Scratchbuilding - Why?

[Scale Series]

And the level of satisfaction achieved by designing, building, and racing one's own creation to victory over numerous other rapacious racers with the same ambition is unbelieveably fulfilling and very, very compelling.

Greg:

You build chassis? I figured you just run one of Jay's or a token loaner from Illinois?

[Phil I.]

And the BEST part......When it does work......The biggest smile and that feeling you get when you know you built it and ya start thing about that 1 or 2 changes you are going to make on the next one......Some of my chassis have been rebuilt 2-3 times. I never throw a chassis away....Just recycle parts of them

OLPHRT
PHIL I.

[brassy]

Greg:
You build chassis? I figured you just run one of Jay's or a token loaner from Illinois?

Well, I haven't been building much lately, that's for sure. No time, more than anything else.

[fl_slotter]

I've been sitting here pontificating this morning. One of the things that I think will benefit everyone is a "Scratchbuilt Chassis Gallery" here on Old Weird Herald.

This way EVERYONE can post photos of their builds so EVERYONE can share in the ideas, concepts, innovations and such that EVERYONE has to offer to this topic.

What is YOUR opinion on this?

[Scale Series]

What is YOUR opinion on this?

I'm sure someone will do it and some will post. Personally, I won't post any photos. This is a USRA / ISRA oriented blog. Look at the amount of views and posts George Russell gets with his Slot Racer thread. Just doesn't make sense to do scratch built thread hear where most have other interests. Same can be said for Slotblog, most have an interest in antiques, retro and scratchbuilt. If into Plastic cars then there's Slot Forum or SCI. All the blogs don't have to be ecactly the same and have ALL types of slot cars on them. If someone is interested in a particular type of car or racing I'm sure they'll search until they find the correct home. Granted without posting names there's a couple that hang out on the wrong blog and constantly complain that the cars are stupid.

[fl_slotter]

Rob,

So I will take that as a "NO" from you.

Now we have a slot car standoff, 1 "Yes" and 1 "No".

Yep, I sure do realize this is a USRA / ISRA type of forum, but there is a "Retro" and a "Scratchbuilding" sub forum on this page. "Mom" seems to want to see other types of slot car racing dwell here as well.

For right now, I'm going to try to do just that.

"Mom" are you listening?

[webbmeister25d]

"Yes" please.

[MentalKase]

Yes. That makes 3.

[Ingram]

Make that another YES for me.

The forums are what we the participants make them.

I have never been a big retro guy as I was not into slot cars in the 60's or 70's. Terms like "floppy" "torsion" and "plumber" are new to me, but I am very interested and have enjoyed the pictures so far. Keep them coming !

George Russell's "Slot Car Racer Today" is a great thread that walks you through the day to day regiments of another very popular form of racing. Personally, I enjoy following even though I may never race in Eurosport. The information and insight given by George and fellow racers is alot of fun to read.

Thank you Marty for this thread I look forward to expanding my slot car interest and knowledge with out having to switch back and forth between different blogs ! It might not be tomorrow, but when I build a retro chassis (and I will) it will get posted here with pics so I can get some feedback from you and others.

Thanks,
Alan

[oldweirdherald]

I'm sure someone will do it and some will post. Personally, I won't post any photos. This is a USRA / ISRA oriented blog. Look at the amount of views and posts George Russell gets with his Slot Racer thread. Just doesn't make sense to do scratch built thread hear where most have other interests. Same can be said for Slotblog, most have an interest in antiques, retro and scratchbuilt. If into Plastic cars then there's Slot Forum or SCI. All the blogs don't have to be ecactly the same and have ALL types of slot cars on them. If someone is interested in a particular type of car or racing I'm sure they'll search until they find the correct home. Granted without posting names there's a couple that hang out on the wrong blog and constantly complain that the cars are stupid.

Rob...

You posted this comment in a SCRATCHBUILDING THREAD in the SCRATCHBUILDING FORUM.

While I would tend to agree that most forums do tend to have a niche crowd of regular readers & posters, most also do have sub-forums for all types of slot car enthusiasts. Just because all forums & blogs have sub-forums for a variety of interests, doesn't mean they have to be the same. Each is a community of friends who meet online to share their hobby with friends they meet at raceways or here online.

