Hi All,
I started t post in the Track and Scenery Forum titled 'Winter Classic Track in 1/43rd', click here to read the original post. I have decided to continue it here as I will be covering the cars as much as the track.
First a short recap covering the last two months (well maybe not so short).
The idea for this layout started in November when I became to cold to use the 1/32nd scale track I have in my shed. As we live in a one bedroom flat my only choice was to built a track in either the living room or bedroom. The living room has no space for anything other than a rug track and as I was looking to build a classic layout as you would see in the 60's similar to those that 'Loosesalute' has. The main idea being that I could take the track down when the weather got warmer and box up the buildings for next winter. The best place to build it was I the bay window of the bedroom which would give me a space just under 8' but 3' (2200 x 900mm).
At the moment I have had no complaints about the layout from the wife and I'm hoping it may become perminate.
Anyway due to the limited space my first thought was to build a HO track, this way I would have a wide selection od buildings, scenery and figures to choose from and a good range of static vehicles to place around the track. To this end I bought a Micro Scalextrix set on eBay.
However when the track was layed out it became clear that for the size of the track it took up quite a bit of room the main reason being the large radius of the curves. I was also disapointed with the detail of the cars. I also discovered that I could build the same layout with Artin track in the same space. As I already had a lot of Artinn track and 8 1/43rd scale cars I decided to build the track using Artin and resold the Micro set on eBayfor a small loss.
My first two cars came from a Carrera Go!!! Retro Action set, but as this had only 90 deg curves which would limit any layout design the Carrera Go track was not a option to use.
The Carrera Go Mini Cooper S and Fiat 500
When I bought my first lot of Artin track it cam with two Artin Nascars
While building my track in the shed which uses Artin track as is base I bought a Chad Valley set from Argos and this came with two Artin Mini Cooper S
And I also bought a set of two SCX Compact F1 Cars, a Ferrrari and McClaren
Just after I had decided to build the track using my Artin track a set came up on eBay with three cars and althought i didn't really need anymore track I thought it would be good to have some more cars. The set was for collection only but as I was from my home town this was not a problem ans as noone else bit on it I got it for about a tenner.
The cars included twp Porsches
and this american open wheeler
So now I had 11 cars and needed a track to use them on. My idea was to use a foam insulation board as the baseboard and to cover this with grass mats and then lay the track on the mats and use cardboard buildings, plastic figures, dicast cars and trees as scenery. To start with the first test tracks were laid on some off cuts of insulation that I had left over from other projects.
The first layout built with flyover
As I am a lone racer it had always been planed to run a pace car on one lane and althought it was possible to drive around the track at a good constant speed the track did not prove to be that interesting to race around.
The last lot of Artin track i bought had included parts to build a hump back bridge and in an atempt to incorporate this I tried this layout with two raised crossing.
But the speed of any car was limited by the hump back bridge and to a degree the curve at the bottom of the bridge and so I decided that a flat track would be the best route to go.
This was the first flat layout built
This track proved to be quite a challenge to drive and the barriers are needed to for the Artin cars to runa against. Even the Carrera and SCX cars with thier strong magnets need the barrier on the inside of the kink at the front of the track.
At this time I aquired my first two Jouef cars from Australia
A Porsche 904GT
and a Matra Djet 5
Both these cars are the later Jouef cars without the steering front wheels and although both cars ran the tyres had gone hard.
My next purchase was not a car but this D-Slot 43 chassis, the idea being to use it with a plastic kit body or even a dicast body. I then found out that it was a small chassis and for most bodies you need a long chasis. I have since purchased a long chassis only to discover that if you change the chassis you also need to change the front axle mountings as they are different lengths. I still have to find a body to use on this chassis and get the longer axle mountings.
And the one of my all time favourite cars arrived
A Jouef Ford GT40, this being one of the earlier models with the sprung pickup carriers. Again the tyre are past use and the pickup braids not in the best condition.
By this time I had also built my first card building a small spectator stand
This was the Middle of December and nothing much happened untill Christmas. Over Christmas I cut and placed a new foam insulation baseboard and as the cost of grass mats was to much I covered the insulation board which has aluminium on both faces with a cheap flooring underlay. As I have lots of ground cover and grass scatter left over from building the 1/32nd scale track this will be used to cover the underlay. I had been having a lot of trouble with electrical conductivity on the track. I had used all the best pieces of tracks to build the 1/32nd track in the shed and most of the pieces I had left along with the track I had bought were quite black but no rust. I decideed to do a quick clean up on the track pieces used a wire brush in a multi power tool. I know this isn't the best way to clear track but it was the quickest way.
Some changes were also made to the track when it was relaid as I wanted a larger gap between the back of the tack and the shorter straight in front of it to allow for some pits buildings.I also placed some MDF around the bay window, what you see is the back of a large MDF skirting, painted it sky blue. I then printed out some under scale brick walls and fences and stuck them to the MDF to give an idea of depth.
