# AFX Pickup Shoe Life



## meecrob111

About how long can you run on a pair of pickup shoes?

How can you tell when they are starting to go bad?


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## slotking

with good clean power and the shoes are nice & flat
a long time.
I would say a min of 20 hours.

you will notice they will start to groove after a while.
2 options

1> if you not racing, let them they will still work (just not as well)

2> soft dremel sanding wheel after you race to help keep the shoe surface even


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## LDThomas

If you are running on a plastic sectional track, pay special attention to the joints to be sure they are smooth. Any raised sharp edges at the joint act like a file every time you make a lap. Flat shoes (as SK said) and smooth joints should give many hours of trouble free racing enjoyment.


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## Bill Hall

*Clickety clacks*

As LD points out, a close inspection by the DOT is always in order with sectional track. Check all the joints AND the surface of the rail.

The front angle of most all modern shoes is too sharp. It's lost knowledge from the ancient days. A little more roll on the "toe" of the shoe helps the transition through sectional joints.

Shoes wear out, it's a fact of life. Learning to fine tune your shoes helps maximize shoe life and your enjoyment. It's time well spent. There's volumes on the subject.

Good luck :thumbsup:


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## sidejobjon

I had some luck with runners to add a bit of solder, when starts to wear.
SJJ


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## brownie374

If anybody needs AFX shoes with no step I have lots for $1 a pair plus shipping


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## meecrob111

brownie374 said:


> If anybody needs AFX shoes with no step I have lots for $1 a pair plus shipping


No step???? 

I definetely could use a handful of new shoes. Is BRST the best way to get them?


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## Jisp

sidejobjon said:


> I had some luck with runners to add a bit of solder, when starts to wear.
> SJJ


SJJ, did you per chance use silver solder?

I ask because I once used ordinary 60/40 solder on some "hard to replace" Tyco shoes. The solder was worn away to nothing inside of a few laps. I don't recall now but perhaps the spring tension was a little excessive......

Cheers,
Michael.


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## slotcarman12078

I've used silver solder on US1 shoes, and found they wore fairly fast too. Those shoes can get finicky once they have a bad tweak. It's hard to get them just right again. Since my green US1 dump truck is my track cleaner, it does get regular usage, so the shoes get fixed weekly. I wish tubtrack didn't charge so much for shipping. He's the only one I know who sells repop shoes for them.


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## Hornet

Solder's only a very temporary fix.
Think about it,you can melt solder with a soldering iron,can you melt your shoes with a soldering iron,no,that gives you an indication of how hard it is in comparision to your shoes.
Anything you can melt with a soldering iron is soft and very fast wearing:wave:


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## jobobvideo

this may be a dumb question, but...anybody every solder a thin layer of brass (or better conductive metal) onto shoes??? I know some have soldered braid, wondering if there's another option for those of us that have sectional plastic track


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## JordanZ870

I have "reskinned" pickup shoes with GREAT success, soldering a simple contact
patch over the offending grooved area. It works! :thumbsup:


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## jobobvideo

COOL!!!! Do you have a preferred metal or what works best...and uhm...thickness??? Just curious.


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## Ralphthe3rd

I have even soldered pieces of 440X2 X-tra wide shoes, onto Matchbox pick-up shoes, to widen them for use on regular H.O. track...it's really easy to re-skin old shoes this way(not just MB shoes).


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## slotcardan

Silver solder wears fast as we all know.

I re-shoe my shoes, is use phosphorous bronze sheets, .006 or .008" thick its near impossible to find it thinner but i've been looking for .003 or .002 sheets for years.... but anyway.

cut out the bronze roughly to the size you want or shape it, very easy to cut even with a scissor.

clean the shoe you will repair well. then flux it and butter it with silver solder.

clean the back side of the bronze piece well, place the bronze ontop of the silver solder then hold the iron over it and melt everything together.

then sand to final shape and thickness.

The bronze is much denser then the silver solder so it will wear like original and when the plate wears out you just repeat the procedure and re-shoe the car again like a horse.


