Quick Tips to Make Your Slot Car Hobby Better
Boiling or baking chassis.
Delrin chassis are susceptible to heat and moisture. Boiling your chassis makes it softer. Baking a Delrin chassis hardens it. While this doesn't always help with non-magnet cars, stories have been told of high magnet downforce cars dragging the track after a few heats due to the chassis warping from the magnetic attraction. Baking the chassis fixed the warping/dragging problem.
Clean your body
Clean the resin or plastic body you're going to paint with dish soap, rinse and let it dry thoroughly. Then wipe on mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol and let it dry again. Get deep in the seams and pockets. For resin bodies, scrub them with Soft Scrub using a tooth brush to remove any mold release. Rinse and dry again. As with most painting jobs (house, room, car, etc), preparation is extremely important.
Bring out that shine
There are many ways to being a shine to the body of your injection molded bodies. One recent find was using scratch polish for optical media (CDs, DVDs, etc). You can find this stuff in stores that sell such optical media, like a music or video store. Look in the clearance rack. Works well for windows, as well.
There are many other ways to polish up that body. Automotive headlight restoration stuff, automotive buffing compounds (Bill Hall likes 3M coarse, 3M medium and Meguiars Scratch and Swirl Remover.
Delrin chassis are susceptible to heat and moisture. Boiling your chassis makes it softer. Baking a Delrin chassis hardens it. While this doesn't always help with non-magnet cars, stories have been told of high magnet downforce cars dragging the track after a few heats due to the chassis warping from the magnetic attraction. Baking the chassis fixed the warping/dragging problem.
- Boiling T-Jet chassis - Place the chassis in a boiling jig and place in the bottom of a pot of water straight out of the faucet. Place the pot on the stove burner and turn it up to high. Let it come to a rolling boil for 20-30 minutes. Turn off the burner and let the pot cool to room temperature. Remove the chassis from the pot and assemble.
- Boiling 1/32 chassis - Place your disassembled chassis on a perfectly flat steel block or plate (the thicker the better). Hold the chassis to the steel block with magnets that are strong enough to hold it flat to the steel. Place this assembly on a flat baking pan (loaf, cake and pie pans have a tall side to them). Preheat your oven to 230 degrees. Bring a pot/kettle of water to a rolling boil. Once the oven has reached 230 degrees, pour the boiling water into the pan, but not directly onto the chassis. Let the water make its way to the chassis indirectly. THE WATER NEEDS TO COVER THE CHASSIS AND MAGNETS COMPLETELY!! Make sure there is enough water so that it won't evaporate off and leave any of the chassis or magnets exposed. Place the pan in the oven. Turn off the oven and let the chassis/pan sit in there for 5-6 hours while it cools. Marvel at the flatness that is your chassis and reassemble.
Clean your body
Clean the resin or plastic body you're going to paint with dish soap, rinse and let it dry thoroughly. Then wipe on mineral spirits or isopropyl alcohol and let it dry again. Get deep in the seams and pockets. For resin bodies, scrub them with Soft Scrub using a tooth brush to remove any mold release. Rinse and dry again. As with most painting jobs (house, room, car, etc), preparation is extremely important.
Bring out that shine
There are many ways to being a shine to the body of your injection molded bodies. One recent find was using scratch polish for optical media (CDs, DVDs, etc). You can find this stuff in stores that sell such optical media, like a music or video store. Look in the clearance rack. Works well for windows, as well.
There are many other ways to polish up that body. Automotive headlight restoration stuff, automotive buffing compounds (Bill Hall likes 3M coarse, 3M medium and Meguiars Scratch and Swirl Remover.