Here on OWH, I have set up forums for just about every scale, type, and aspect of slot car interest I can think of. All the forums DO get traffic, and offer a place to ask & answer questions, share info & news, etc. for a wide variety of interests.

Obviously, there are MANY enthusiasts who DO love to see pictures of scratchbuilt chassis - judging by the interest in the Scratchbuilding forum.
(I'll add my vote too!)

I will work on setting up an OWH "Scratchbuilding" Photo Gallery for posting & sharing pics of scratchbuilt chassis. I will need to set up a login & password for those wishing to post - so to help prevent spamming (a BIG problem on photo galleries), I will probably need to require people to register and/or PM me to request posting privileges to the gallery (as I have done for guest photographers posting race pics).

I will post info & link here once I get it all set up (soon).

PK

[Phil I.]

aaaaa....OK By me

OLPHRT
PHIL I.. With burnt fingers

[Scale Series]

Rob...

You posted this comment in a SCRATCHBUILDING THREAD in the SCRATCHBUILDING FORUM.

While I would tend to agree that most forums do tend to have a niche crowd of regular readers & posters, most also do have sub-forums for all types of slot car enthusiasts. Just because all forums & blogs have sub-forums for a variety of interests, doesn't mean they have to be the same. Each is a community of friends who meet online to share their hobby with friends they meet at raceways or here online.

Here on OWH, I have set up forums for just about every scale, type, and aspect of slot car interest I can think of. All the forums DO get traffic, and offer a place to ask & answer questions, share info & news, etc. for a wide variety of interests.

Obviously, there are MANY enthusiasts who DO love to see pictures of scratchbuilt chassis - judging by the interest in the Scratchbuilding forum.
(I'll add my vote too!)

I will work on setting up an OWH "Scratchbuilding" Photo Gallery for posting & sharing pics of scratchbuilt chassis. I will need to set up a login & password for those wishing to post - so to help prevent spamming (a BIG problem on photo galleries), I will probably need to require people to register and/or PM me to request posting privileges to the gallery (as I have done for guest photographers posting race pics).

I will post info & link here once I get it all set up (soon).

PK

Paul:

Usually every blog has sub forums with different classes of cars. OWH has a scratchbuilding one and the competition across the street has a USRA forum. Most don't usually appear to get a lot of traffic?

Don't get me wrong, I look at the scratch building thread here in hope that I'll see something difffernt than what is posted across the street. Most of the time it's redundant. That doesn't mean I don't think you shouldn't have one or that I won't look to see if I see anything different, it just means that I'm personally not going to go through the trouble of posting the same builds or images in two different forums.

[fl_slotter]

Rob,

I fully understand. However if some folks would like to see that here, and it does look like there is interest, I think we shall forge ahead.

At one time, I do believe OWH was the slot racing forum that most folks came to.

I've gone to both Yahoo.com and Google.com and entered "slot car racing". The search engine on both sites had a link to OWH before the other forum where you typically post at.

I do not have issues with posting at both sites. My intent is simple, I am doing this to promote the hobby of scratchbuilt slot car racing in general and retro racing specifically. I do know you work and it is outstanding. I wish you would reconsider. Since the HTML between the 2 sites is identical, all it takes is a copy and paste and you're published in both locations.

Regardless, let's get back on topic, scratchbuilding.

[Ramcatlarry]

Many of us read several slotcar blogs and learn from them...sometimes we also get confused by them. The scratch built car has been around since a fool engineer foisted poor design on all of us tinkers...and we are still tinkering with finding the better 'mousetrap' and slot car chassis.

An issue I have with any rule book is the limits: BODIES - give me a scale and era range - not just a limited supply from cronies who make money from the deal. I like to try out different shells for the style, not necessarily the performance. ie - true scale + or - 1/8" in 1/24 scale.
CHASSIS - I saw many pan chassis designs in the midwest 1/32 scale racing scene prior to 1970 that are not legal under IRRA or D3 rules including the use of the center hinge pin.

[fl_slotter]

Paul,

If you are going to go to the trouble of setting up a scratchbuilt gallery, do you think you might want to have a few different sub forums in there?

For example, under "Retro" I would put in Formula 1, Can-Am (also use the same for GTC) and Stock Car. That would make it easier for folks to do things like Larry is looking for - the ability to search to see things and get ideas.

Works for me, if you can make it that way. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for caring to put something like that up.