New Items ZAP LUBE ON EBAY - JUNK OR WHAT

Nov 6, 2013
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Ok, Saw this on EBAY today. Zap Lube. Anybody heard of this stuff before?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Use-Zap-Lube-for-Your-Cub-Scout-Pinewood-Derby-Racing-Needs-Graphite-Free-/261371407124?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276
 
5KidsRacing said:
Sounds similar to Coaches Secret Lube = SLOW

Coaches I believe is Wet and then dries and has nothing to do with graphite or Moly.

But the Graphite and Molybdenum disulfide they have been mixing the two for awhile now (pinewood pro with Moley) but I've never heard of it being fused with Moly.

I think it might be something to test.

pinewood-derby-graphite-moly-additive-book.jpg
with molybdenum disulfide

Pinewood-Derby-Graphite-with-Fused-Moly-Additive-12-Grams-42-Ounces-An-Excellent-Lubricant-for-Your-Cub-Scout-Pinewood-Derby-or-Awana-Race-Cars-0.jpg
 
I like the term "lubricious." /images/boards/smilies/biggrin.gif

Has anybody ever run a lubrication shoot-out test? Would be interesting to see how things shook out.
 
You might look at different ways to test the ""lubes"
A. Wheel rub to body or axle head, balance wheel on bore and test friction.
B. Wheel rub on inside edge to wood or aluminum track, tape nickle to get wheel to tilt and drag back edge. Aluminum tape is a good sub for the aluminum track- be sure and Pledge the aluminum to get lowest friction. ( unless you know they will never clean the track.)
C. Wheel bore to Axle, coat the mirror in a zone with jjg if that is your last axle coat , polish lip edge and apply your wax or ZAP or wax + Zap or Grizzwald's magic ski wax and then by adding nickles (each is 5 grams close to a 1/4th" cube of tungsten) you can get friction on a light front wheel, and friction on a loaded back wheel.
You get the friction by slowly lifting the mirror until the wheel slides. Measure the height and calculate the friction.

edgeonALbigger.jpg
 
Vitamin K said:
I like the term "lubricious." /images/boards/smilies/biggrin.gif

Has anybody ever run a lubrication shoot-out test? Would be interesting to see how things shook out.

If Scott doesnt recommend it, then dont buy it. BTW, John's graphite is the BEST out there. I've tested others and can attest to his stuff. Also, I hope John will be doing some derby dust testings. I sent him a container of that crap that I had bought a while back and wasn't going to use. Very interested in seeing his results.
 
ZAP has 3 products- a fine mesh graphite , a liquid 100% Moly, and the mysterious 50:50 graphite/sintered Moly
the liquid does appear to be coaches, and the address on both places is Vacaville, Ca.
JUST to REMIND any newbies- sometimes a vendor will quote a super low COF like-"Better than Teflon, at 0.03, that is for a Moly film around for years before the Coach- look up the company that makes Sailkote, and you will be impressed with some of the other lubes also. Can you get that with low loads like Pinewood Derby wheels?- not likely, but there may be some tricks to get what you need. Once you do a good job of burnishing in DD4H Zero into a good wax like Red Rocket, Do you not have something faster than "graphite"

zeroF.jpg

 
txchemist said:
ZAP has 3 products- a fine mesh graphite , a liquid 100% Moly, and the mysterious 50:50 graphite/sintered Moly
the liquid does appear to be coaches, and the address on both places is Vacaville, Ca.
JUST to REMIND any newbies- sometimes a vendor will quote a super low COF like-"Better than Teflon, at 0.03, that is for a Moly film around for years before the Coach- look up the company that makes Sailkote, and you will be impressed with some of the other lubes also. Can you get that with low loads like Pinewood Derby wheels?- not likely, but there may be some tricks to get what you need. Once you do a good job of burnishing in DD4H Zero into a good wax like Red Rocket, Do you not have something faster than "graphite"

zeroF.jpg


Have you tried to burnish the DD4H Zero into RR? I'd be very interested in seeing your test results on this. I'm teaching a PWD class to my Pack in Jan and would love any and all data I can get on products to share with them.
 
These tests are from John under the Zero Graphite on his shop page, and I am pretty sure he did it by burnishing into RR.

