# New to the group



## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

I've been meandering through the ancient posts. The 2004 fright pig thread sent me into convulsive fits of laughter. I came upon the 2004 "when I was eleven-true confessions" thread and just have to confess! Albeit belatedly. It's all comin' back to me now. "T-jet father, forgive me for I have sinned....repeatedly." It must have been about '68 or '69, hard to pin it down. Deep in the bowels of my neighbors basement. Oh the horrors. Many of which were inspired after a weekend at the drags. At the time we had been experimenting with a drycleaner bag UFO project. They were fired by alcohol soaked cotton balls supported with balsa wing stringer stock. We were busted and following our restrictions the surplus cotton and alcohol were just wasting away! The cotton balls were quickly torn in half and twisted into wicks. These were soaked and tucked into the space between the rear body and chassis then trailed out the back. Just add fire and punch it. A very convincing fiery burnout all around the large road course. We craved more and the simulated blower explosion was born. Tape a firecracker to the hood with the fuse angled to the side of the track. In the staging area was a short candle jammed into a wad of floral clay pinched from one of moms flower arrangements. Black Cats were coveted for their longer fuses! Enter the staging area and lightem up. Punch it! Too much boost at the 1/8th mile mark... kaboom. The cracker cars gave birth to the exciting but unpredictable rocket cars. A suitable bottle rocket(or a disassembled pinwheel would make three) with the guide stick broken off was tape mounted to the roof of a car with all the guts(excess weight and drag) removed. Cars were staged up to the candle with the leftover stick cuz you wouldnt want to burn your fingers. Saftey First was our motto! LOL Tip: Glue tinfoil to the trunk for multiple uses. The whistling ones were kinda cool. When the fire works ran out sometime in the middle of july, the Evil Knevil ring of fire jump was already on the drawing board. The only requirement being a ridiculously unmakeable jump over the large size tonka dump truck(we didnt have a hundred school buses). The ring of fire was quickly created from a coat hanger appropriately modified to jam into the box of the dump truck. Jute garden twine was kyped from dads garden shed for proper wicking of the ring. The ring was of a quick release design (jam it in, rip it out) so it could be quickly recharged in our cookie pan filled with alcohol. This kept the merriment on a timely scedule. Not sure where the cookie pan came from but you can bet it was some form of petty larceny! I clearly remember mom sniffing me up and down on occasion that summer and asking me "Have you been smoking?!" I almost said yes considering that being caught smoking couldnt be as bad as the shellacing we took for the UFO project. "Yeah Ma smokin' t-jets". BTW the UFO's were quite successful and I remember them drifty eerily off into the summer twilight. Camaros, Mustangs, and Falcons oh my! If there's a hell, the devil will have me at a bench resurrecting all the tortured t-jets of the world. It would combine two of my favorite things, T-jets and fire! 
That'd be kinda cool! This is a great site filled with humor and creativity- I dig it! I'm busting a gut, learning some new things and remembering things I'd forgotten. Thanks for the laughs, Bill (aka:confessed killer of t-jets) Note: This is a modified excerpt from a "true crimes confession bio" that may appear in HO World. Embarassingly it's all true. Strangely the more I write the more that comes back. Is this ahlziemers or brain damage from styrene fume exposure in my youth?


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## T-jetjim (Sep 12, 2005)

Wow Bill- You were Helll on wheels. Love the confessions. I did my share but not so much with fire. Although I did lite a Lola GT and race him around the track. That plastic burns slow, but Mom smelled it quick. I also tried to simulate snow with baby powder, what a mess. That stayed in the grooves a long time. 
Jim


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## JordanZ870 (Nov 25, 2004)

Welcome, Bill!
Holy Hannah! That is quite the tale! I remember my brothers doing similar things on occation with fireworks too. I was 4 or 5 when they were destroying tjets and I was not allowed to touch them. 
Thanks for sharing!


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## 41-willys (Jan 7, 2000)

Welcome Bill 

and joez, you seem to be hairier in your pic than I remember LOL :devil:


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## martybauer31 (Jan 27, 2004)

Hey Bill welcome to the group, great stuff there!  Where in Western WA are you? There's a bunch of us racing out here, we race the G-Jets and club stock cars with a bunch of folks out here with Scale Auto, but there is also a group of us that enjoy running the fray cars as well. I'm out in Maple Valley by the way, but we race in Bellevue, North Bend, Renton, Bothell, and even get together with a group from Portland about once every other month.


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## roadrner (Jul 21, 1999)

Bill, 
Welcome to the board and thanks for the great story or confession. I never quite got to your level of pyromania with Tjets. We peaked at the model glue level. We'd spread some on a car, then fire it up and hit the throttle. If I recall, that sure did stink and you had all that little soot or whatever it was floating around the basement. Then Mom would bust open the door and racing was one for the day, and I'd wait for dad to come home.........  

What a time. :thumbsup: rr


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## mtyoder (Jan 3, 2004)

I backed off on the fireworks after we burned down the wood shed. I am guilty of my share of slotcar destruction though. Welcome aboard!


