumble upon the missing TycoPro Cobra Enots filler cap. Instead I landed upon an AUTO WORLD 1968 catalogue and a raftload of MODEL CAR SCIENCE magazines spanning from the January 1967 issue to August 1971. These are full of vintage hop-up how-to articles  by John Kukras and things HO are covered by Jack Ayres, and we can trace the emergence of Aurora AFX, Riggen, and Dynabrute. Vintage slot car heaven here on earth. Nice to see that I trim my Lancer wheel wells with jeweler's files just as they said to way back when. I will be disseminating contents for quite some time. God Bless! Tonymgbbrown