[GlovemanP510]

Well, The bug has truly bitten and i have decide to build a home track. I have looked at all the work you guys have done online and the first thing i have decided is that I need more space.

Step 1 Build a shed - I just ordered a 6m X 6m Shed so I can get the datsuns out of the Garage and have space to build a track.

That seems like a long way off and while I havent actually designed the track yet I do have some ideas in my head.

Scored some really cheap scaley buildings (pit, control and grandstand) for $50AU the lot amongst other things from a local toy store that was no longer going to stock scaley stuff and have begun to base my pit lane on them.

I dont want to spend a fortune on the buildings so iIam going to build my own pit bays to match in.

Here are some of the preliminary drawings only hope the real things live up to them.

All Together

Home Made Pit bay

more to come

 

[GlovemanP510]

For anyone interested here is the plans for the building

now to go and cut some bits of MDF up and make some sawdust!

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well after a bit more time on the weekend i managed to get enough pieces cut to make 4 pitbays. then proceeded to pre-paint some of the surfaces and started putting them together.

Couldn't help but sit back and admire the results to this stage.

now i have to find time to generate the stickers for the internal walls and for the facias of the pits.

ps Bleep - Had certainly read your blog and was suitably impressed. something to aim for. also love the honda raybrig its great to fun to drive even put some blue LEDs in mine for headlights and brake lights to boot

 

[GlovemanP510]

Im planning on them being factory team garages ie nissan(datsun) holden subaru etc but at the moment i only own 10 cars so i just used them all to fill it up

- or did you mean the one the other half keeps poking her head through to spy on what im doing?

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well after a rather late night last night i was able to get two of my pitbays almost finished. there are few things to do to them yet like pitbay numbers lighting and a few more scenery items like benches and tool boxes but i might wait until the track is set up for those

I really like the plasticy look as i want my track to look more like a toy car track than a real race track and i am still aiming for that easy to set up pull down put away in a tub appraoch

So far i have done a Holden and a Nissan pit bay and am still to decide what the other two makes will be although i do know which ones they will not be.

special thanks to Sokjo as I cut and pasted your door from your pitbay internals - hope you dont mind

Here is the pics of the bays i have completed so far

overall i am pretty happy. they are very similar ro the scaley pitbay and control tower and look pretty much like i thought they would. Now all i need is a few choice cars to fill them!

 

[GlovemanP510]

lavenlaar - The CAD program is called Autodesk Inventor and is very useful for designing stuff before you build it

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well further to my concept of toy race car track with a street circuit feel and no permanent home for my track i started work on creating a realistic hairpin surround for my R1 corner that again can simply be packed away

My first disappointment was that while scaley make an inner border for the corner itself i was shocked to discover that you cant fit two straight borders on the indide of the track - solution do it yourself of course

used a knife to cut away sections of the base to allow two to interlock and attached one rail to the other again using little cuts and dress makers pins to allow them to go together.

next added some fences and barriers that i had already made (see links to AUSLOT threads)

http://www.auslot.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6395

http://www.auslot.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=6396

Also wanted to make some tyre bundles so using some of the stuff i have seen on here proceeded to cut some 13mm heater hose up and used a lathe to file the edges down. Got about 300 tyres for 10 bucks then proceeded to use a bit of cloth tape and some stickers to jazz them up. They are even beginning to collect a bit of dust an grime making them look quite realistic. While i had the tape out i even added red and whit striping to the R1 inside corner border

ive done so many of these damn tyres now i cant bear to look at them any more!

final result was worth it though

but i was unhappy with how tight the corner appeared so I spent some time cutting an insert from masonite and after some fiddling was able to get the track borders to stay on the track edge (felt that it looked much better this way) put the tyre bundles in and im really happy with the outcome.

at this stage i think i will call it barber's corner cause of all the red and white!

mmmmm do what shall i next?

