Okay, it's here.
The tire truer is the RSM4 from Overdrive Slotservice, the company I buy most of my cars from. They're a really great company located in southern Germany.
The RSM4 is a very nicely made, precision instrument. It comes with everything you see in the photo and requires a little assembly. The idea is that you would true a set of tires on the axle it comes with, allowing you to have more control and precision over each car. There are available swivel arms with preset bearings, but I'm going to try it with my own from one of my cars and see how that works. I'll use one set of bearings for all the cars in a brand. A quick search tells me that NSR axles are 2.37mm and Slot.it axles are 2.38mm. So I'll have to use a set from each respective brand for the entire line. Thunderslot also [surprisingly to me] uses a 2.38mm axle, so I'll be able to do them and whatever Slot.it cars might need it together.
All this time I thought Thunderslot used a larger diameter axle. Turns out it's Revoslot that uses a 3mm axle. Huh...
Here's how it works: Remove the back axle from the car. I have mostly sidewinders, so I can leave the gear on. Mount the rear end to the swivel arm with bearings. Connect and mount the purple pulley. Tighten the control arm. Lower to desired position. Sand tires.
As far as cars go, I think that I might end up doing all of them eventually. At first I thought I would do the last 6 or so cars that I bought, but each time I think about it I go back even further. Eventually got down to all but the first 5 cars, but now I'm thinking I'm going to do all of them. I'll need the larger adapter to do the Revoslot cars, but those will be done as well.
Meanwhile, I've set up a small track and will be running as many cars this week as I have time for. I might even go into the weekend, too.
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| Since I was going to leave it up all week, it needed to be out of the way enough for me to live in the room as well. This layout worked pretty well for that, taking up all available floorspace without having to move my other stuff. |
The layout isn't much, technically speaking, but the 4/15 curves at least make it interesting. I've been doing some room remodeling, and hopefully will have a bit more room soon. I'd like to avoid the 1/60 curves as much as possible. I had a layout with progressive curves, but it was too wide to do in my apartment without moving the couch out of the room.
Okay, so I got impatient and tried a set of tires. I figured I would do the Thunderslot and Slot.it cars first since I have the right bearings. I'm not sure if I can use the Slot.it bearings on an NSR axle, but I'm going to try. I decided to use the GT40 #11 since it never really ran right and will use the bearings for each car. It took about 15 minutes to do the tires and was much easier than I expected.
It was a little strange at first. Usually I sand tires by hand, so I'm always putting them down for a few seconds then checking them, when on the RSM4 you just lower the wheels to the desired height and leave it until it's finished. The sanding block is designed to be moved side to side, which can help you fine tune the tire and get a nice even finish. I connected the RSM4 to my 30v/5a power supply and got started.
I went with a slower rotation to not make the tires so hot. That worked great and I like very much that it's doing a nice, even job of it. I read somewhere that a drop or so of water occasionally can help keep the tires from getting too hot and chunking away.
The bearings worked fine and I might not buy the optional swing arms with bearings built in. Once I lined up the bearings with the open ends of the swing arm, they stayed in position the entire time. The purple pulley also needs to be properly lined up so it doesn't wobble at speed.
I did the GT40 tires as a test and got them to a very nice, even finish. I'm going to start with Thunderslot cars and see how far I can get today. My daughter is coming over and we'll be racing, but I don't know if I'll be able to do tires while that's happening. If not, then I'll start them this evening.
Car Time Lap Offs
Lola T70III#7* 2:35.46 3.1 0
Lola T70III#7 2:23.12 2.86 0
Lola Red^ 2:50.14 3.4 0
Lola Red 2:22.94 2.84 0
Lola Blue^ 2:51.49 3.42 2
Lola Blue 2:25.24 2.9 0
Lola T70 #21 2:22.73 2.83 0
Elva #47 2:20.20 2.8 0
Elva #2 2:22.94 2.84 0
^denotes untreated tires
*denotes hand sanded tires
Okay....there's an obvious improvement to the cars and their lap times. I've done 10 cars so far today and every one of them has improved dramatically. Huge difference in contact and the associated smoothness and feel. Even cars that were already performing well got a significant boost. I'm not lying when I say that so far this is proving to be worth the purchase price.
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| Lola T70III#7 |
The T70III was probably the least effected of the cars so far, but it was also one with the most hand-sanded tire work. Shaving 3/10ths of a second on a 3 second lap is pretty respectable. I'd certainly call that an improvement. It is also whisper quiet now, and handles much better at speed.
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| The Red Lola. Because it's Red. |
The Red Lola [as well as the Blue Lola] had brand new, untreated tires. They had only been lubed and oiled. So 6/10ths of a second is HUGE.
That 2:22, 2:23 race time is looking more and more like it's going to be the norm for fast lap times.
I finished up the Thunderslot cars without doing before/after races. I got enough of a sample to see that there's improvement no matter what, and it's a BIG improvement. I just started the NSR cars, which are probably going to be pretty easy as they're mostly slicks.
Seemed like most of the cars were running right around a 2.8/2.9 lap time, even if they started off wildly different. Once I did the tires, each car reacted the same way, running very smoothly and quietly. I was able to run the truer at various speeds and it sanded the tires very nicely. It created a solid contact patch that was easy to see and feel. Cornering improved dramatically, as did acceleration.
I think the tire truer is going to prove to be much more valuable than I expected, even if I don't use it all that often.
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