Closeup of the left side of the track
The center
and the right side
Overview looking to the right
Overview looking to the left
I originally had a lap counter in the straight by the pits were the Jouef box is but had to remove it Being Artin it worked fine with the Artin cars which have a pin guide and also with the pin guides on the Carrera Go cars. The SCX Compact cars use a normal flag guide and the lap counter would only change on every second or third pass of the cars. Following advise given by Loosesalute I purchased some replacement Urethane tyres from slotcartyres and was able to get the Jouef cars running and found out just how much fun they are to drive. But I had to remove the lapcounter as the flag duide of the Jouef cars would get stuck in the lap counter. The gap between the lap counter pins is to small to let the the guide through.
My next Car purchase was a Jouef Chapperal F2, this is the only car that has come with it's box.
I got this Matchbox Kingsize Racing Car Transporter cheap on eBay, it needs a lot of work but a least I won't feel bad giving it a respray and team markings.
I also built this main stand, again a card building downloaded from carrera4fun.de web site and reduced from 1/32 to 1/43rd scale, and filled with cheap people from china. The seated figures are 1/50th scale but as they are seated they don't appear undersize.
I also built a toilet block for the spectators to use.
The main stand also has lighting installed but this is not yet wired up to a power supply.
The first small stand filled with more small people from China
and the second small stand and people
This is the first pit box I built the full pit row will be about five pit boxes and again they will lights installed thanks to some cheap LEDs again from China
Next Car purchase was another of my favourite cars this Jouef Porsche 917LM
and then these Jouef F1 cars arrived
As can be seen the Lotus has the drivers windscreen and rear wing missing
and the Matra not only has the windscreen missing but also the drivers head and the exhust pipes hve been removed from the rear of the engine. Going by the noise this car makes it has a problem with the gears.
And a quick recap on my other Jouef cars.
Ford GT40
Porsche 904GT
Matra DJet 5
And one more car purchase this Jouef for Playcraft BRM F1
of all the cJouef cars I have bought this is the only one that had useable rear tyres, not perfect but at least the car could be driven.
To use the other cars I was swopping around the new tyre or using some of tyres from the Arton cars althougth these don't have the best level of grip.
If anyone has got through all of this then well done.
We are now at the end of January and the story is to be continued...
I started t post in the Track and Scenery Forum titled 'Winter Classic Track in 1/43rd', click here to read the original post. I have decided to continue it here as I will be covering the cars as much as the track.
First a short recap covering the last two months (well maybe not so short).
The idea for this layout started in November when I became to cold to use the 1/32nd scale track I have in my shed. As we live in a one bedroom flat my only choice was to built a track in either the living room or bedroom. The living room has no space for anything other than a rug track and as I was looking to build a classic layout as you would see in the 60's similar to those that 'Loosesalute' has. The main idea being that I could take the track down when the weather got warmer and box up the buildings for next winter. The best place to build it was I the bay window of the bedroom which would give me a space just under 8' but 3' (2200 x 900mm).
At the moment I have had no complaints about the layout from the wife and I'm hoping it may become perminate.
Anyway due to the limited space my first thought was to build a HO track, this way I would have a wide selection od buildings, scenery and figures to choose from and a good range of static vehicles to place around the track. To this end I bought a Micro Scalextrix set on eBay.
However when the track was layed out it became clear that for the size of the track it took up quite a bit of room the main reason being the large radius of the curves. I was also disapointed with the detail of the cars. I also discovered that I could build the same layout with Artin track in the same space. As I already had a lot of Artinn track and 8 1/43rd scale cars I decided to build the track using Artin and resold the Micro set on eBayfor a small loss.
My first two cars came from a Carrera Go!!! Retro Action set, but as this had only 90 deg curves which would limit any layout design the Carrera Go track was not a option to use.
The Carrera Go Mini Cooper S and Fiat 500
When I bought my first lot of Artin track it cam with two Artin Nascars
While building my track in the shed which uses Artin track as is base I bought a Chad Valley set from Argos and this came with two Artin Mini Cooper S
And I also bought a set of two SCX Compact F1 Cars, a Ferrrari and McClaren
Just after I had decided to build the track using my Artin track a set came up on eBay with three cars and althought i didn't really need anymore track I thought it would be good to have some more cars. The set was for collection only but as I was from my home town this was not a problem ans as noone else bit on it I got it for about a tenner.
The cars included twp Porsches
and this american open wheeler
So now I had 11 cars and needed a track to use them on. My idea was to use a foam insulation board as the baseboard and to cover this with grass mats and then lay the track on the mats and use cardboard buildings, plastic figures, dicast cars and trees as scenery. To start with the first test tracks were laid on some off cuts of insulation that I had left over from other projects.
