Temporary fences, Suggestions? Options

[chris99]

Hi
I'm a lazy rug racer and like to change the layout often but during the hols I want to put an SSD track on the pingpong table.
The last time I did it the cars would occasionally fly over the stock Scalextric border/barriers to a sickening crack on the floor. So I'm looking for suggestions for ways to stop the cars leaving the table - something which can be put on the table temporarily and without spoiling it. Tips on height & materials would also be welcome. Unfortunately, turning the power down or taking the magnets out is not an option as the kids always want max speed.

Cheers
Chris

[dutchslotfreak]

HI.
I've been using longs strips of an old no longer used plastic vertical blind
Flexible enough to curve; solid enough to be impact resistant.

[athrlyth]

Hiya

In the UK from a B and Q you can buy some troughing leaf protector, basically itds mage to stop leaves falling into the troughing on your house, it comes as a brown colour. Early this year I spray painted some of this and used it as a fence it worked great, looked quite good and it didnt cost too much. have a look. I can send you photo;s of mine if you Pm me with your email address.

Athrlyth

[mgmike]

Use the ping pong net for a quick fix on one end
Mike

[MrFlippant]

The ping-pong net is perfect, since it's a ping-pong table. I wanted to use those for folding tables, but the plastic puffy tables just crush under the clamp.
So, I did the gutter guard fences. I used plastic flexible corner bead (for when you put up drywall and spackle the outside edge of a wall) and used little zip-ties to hold the gutter guard to the corner bead. Since they were temporary tracks, I simply duct taped the fence to the tablecloth that I covered the tables with (very large one bought for cheap on ebay). The only problem is the gutter guard likes to try to curl up. It worked great for the school fetes I did. Here's a picture of the last one I did:

[chris99]

Thanks for the replies.
In fact the fences became secondary and I started focussing on squeezing the best layout on the table, starting with MrF's school track above and then modifying it to fill the table following all the golden rules about positioning the APB & xlcs & varying the curves. I'm quite happy with the result as it flows quite well & at 75% power the magnet/urethane cars stay on most of the time but are just enough of challenge such that you can't go flat out all the way round. I've got 4 R4's on order but the table area may be too small to incorporate them; I've managed to get a couple of R1s in (to keep MrF happy) and borders on curve-outsides everywhere except near the PB. My chicane R1 hairpin lasted all of 5 minutes - time enough to see a car fly off the table but just dislodging the back axle

Here's a top down view of to see the layout and the end view shows three feeble attempts at fences with masking tape using the pingpong net at the near end and some plastic garden trellis fencing along the side and at the far end some rubber netting (under-rug nonslip material) with a heavily masking-taped wooden posts. The main problem is fixing them temporarily but sufficiently strongly. I think anything stronger than masking tape risks taking the paint off the table. I think I need to find some sort of clips or clamps.

As you can see I pushed the track borders right to the edge so the table cloth/duct tape suggestion wouldn't be so easy.
Any layout improvements or more fence suggestions welcome.

[Mr Modifier]

It depends on how handy you are. With that table and that track I would have thought 5" would be high enough to catch the cars.


Idea 1

Make some MDF corners with sides - like a 90 degree triangle with 2" deep sides on the two shortest sides of the triangle. Place these on the corners of the table with the sides down to keep the triangles in place. Next drill vertical holes into the sides of your corner pieces (this avoids making holed in your table tennis table). These holes should be the right diameter for your pins (see later).

Next get 5" strips of 6mm MDF cut to the right lengths to completely box in all 4 sides of your layout. Drill vertical holes and insert pins (3mm threaded rod or similar) near the ends of these boards so that they can marry the pins up with the holes in your corner pieces.

When the boards are inserted in the corner pieces they should hold the whole structure rigid and you should still be able to take it apart in seconds.

Idea 2

Simpler idea

Drill small holes in the sides of your table. Make barriers out of rigid plastic or Hardboard or MDF. If you used clear perspex you could make the barriers higher without making them overpowering.

Bolt the barriers to the sides of the table using wing nuts on the inside (to avoid bits sticking out and snagging kids).

[chris99]

Thanks MrM - some good ideas. I suppose I was loathe to do anything to the table but I hadn't thought about the sides so that's definitely a goer. I'm also game to try the woodworking solution but that will be a bit of learning curve for my pen-pushing hands.

Cheers
Chris

[UshCha]

Try looking on ebay. In the UK version cheap table tennis nets with clamps are about 5 euro. These would do the job on the sides or just provide the poles for another matrerial

[MrFlippant]

Thanks for keeping a few R1 in there, just for me.
Looks like a great layout, and you even got a 4 lane section in there! Wow.
I echo UshCha, and suggest ebay for some cheap nets and clamps. The clamps I got for testing were quite adjustable and could be made to hold the next just about anywhere. One set for the ends, and an extra set to make corners in the net. Get as many as you need to surround the table, and probably still only cost $30 or so.

[distantkiwi]

I use gutter guard and a staple gun to attach it to the wooden baseboard.

[chris99]

Updated layout - Managed to get 4 new R4 curves in which has smoothed it out a bit. Another ping pong net & clamps on order.

[joeymorgans]

Looks like it would be nice to drive the other way round too!

I used to have a big table and i ended up buying pipe insulation but the cars never even made it over the barriers, in B&Q I know you can buy clear and strong plastic sheets which would be nice! also just some old cardboard boxes painted would look nice and work well too!

Good luck!
Joe.

[chris99]

Hi Joe,

As you have resurrected the thread, here's the latest mod putting all the R4s together to get a nice sweeping R4/R3/R2 curve at the end of the straight. Also the 4 lane bit wasn't really long enough to overtake and I don't use refuelling, plus I run in analogue most of the time now as many of my new cars have higher speed motors which may blow the chips:


In fact, I did put the extra ping-pong net up round one of the corners but the cars rarely go over the Scalextric fences except when there's a sudden surge of power if my wireless controller disconnects unexpectedly and I have a 20k rpm plus car on the track. Most of the time it's just me and the pace cars. For frantic racing, I think it'll go back on the floor and with a longer track - the straight is a bit short for a good full speed thrash..

I haven't tried the other way round yet because of the lane changers, but I have removed the curved one now as I tried to convert it to an in-out without success and screwed it up trying to pull out the flipper locking pin.

Cheers
Chris