On Friday, November 6, 2015 at 8:14:40 PM UTC-5, krw wrote:
On Fri, 6 Nov 2015 12:29:02 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Friday, November 6, 2015 at 12:33:23 PM UTC-5, Leon wrote:
On 11/6/2015 10:59 AM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
Snip



Those rare earth magnets are kinda neat. They have a helluva lot of
pulling power for their small size. Seen some innovative gun mounts
made of them after being coated with rubber. A couple strategically
placed have no problem holding a 21oz to 35oz pistol horizontally or
vertically to a metal surface.

My first introduction to those magnets were when I was still in the
automotive business, 20 plus years ago. I was working for an AC/Delco
wholesale distributor. There was a particular part that came in a small
box about 1.5 x1.5 x1.5 inches. You could not pick the small box up off
of the steel bin with out the box opening and coming apart. You had to
slide the box to the edge of the shelf to overcome the pull of the
magnet. The part was a small wiper motor part. IIRC it had 4, 3/8"
long by 2mm diameter magnets evenly spaced around a round piece. The
magnets looked like wooden pencil leads. There could have been a dozen
of those parts in the tiny box.

My first introduction to rare earth magnets was when I was building Soap
Box Derby cars.

No, I didn't hide them in the front end for extra pull out of the
starting ramp. ;-)

http://www.ohio.com/news/local/soap-...andal-1.415481

We used them to hold down the hatch of the Masters cars. With a pair of
round rare earth magnets epoxied to both sides of the hatch up near the
driver's head, the hatch stayed down on the bumpiest of tracks or
even if we turned the car upside down, yet allowed for easy opening by
either the driver or the handler. The hatch is hinged right above the
#35 and extends back almost to the label on the side of the helmet.

http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps65263f4d.jpg

Some builders used Velcro straps or metal latches that the driver had to
engage/disengage from inside car. The rare earth magnets did their thing
with no user intervention required. While accidents were rare, I'd seen
enough that I wanted to allow for easy opening of the hatch either from
the inside or the outside just in case.

Very cool car! some how I was picturing an orange crate with wheels.
LOL Great work!



Thanks. My son won the World Championship in Akron with that car when he
was 13. That was back when you bought the kit from Akron but could still
make your own internal parts, modify the shape of the body, etc.

As people like me got more and more sophisticated regarding the mods, it
got to a point where only those teams doing extensive modifications were
winning. That caused the Masters division to get smaller and smaller,
until it was on the brink of extinction.

They eventually outlawed all but the most basic modifications and outlawed
homemade parts. It is now only the driver and the tuning of the car that
determines the outcome. Both of those factors are huge, but not near as
much fun as building your own axle mounts, steering systems, etc.

As an example, compare the shape of today's Masters car vs. my son's.

http://www.ohio.com/polopoly_fs/1.41...by28cut-17.jpg

http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...ps65263f4d.jpg

Good thing you didn't use a lot of clamps. Those saw horses can't
support many clamps. ;-)

Maybe you didn't notice the foam adaptors on the saw horses. They serve two purposes.

They keep the bottom of the car from getting scratched and they soften the weight.

Maybe Leon should have tried them. I still have a set I could send him. ;-)


They were both built from the same kit, but the modern car is basically a
fiberglass shell screwed to the floorboard. My son's car is the same
fiberglass shell screwed to the same floorboard but then rounded to
be more aerodynamic and wrapped in 3 layers of fiberglass cloth and
epoxy to stiffen the body. We reduced the size of the car to so close to
the minimum girth that the blue vinyl racing stripe was added just to make
sure we passed the girth measurement in Akron.

The internal parts were almost completely home made. For example, the
kit comes with a rear axle mount that isn't much more than a piece of
angle iron and couple of bolts. Bolt the angle iron to the floorboard,
then bolt the axle to angle iron.

In contrast, this is the rear axle mounting system that we made:

http://i440.photobucket.com/albums/q...psf3c61506.jpg

Ah well, those were the days.