There are four shims two widths and three thicknesses. The two narrower shims are used for installing top gears and the two wider shims are used for the removal of the top gears using the RT-HO gear press.

When installing the pinion and the driven gear you will use the narrower shims. The .010 shim is for the pinion gear and the .005 shim is for the rear driven gear. When pressing the gears on make them snug and then pull the shim out. This will give you the correct spacing every time.

You use the wider shims along with the RT-HO gear removal press to remove the top plate gears. The wider .015 thick shim is inserted just under the top plate. This shim is pushed so that both ends of the shim rests on the RT-HO Tool. This will provide the top plate the support that is needed to reduce the flex when pressing the pinion or driven gear off.

Below you will see the boogered up com plate spring. You will notice that it's bent at the rivet and at the "V" of the spring.

First start at the tip of the brush spring and straighten this out first. To do this you have GOT to have a good pair of pliers with an end of less than 1/16 inch at the tip and a wood skewer. Use wood so you will not scratch the metal. 

Notice below using the tool as a break and with the skewer the bend can be restored nicely.

After a little work and gently bending the spring you will see the "V" is back.

Now we have to get the metal to lay flat and provide pressure on the com brush. Slide the tool all the way to the rear ( Dirt might block the way ) then push and "pet" the flat part of tip down while raising the kink at the rivet GENTLY. ​(Note different chassis but a better picture)

Thanks again Bret Mclean for sharing your TOOLtorial!!!

Not a bad little calculator for ball parking the length of wire...

One thing that is difficult to measure consistently and accurately is pickup shoe tension. Pickup shoe tension is the amount of force that is exerted by the pickup shoe at the point of contact of the track rail. Here's a tool that can be easily made to measure that force and help you to make sure both shoes are equal and that they are not exerting too much force... just enough force to maintain shoe contact but not too much that it encourages a de-slot. If this interests you then read on...

It really doesn't take much just some wood, styrene, screws and 1000 gram digital scale. The scale I got from Harbor Freight, and the rest I picked up from my local hobby shop. I got about $15 dollars in the whole thing.

I glued the two pieces of styrene sheets together to create a two ply deck. I used styrene because for me it's the easiest material to work with... you can use other material if you like... it just has to be solid and does not flex. I cut the three pieces of wood and mounted them to the styrene deck using screws.

I made the deck and the wood so that it was a close fit to the scale. This way I could slide the scale under the deck all the way until the end piece of wood stopped the scale. This would ensure that the scale was always positioned the same every time.

I then made a little plunger that went through the hole in the deck and made contact with the scale itself. It is made of styrene also. I used a body screw and screwed it into the top of the plunger. Now that screw is very important. It is adjustable so that you can adjust the height to match the height of the track rails when measuring the shoe tension.

 Below is an example of how you can rest the shoe on top of the plunger.

The shoe will push down on the plunger and it will push the scale down and it will measure in grams the downward force the shoe is exerting.

This set up allows you to measure consistently the same way every time.

We've all seen the static armature balancers... you know the razor blades or the jeweler's poising tool. But the slickest balancers I've seen are those magnetic ones. They are great but they are pretty pricey. That said, I did some research on the webbernet and found this article in Slotcar Illustrated's forum by "jaybo" It was a great article and gave me a great start. If you are interested in making your own balancer then read on.

I followed jaybo's instructions and they were great! If you are interested you can read them here. Look for forum entry number 10 by jaybo. The article said to use a micrometer, two rare earth magnets and an extender made using styrene tubing. I had the micrometer, you can get one relatively cheap at Harbor Freight, the two magnets, tubing and steel I picked up at my local hobby shop for $3.00. The Legos I had, don't laugh they work!  :-)

After I assembled the parts I found that the plastic tubing did not hold tight enough on the shaft of the armature and caused the armature to spin off center. Therefore I got rid of the tubing and aligned everything up directly and had much better results. The armature did not wobble and it spun more freely.

As you can see in the picture below I put the rare earth magnets on each end of the micrometer. The magnets were 1/4 inch in diameter and 1/8 inch thick. The micrometer is a 1 inch and can be purchased at Harbor Freight.

You will also need a straw to blow on the armature to spin it. You do not have to spin it fast when it stops the heaviest stack will end up on the bottom. Mark the stack with a marker and try a couple of times. It should end up at the bottom every time. This is the stack you will need to remove some material. You can use a Dremel tool with a cut off blade and slowly remove the material and then try again. Work through this slowly and deliberately once you remove too much you can't add it back!! Sometimes you might have to remove material from two stacks in order for the arm to balance. In the pictures below you will see the results of removing the stack material.

The first picture shows material removed on either side of the tab.

If you have a lot of material to remove then you can take some off the the tab itself as shown below.

It is science and art. As such it takes practice!! that said practice on some old burnt out armatures first. Some things I have found are:

• One end of the arm actually touches the magnet the other end actually has an air gap of about .001 to .002 inch gap.
  