The first layout built with flyover
As I am a lone racer it had always been planed to run a pace car on one lane and althought it was possible to drive around the track at a good constant speed the track did not prove to be that interesting to race around.
The last lot of Artin track i bought had included parts to build a hump back bridge and in an atempt to incorporate this I tried this layout with two raised crossing.
But the speed of any car was limited by the hump back bridge and to a degree the curve at the bottom of the bridge and so I decided that a flat track would be the best route to go.
This was the first flat layout built
This track proved to be quite a challenge to drive and the barriers are needed to for the Artin cars to runa against. Even the Carrera and SCX cars with thier strong magnets need the barrier on the inside of the kink at the front of the track.
At this time I aquired my first two Jouef cars from Australia
A Porsche 904GT
and a Matra Djet 5
Both these cars are the later Jouef cars without the steering front wheels and although both cars ran the tyres had gone hard.
My next purchase was not a car but this D-Slot 43 chassis, the idea being to use it with a plastic kit body or even a dicast body. I then found out that it was a small chassis and for most bodies you need a long chasis. I have since purchased a long chassis only to discover that if you change the chassis you also need to change the front axle mountings as they are different lengths. I still have to find a body to use on this chassis and get the longer axle mountings.
And the one of my all time favourite cars arrived
A Jouef Ford GT40, this being one of the earlier models with the sprung pickup carriers. Again the tyre are past use and the pickup braids not in the best condition.
By this time I had also built my first card building a small spectator stand
This was the Middle of December and nothing much happened untill Christmas. Over Christmas I cut and placed a new foam insulation baseboard and as the cost of grass mats was to much I covered the insulation board which has aluminium on both faces with a cheap flooring underlay. As I have lots of ground cover and grass scatter left over from building the 1/32nd scale track this will be used to cover the underlay. I had been having a lot of trouble with electrical conductivity on the track. I had used all the best pieces of tracks to build the 1/32nd track in the shed and most of the pieces I had left along with the track I had bought were quite black but no rust. I decideed to do a quick clean up on the track pieces used a wire brush in a multi power tool. I know this isn't the best way to clear track but it was the quickest way.
Some changes were also made to the track when it was relaid as I wanted a larger gap between the back of the tack and the shorter straight in front of it to allow for some pits buildings.I also placed some MDF around the bay window, what you see is the back of a large MDF skirting, painted it sky blue. I then printed out some under scale brick walls and fences and stuck them to the MDF to give an idea of depth.
Closeup of the left side of the track
The center
and the right side
Overview looking to the right
Overview looking to the left
I originally had a lap counter in the straight by the pits were the Jouef box is but had to remove it Being Artin it worked fine with the Artin cars which have a pin guide and also with the pin guides on the Carrera Go cars. The SCX Compact cars use a normal flag guide and the lap counter would only change on every second or third pass of the cars. Following advise given by Loosesalute I purchased some replacement Urethane tyres from slotcartyres and was able to get the Jouef cars running and found out just how much fun they are to drive. But I had to remove the lapcounter as the flag duide of the Jouef cars would get stuck in the lap counter. The gap between the lap counter pins is to small to let the the guide through.
My next Car purchase was a Jouef Chapperal F2, this is the only car that has come with it's box.
I got this Matchbox Kingsize Racing Car Transporter cheap on eBay, it needs a lot of work but a least I won't feel bad giving it a respray and team markings.
I also built this main stand, again a card building downloaded from carrera4fun.de web site and reduced from 1/32 to 1/43rd scale, and filled with cheap people from china. The seated figures are 1/50th scale but as they are seated they don't appear undersize.
I also built a toilet block for the spectators to use.
The main stand also has lighting installed but this is not yet wired up to a power supply.
The first small stand filled with more small people from China
and the second small stand and people
This is the first pit box I built the full pit row will be about five pit boxes and again they will lights installed thanks to some cheap LEDs again from China
Next Car purchase was another of my favourite cars this Jouef Porsche 917LM
and then these Jouef F1 cars arrived
As can be seen the Lotus has the drivers windscreen and rear wing missing
and the Matra not only has the windscreen missing but also the drivers head and the exhust pipes hve been removed from the rear of the engine. Going by the noise this car makes it has a problem with the gears.
And a quick recap on my other Jouef cars.
Ford GT40
Porsche 904GT
Matra DJet 5
And one more car purchase this Jouef for Playcraft BRM F1
of all the cJouef cars I have bought this is the only one that had useable rear tyres, not perfect but at least the car could be driven.
To use the other cars I was swopping around the new tyre or using some of tyres from the Arton cars althougth these don't have the best level of grip.
If anyone has got through all of this then well done.
We are now at the end of January and the story is to be continued...