Better than Braids?
By Shawn J.
Smith
Since I first
began reviewing slot cars, some three years ago, it's been pretty rare for me
to check out individual parts for slot cars rather than fully ready-to-run
cars. So... when Bruce of
CincySlots.com asked if I had any interest in checking out his newest
'part' I couldn't wait to get my hands on some and
get to work.
Appearance:
What are these? A
replacement for the braids on our slot cars? Aren't these similar to pick up
shoes many of us are used to using on our HO slot cars? Weren't pick up shoes
like these used a long time ago? Ok, yes these are solid metal replacements
for the conventional braids we use today and yes they are similar to the rail
contacts used on many HO racers. In any case they are no doubt a little odd by
today's current 'braid standards' so just for giggles we're going to check
them out.
One of the first questions I had to ask, after seeing the initial pictures of
these shoes, was whether or not these are used in place of a cars normal
braids or if these are used in conjunction with cars existing braids. The
answer I got from Bruce was to leave the standard braids in place and simply
install these along with them. Bruce also suggested using the Scalextric
'blue' guides because of the ease of install so that is where I started.
'Seems a little like over-kill' I thought to myself when preparing for the set
up on a previously unused Scalextric guide. Having dozens of Scalextric cars
that use this braid set up I couldn't think of a single time when the standard
braids would perform to my liking although keeping an open mind I continued
with the installation by feeding the small 'tab' of the pick up shoes through
the pre cut groove in the Scalextric guide.
Seating these shoes were certainly a simple affair and I chose to keep the
unaltered braids tucked under the shoes rather than having the braid come out
on top of the shoe as pictured in one of the images on the CincySlots home
page. By unaltered I mean that I did absolutely nothing to the braids prior to
installing the shoes so the braids were not shortened, fattened or spread at
the ends like I would normally do to them prior to normal running.
Now with both pick up shoes installed it looks suspiciously like a mechanical
horse-fly doesn't it? These blades or not only double the length of the
traditional Scalextric braids but they are also almost twice as wide without
the need to modify them in any way. 'Makes sense' I said again to myself as I
inspected my guide 'insect' a little closer. Now it's time to get this thing
under a car.
What a better way to try out our new big shoes than to slap them under one of
Scalextric's smallest production cars. Our 'Sport' model Mini just grew some
wing's so let's see if she flies!
Performance:
With our new pick
up shoe equipped Mini on the track I took a few seconds to first check out a
couple of things. Because these pick up blades are more rigid than traditional
braid I wanted to make sure our guide wasn't being lifted by the tension out
of the slot. While a small amount of 'lift' was present I attribute that with
the slight amount of 'bend' I created to assure full contact with the flush
rails on my Carrera track surface. The guide still has a decent portion of the
guide blade in the slot and a bit more hand tuning had the Mini sitting almost
flush on the track surface.
Next I was curious to see exactly how much of the pick up shoes came in
contact with the surface of the rails and by this picture we can hopefully see
that the full width of the rail is covered by the new metal shoes. After
seeing this view for myself I slightly repositioned the left contact to be
more centered like the right shoe. I then set off to do some laps.
To be honest I couldn't really tell the difference between using these shoes
and running the cars traditionally with the braids alone. The car accelerated
the exact same, it handled the exact same and it sounded the exact same. What
I did determine however is that these guide shoes, because of their added
length, come precariously close to the front tires on our narrow Cooper
Challenge Mini however as none of the turns on my track will ever cause the
guide blade to turn that dramatically I've decided that it's really nothing to
worry about. At this point I wasn't really sure what advantage having a pair
of these would really be and then I had an idea.
What if instead of using these pick-up shoes in conjunction with the normal
braids we completely took the braids out of the scenario and only used these
shoes. Off I went in search of a car with a different style guide than the
Scaley 'blue' guide and I just happened to have one of my favorite Slot.It
cars sitting quietly near by.
Gently removing the lead wire post from the top of the guide I easily removed
the Slot.It copper braid and set it aside.
How ironic it was to find that these guide shoes had the perfect sized tab to
be used with this guide with absolutely no modifications. The tab slipped in
easily and because of a raised 'bump' on the tab they were held in quite
solidly once the wire post was pushed back in to place.
As you can see from the next picture there is a noticeable difference between
this seated shoe and the seated braid on the other side. It was a perfect fit
too as the top of the tab sits virtually flush with the top of the opening in
the guide. Not bad huh?
I then installed the second shoe and flipped the chassis over to make sure the
motor was getting power. Even though I had little doubt it would work I was
still pleased when the motor ripped to life and proved I didn't have to use
the braids after all. Now we have something here as being able to use these in
place of a pair of braids made more sense to me than using these in addition
to a set of braids. However... would the car drive the same?
Because these shoes are actually thinner than the normal Slot.It braid I felt
as if I almost HAD to turn these shoes down a bit to assure constant contact
around the track. Because they are fairly rigid though I tried not to add too
much lift as I wanted to avoid having the shoes act like a spring and lift the
guide out of the slot.
And it worked perfectly. My Audi test car rocketed off like it always had
using its previously installed braids and just like I found on the previous
test, where the braids weren't removed from the guide, the test car's
characteristics were practically unchanged. In fact, the only thing I did find
different was a tiny audible 'ting' sound the shoes would make when going over
a select couple of track connections on my layout.
Now that's not to say these shoes weren't without one issue. The size of these
shoes did get in the way of re-securing the body of our Slot.It Audi as the
front screw sits centered and under the cars guide. With the shoes in place
there is no easy way to get a screwdriver in there to put the body back on.
That is unless of course you...
Bend one of the shoes up to gain better access to the screw. This then creates
a potentially different area of concern as if you find yourself running your
cars a lot and if you have to keep bending and re-bending this shoe in order
to remove the body to perform normal maintenance will the shoe weaken and
eventually break? While it's too early to tell whether something like this
will happen it seems like a logical conclusion. Maybe I need to find a car
with a different method of fastening the body!
The Final Verdict:
A couple of
different thoughts here... My first thought on these guide shoes is that it
doesn't seem to be all that essential to have these if your cars have
perfectly good braids. Using these pick up shoes along with standard braids
doesn't seem to make a bunch of sense either simply because they don't seem to
do anything more than a set of well prepared braids can do. You might think
the added length and width of these shoes might assure you never loose contact
with the rails although again its nothing you can't accomplish if you know how
to set your braids up properly.
Where I can see the benefit to having these pick-ups is in use on cars, much
like my test Slot.It, where these shoes can be used instead of using braids
and in doing so you can wipe out the need to continually adjust your braids.
Providing your guide is straight these shoes practically guarantee your
contacts will also be straight and that I can certainly see some value in.
More long term testing will really tell the tale on these pick up shoes as to
whether or not they are a reliable alternative to our current braids and my
Slot.It Audi will be the test horse to wear them for the long term testing. So
far so good is how I'll have to end this review! If anything else changes I'll
let you know.
Special thanks go to Bruce of
CincySlots for
providing us a sample of his new pick up shoes for review and as always please
feel free to email me with any
comments or questions about this or any other review and I’ll be happy to
answer any questions that I can. Happy slotting!