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## slotcardan

you can also make new shoes from the bronze sheet, if you have a rare shoe that is beyond repair or you need to make a copy you can cut this bronze out and then fabricate a replacement, using a micro punch and micro drill sets to get all the divots and holes correct.

this shoe was worn like a "U" in the center and causing problems, so i re-shoed it flat.


































the silver solder just becomes the glue to hold everything together and the bronze takes all the wear and tear.

on a few trailing style shoes, i cut the worn ends off fabricated new pieces soldered them to the old shoe with a butt weld then sanded to shape. the silver solder is very strong and can support butt joints. if you lap joint a repair you may cause a clearance problem.
when you reshoe you have to watch how thick you get as well.

on the tyco curve hugger chassis where the floating shoes groove very fast what i do is cut strips and solder them in the grooves, the bronze fills up 95% of the groove and the silver solder smooths it out so you can keep going.
if the groove is totally through the shoe then i jam the sheet sideways and solder it then sand both sides of the shoe. the silver solder on the back side of the shoe helps the spring transfer power as well.


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## jobobvideo

slotcardan, thanks for the tips and pics!!!! that's what i love about HT...guys willing to go to the extra effort


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## Shadowracer

I dunno, sounds just as easy to just lay out a few bucks so you always have new shoes on hand. I'm cheap...but not_ that _cheap. 

Having said that, we ran my Xtractions most of last season....probably 12 or 14 nights doing anywhere from 3 - 10 minute heats each time (anywhere between 12 and 40 minutes per night) and the shoes didn't really start to suffer till right at the end of the season.

Course, this is on a nice smooth Tyco track. I ran these guys on my AFX track before I levelled everything out....and some of the track joints acted as a cheese grater, chewing up shoes like no one's business very quickly. 

So yeah, echoing someone else...make sure your track joints are good.


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## jobobvideo

shadowracer, I agree when shoes and $$$ are available, but say for the HP2 shoes or other hard to find NOS this seems like a good technique. For some of us that have more time than $$$, always good to know how and what to use.


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## Grandcheapskate

If any of you have Aurora SuperMagnatraction style chassis (Blazin' Brakes, Cat's Eye, Speed Shifter, etc.), you know those shoes wear out very, very quickly. Unless you found shoes made from another material, you would go broke replacing them each time they wore out. Finding a thin sheet of metal to solder to them is really the only solution.

I bought shim steel at .002" thick (and .001" was available). I can give this a try - the steel works when used as rail. 

Joe


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## slotking

looks like for normal t-jet to inline shoes, you can wrap the bronze sheet around the shoe and solder it to the top of the shoe


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## Bill Hall

*Believe it or not*

Shortly after combining fire and the wheel, in the time before instant gratification became commonplace and Pteradactyls ruled the skies; Hamlin's, our local hobby cave didnt always have never ending stock of everything required.

...so if ya didnt learn to canabilize or improvise, acquire and apply new skilz, and stretch the envelope to suit the needs of the moment...

You we're a spectator watching others race until the next parts delivery arrived. Slot car Darwinism in action.

I love seeing how others skin the cat, whether it's something I already know; or they're sharing something new that I can add to my bag of trix. Getting to snoop around someone elses workbench is a bonus....note Dan's bench... high end soldering iron, plenty of room, suspicously clean and organized...clearly the product of a sick mind that results in superior craftsmanship. :tongue: Thats some beautiful work.

Thanx for the great macro pix and insight!


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## slotking

a little to clean!!:tongue:
and is that a warp core transducer I saw in the background??:thumbsup:

LOL

I think I have a table as my work bench??
otherwise I am at a lost as to how all my crap just floats above the floor:freak:


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## slotcardan

i make lamps too.










Coffee table art









dabble in electronics 









make my own paper craft etc...









its all on my site
www.tycotcrracing.com 

i would post more but hobbytalk limits all your links and photos in posts.


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## warnergt

joez870 said:


> I have "reskinned" pickup shoes with GREAT success, soldering a simple contact
> patch over the offending grooved area. It works! :thumbsup:


That's a great idea!

I have a bunch of vibrator cars with holes in the pickups. Finding 
replacements for these types of pickups is next to impossible. I had 
considered attempting to fill in the hole with silver solder (harder than 
regular lead/tin solder) but, as noted here, that would only be a very 
temporary solution.

Being able to repair these would be fantastic. And, because of the nature 
of the repair, these could be re-repaired once the patch wore out.


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