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

*Hey Buddy! Got a match?*

The whole pyromania thing started when the bigger boys challenged me to ride my tricycle down the steep twisty trail beside our house. Much to my surprise they were waiting at the bottom with a flaming pile of newspapers. Bastages! I'm much better now! Still, I hope to be modifying and racing flaming wheelchairs well into my golden years. Sounds like baby powder might be the missing link of tire conditioners. If it's good for my cracks it must be good for tires! LOL. Hey Marty I'm located in Shelton(AKA the boondocks) now, but spent 20 yrs all over the greater Seattle area - Brier, Rainier Beach, Kent , Burien, Lake City, but the bulk of it (14yrs) was spent in Fremont right by Woodland Park Zoo. I know right where you guys are at! I also get e-mail updates on you guys from Dean the Machine. Attending one of your events is on my list of to do's. This list is automatically superceded by the Honey do, doting son and grandfather list. Too many irons in a great big fire. Just the way I like it. I'll get there eventually. As I get more familiar with the inner workings of this board, I'll post some pics of my cobbling. Have ya'll seen the TV comercial that has a caveman wacking the computer mouse with a stick? Well thats a good mental picture of my computer skills! Thanks for the warm welcome! Bill


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## sethndaddy (Dec 4, 2004)

Welcome Bill, awesome confessions. I am only 39, so I was torturing afx magna traction cars. killed by flame where a #211 datsun pickup, a yellow #7 daytona and the #8 lt.blue/dark blue stock car? i think it was a magnum.
May sound boring now, but in my cousins bedroom (3rd floor)we set up a ramp, opened the window and took runs till we sent his yellow #17 tyco porshe Carrera to a quick death.........we laughed ourselves breathless when one of us finally made it threw the window.
One time we took a box of unused afx/tjet/specialty bodies, and I mean ALOT, had to be about 40. they were from a not so buddy like buddy. Remember those hassack fans? we spilled all the cars in there and hit the HI button. cars where flying around the room like crazy........again, laughter till we cried.


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

That confession is right out the window! The boys will be boys mentality is one of the stronger ties in the slotcar brotherhood. Ya gotta love that! Whether your HO, 1/24, 1/32, Tyco, Aurora, whatever....... Racing, mischief, and mayhem binds us all together with a common cord. There's no place I'd rather be than hangin upsidedown on the guardrail on fire!


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## martybauer31 (Jan 27, 2004)

Well, if you're getting emails from Dean, then you are in the know around here. I am having a Brystal track done for me, it should be done in the next month or so and some of of us will be running some Fray cars for sure, i'll keep you posted. You need to come out to a race though, they are a blast, maybe a Friday night one coming up soon?

As for destoying things, I am 37 so I was around for the magnatraction and G+ cars. The only things I lit on fire were my hot wheels (wish I hadn't done that...), as well as shooting them with my BB gun, glad I never thought of taking that indoors, I am sure my parents are as well. =)


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Thanks for the invitation Marty, A B.B. gun? Sounds like the confession of a certified car killer to me! I wouldnt exactly qualify the neighbors basement as indoors. Perhaps dank, dark, unfinished, stanky, cellar would give you a clearer picture. I havent purchased a g-jet yet. I'm still rattling around in the stone age. I've been restoring original t-jets and AFX, tweaking up some modifieds, and butchering up some customs. I'm sure I could provide some laughter for the gang at the novice level. Much like my perfect typing, 60 words a minute with 60 mistakes; I'm sure I could finish 5th in a four man heat! Beware, guineau on the grid. I'll probably just hang out and eat all the snacks while y'all are in the heat of battle. Friday nights in the Emerald City!? I405 and Sr167!, No doubt I'll arrive in full road rage. Better have some tranquilizers waiting on that day! I'll probably kill me a dumb ass about Federalway. Can I bring the body? LOL Bill


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## martybauer31 (Jan 27, 2004)

Heh, yeah, I suppose the BB gun part isn't making me sound all that ..... stable? =)

Come to a race night, eat the snacks and take last place already. I am still the new guy so it would be nice to have someone else take a beating along with me.

You can bring the body along, as long as it has a wallet and can buy pizza.


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## sethndaddy (Dec 4, 2004)

not slots, but me and a friend (slot car guy too) use to set up our teams of star wars guys and take turns throwing salutes and cherry bombs at each others teams.

and how about playing army with bottle rockets and cardboard tubes for "guide guns".


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Lets just BBQ the carcass and keep the money!


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Sounds like a proper application of the "force" to me! My stepson would cringe as he is a rabid starwars collector. I'm sure he would hold a vigel for all those wounded or killed in the tube wars of your youth. Compared to todays "Wear saftey glasses when using this screwdriver society", it must have been gloriously unsafe and insane! Wasnt it great to be imortal?


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## Gear Head (Mar 22, 2005)

My uncle who was a motorsport freak and artist by profession inspired my brothers and I to completely detail out bodies and then put them in my mothers toaster oven to get them good and hot. Then we would dent them with the eraser end of a pencil and rub the bodies themselves together to swap paint. I won't even go into which tjet bodies they were! But they looked cool, or should I say hot. I think I may still have the remains of a couple of AFX bodies in my scrap yard.


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

That gives a hole new meaning to the phrase "my T-jet is toast!" So how was the styrene flavored toast after this project. BTW what kind of jam/jelly do you serve on a freshly toasted T-jet? In the interest of realism I suppose one would choose strawberry or raspberry so it would look like an ATF leak or perhaps the entrails of the unfortunate HO scale pedestrian you just clobbered. This is a truly funny story and the first marriage of t-jet and toasters I've ever heard. I've been working on a plan for making an adjustable attachment for my soldering iron to gently heat warped and mis-shappen screw posts. I've got a nice olive XKE that had the posts HarryHighSchooled. Now all I have to do is plug in the toaster, insert the jag, set it on light, and presto! Thanks for the bitchin' tech tip!


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## boss9 (Apr 19, 2002)

Welcome to the board, Bill-

Sorry I can’t add to the stories, because my dad would secretly give any and all of my toys away- thinking I outgrew them, or was too old for them at the time  -

Luckily, I stashed my bigger slots and my models which were on display in my room- so he couldn’t take them without my knowing...

Now setting fire and blowing up models: That’s a thread (for a different forum) in itself!! :devil: :tongue: 



Regards..


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Thanx Boss, Smart move on your part! Your one of the lucky ones. This board is a blast. I'm like a sugar starved kid in a candy store. BH


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