• The arm seems to spin more freely if the long end of the shaft touches the magnet and the air gap is on the short end.
  
• Take your time be patient and work slowly at first.
  
• Practice on old bad arms first
  
• You will get better and faster it is an art.
  

Below is a video of the balancer in action... I found a "Christmas Tree" armature where each stack is a different color. You will see in the video that the gold wire stack is the heaviest and goes to the bottom. There are some indications that the the red stack might have to have a little material taken off too... but the gold stack will definitely have some material removed.

Good luck and happy spinning!!!  :-)

Those people that travel around to race at different venues usually have a pit box. They can range from a basic cigar box all the way to a custom made pit box. I have been looking to upgrade my pit box but could never decide exactly what I wanted. One of the biggest issues for me was how to utilize the pit box. In addition I needed a pit box that would travel well in the car or on occasion by plane. It also had to be versatile so I could easily swap out the cars and parts depending on the race classes at the different venues. Then one day I was cruising around the webbernet and there it was! See picture to the right.

Yes that right, a tackle bag. It had plenty of space  and it was going to meet most if not all the requirements. With respect to being versatile, it can carry 5 compartment boxes. One box will hold all my tools such presses, tech blocks, pullers, screw drivers, etc. The other four boxes would allow me to prep for up to four different classes of races if needed. Each box would hold the cars and their associated parts.

In addition it had a top compartment that was adjustable that would store controllers, warm up box and track side pit box as well as miscellaneous tools that I could not fit in the compartment container.

It also has a nice little hard sided compartment for my magnifiers.

.Last and probably least it has LED lighting in the handle to provide additional light to the work area. I don't know how well it will work but time will tell.

In addition the bag has some rubber feet on the bottom of the bag to reduce wear.

Anyway, I think it will suit my purposes. It may not suit yours but just maybe it will get you to thinking outside the (pit) box.  :-)

I was in the local home center the other day and spotted an attachment for my Dremel Motor Tool. The attachment allowed the Dremel to work like the Zip-N-All. After looking at it for a few minutes I determined that I could use it to help me grind T-Jet body posts when lowering a body on the chassis. The great thing about this is you can remove post material and still maintain a square post. If you're interested in how I did this then take a look.

I first needed to create a mini table to rest the car on while grinding the post. I use three pieces of styrene to provide a table and some rigidity.

Then I had all three pieces and all I had to do was put them together.

Take a close look at the attachment... you can adjust the level and then tighten the set screw to stabilize it.

With this set up you can quickly remove the post material and still maintain the squareness of the post so the chassis will be square with the body.

When trying to improve the performance of a "Pancake" motor one component to take a look at would be the motor magnets in the car. Having magnets of equal strength helps to maintain equal pull on the armature and therefore perpetuates electrical balance in the car. To do this you will need to determine the strength of each magnet. Enter stage right the One Stop Slot Shop (OS3) Magnet Matcher (MM).

First the OS3 magnet matcher is not a calibrated gauss meter. However, because you will be using the same measurement tool to measure the strength of your magnets  it will allow you to match them by comparison. The Magnet Matcher is used in conjunction with a multi-meter. You can pick up a multi-meter most anywhere... however for ease of use I would recommend one with auto ranging capabilities.

The OS3 Magnet Matcher is pretty easy to use. The first thing is to turn your multi-meter on and set it to DC Volts. If you do not have an auto ranging meter set the meter to the 2 volt scale.

Make sure your multi meter leads are in the correct locations on your meter.

Insert the the red and black leads of the multi meter into the same color jacks on the magnet matcher.

Turn the magnet matcher on by turning the knob clockwise. Continue to turn the knob clockwise until the meter reads 0000.

Now place a magnet on the magnet matcher to get a reading for the magnet. Important Note: Be consistent where and how you place the magnets on the matcher. This consistency enables your measurement to be more consistent and accurate. The higher the number the stronger the magnet. A positive reading indicates a North Pole magnet while a negative reading indicates a South Pole magnet.

After measuring your magnets take a Sharpie marker and notate on the magnet the reading for that magnet. Then match the magnets up according to their measurement.

It's a nice little tool and as with any other tool the more you use it the better your results will be. Below is the instruction document that comes with the OS3 Magnet Matcher that you can download.

Addendum 11/28/16: I picked up a train transformer to supply the power instead of the 9 volt battery. The transformer has forward and reverse as well as variable speed.

With the power supply upgrade I decided to up grade the tub to make it more convenient to use. I modified a pair of pick up shoes so that I could more easily attach the alligator clips on the outside of the tub. I also added two posts so that when the chassis is mounted in the tub there would be an electrical contact.

Below is the whole contraption hook up.

If you would like more information about lapping gears, you can go here.

Below are the plans I used to make this tool. The grove in the ends were made with a rotary cutting disc from Harbor Freight. You can take a look for that here .

See adjusting example below...
The shoe should show equal wear from the front all the way to the back.