I also don't give the Cubs much data at all- let them run a test and pick what they want to do. Let them bring a sample of what car wax they have, wax a section of mirror, and have a fast race with a one wheeled car against the wax you were going to use. Graphite on wax on a mirror is way better then graphite on the mirror. If you want to prepare a bunch of wheels with different edge treatments- label them and let the kids find out themselves what is fastest.
 
txchemist said:
These tests are from John under the Zero Graphite on his shop page, and I am pretty sure he did it by burnishing into RR.

I also don't give the Cubs much data at all- let them run a test and pick what they want to do. Let them bring a sample of what car wax they have, wax a section of mirror, and have a fast race with a one wheeled car against the wax you were going to use. Graphite on wax on a mirror is way better then graphite on the mirror. If you want to prepare a bunch of wheels with different edge treatments- label them and let the kids find out themselves what is fastest.

HMMM... I like it /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif This is a great way to show the cubs the effect of why we prep the way we do.
 
txchemist said:
Graphite on wax on a mirror is way better then graphite on the mirror. If you want to prepare a bunch of wheels with different edge treatments- label them and let the kids find out themselves what is fastest.

I'm doing something similar with a build forum. I know that graphite can actuallly be faster than oil ( for a few runs anyway) if the graphite is applied properly and the oil is not. Properly applied, graphite does not statnd a chance. Without prepping two whole cars and without explaining all of the re-prep wizardary, is there a simple test I could do to also include oil in the mix?
 
So, I'm not discounting the value of a test like this, but since there are so many factors involved with lubrications, I really think I would like to see results from actual cars.
hmmm


I think what I'd do would be, if I had 3 different lubes to test, build four cars, try to get them as identical as possible (though this is never entirely possible). Use BSA wheels and axles that are machined without crimp marks.

Run each car a number of times without any lube, get the average speed of each.

Lube three of the cars, each with a different lubricant, leave the fourth car as a control. Re-run the same amount of runs with each car again.

I'd want to look for:

- Average speed change from each lubricant.
- Maximum speed change from each lubricant.
- The change in effectiveness of the lubricant over a number of runs.

If you wanted to test with lube + wax, as opposed to just lube, you'd need three more cars.

Now you see the kind of thing I'd do if I didn't have a day job and had the time/money to play with Pinewood stuff all day. /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif

txchemist said:
You might look at different ways to test the ""lubes"
A. Wheel rub to body or axle head, balance wheel on bore and test friction.
B. Wheel rub on inside edge to wood or aluminum track, tape nickle to get wheel to tilt and drag back edge. Aluminum tape is a good sub for the aluminum track- be sure and Pledge the aluminum to get lowest friction. ( unless you know they will never clean the track.)
C. Wheel bore to Axle, coat the mirror in a zone with jjg if that is your last axle coat , polish lip edge and apply your wax or ZAP or wax + Zap or Grizzwald's magic ski wax and then by adding nickles (each is 5 grams close to a 1/4th" cube of tungsten) you can get friction on a light front wheel, and friction on a loaded back wheel.
 
Vitamin K- what I was showing was how to teach CUBS the first lessons in friction. And if it were a bunch of engineers, I would still start there to isolate what variables I could. Now once these screening experiments are done- you are ready to try to do a wheel and axle- however- your alignment will not be the same with each car unless you are a very good builder, so here is the average builders way to isolate just the friction of a single wheel & axle prep for data.
http://www.pinewoodderbyonline.com/post/how-do-you-know-where-you-are-6238431?pid=1277145718#post1277145718

Learn how to do a cum distribution to show average, and many tests on the same chart. You can also get std. dev. easy from it.

I also would point out, it is a nice way to test each of your wheel preps individually to see what consistency you have, and to pick your back wheels and front wheels with good data.
 
Ah, thanks for that clarification. That does look like a good setup. I'd love to see something like that done for all the possible lube configurations.

txchemist said:
Vitamin K- what I was showing was how to teach CUBS the first lessons in friction. And if it were a bunch of engineers, I would still start there to isolate what variables I could. Now once these screening experiments are done- you are ready to try to do a wheel and axle- however- your alignment will not be the same with each car unless you are a very good builder, so here is the average builders way to isolate just the friction of a single wheel & axle prep for data.
http://www.pinewoodderbyonline.com/post/how-do-you-know-where-you-are-6238431?pid=1277145718#post1277145718

Learn how to do a cum distribution to show average, and many tests on the same chart. You can also get std. dev. easy from it.