 

[GlovemanP510]

nothing but cloth tape that allows them to be flexible enough to bent around corners etc - make sure the tape is quite loose if you want them to retain a curved shape and still have the impression of the in and out look for the tape

ps love your work too pretzel is coming up awesome

 

[GlovemanP510]

sure do - if you pm me your email (dont post it in the topic thats not a good idea)i would be happy to send you the pdf file with them on it. Did you want the image on the tv or the tv to scale? as i am not sure if i can add attachments to posts

 

[GlovemanP510]

After finishing off the hairpin ive been looking around for things to go on with while i organise the shed for everything to go in. Chipped a couple of cars and then had a look around on the forum at what people have done. Before long i had decided. My pits definately need VIP areas upstairs so here is the plan not to start cutting

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well it has been quite a while since i have been able to do anything in the shed as i have been really busy but i had a few hours last night and wa able to finish painting and assembling the VIP areas for my pit bays. I still have to make the stickers for the roof line and mess around with the internal decorations but otherwise i reckon they have come up pretty well.

Finished decorating the other two pit bays internally and now have a white and yellow pitbay to go with my red and blue team bays.

Even got a chance to experiment with some lighting in one of the pitbays after finding some neat little LEDs already mounted on a board and they run off 12v so they are really easy to use. They even look like a modern light fiting to boot. Cant wait to do some night racing

mmm to do there is still much... stickers ... lights planning and making fun we shall have...

 

[GlovemanP510]

If you mean the one in front of the control tower there is a description in an auslot topic that i have posted
youll need to eat lots of lollipops and drink coffe at McDonalds
link included

Armco link

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well after a couple of free afternoons on the weekend as the missus went out with the kids I was lucky enough to finish work on the outside of my VIP areas. I have decided to rearrange the bays and am now going to have the control tower in the middle after managing to pick up another scaley pit bay on special so i now have one for each end.
So spent some time at work making up a heap of vinyl cut stickers and then proceeded to stick them all together and place them onto the roofline. Again pretty happy with the final result and much time was spent sitting on a stool, "admiring the scenery".

even came up with a name for my track (when i build it) - SHEIDOW PARK RACEWAY

Still have to get motivated enough to workout what i am going to do inside - thinking of a few coke machines and possibly some tables just to finish them off. Dont want them to be too realistic however so they still fit into that toy car track feel.

Have also been working on the lighting but will save those pics till its completely done to ensure the full effect is there.

 

[GlovemanP510]

Got a bit more time to myself last night and spent it knee deep in LED's and solder but the end result was a fully lit Pit Bay. All up there are 24 Leds in it and i am particularly pleaseds with the ones above the podium in the control tower. they were really tricky to put in. The whole thing can still be pulled apart and all i need to do now is come up with a solution to allow them to simply plug in where they are required. At the moment they are connected to the track and draw their power from there hower long term i will power them independently with the lane changers as i think they may draw a few too many amps all up if the scaley plug pack is powering LC's Cars and the Pit Lighting. I have a few ideas still but they are all about to take a back burner as i have just recieved word that the council has approved my shed and construction can begin.

Here a few pics of the Pits all lit up although they really dont do it justice unfortunately.

Hope you like as it might be a while before i get to do any more as the shed will probably take preference now

 

[GlovemanP510]

For My Next Trick

During my spare time at work (is there technically such a thing) ive been playing around with my next idea again based on something i saw at our local race "The CLipsal 500" just a bit of a space filler. The building of the new shed is still taking priority during the day but i should hopefully be able to squeeze in a few evening sessions.

I Realy needed somewhere to show off a few Datsun Signs

Not sure what i am going to make the frame from yet but i will work that out later and have a few ideas

Am most likely going to use it to eventually mount some start lights under or something like that i think

 

[GlovemanP510]

Been working hard on building the new shed so the gantry idea hasnt really got off the ground but i did find time to make up these hump bridges - have wanted one since I started and managed to find a couple of sets of the sides for three dollars a set. Unfortunately they didnt come with any track so I butchered up a couple of standard sport straights with a heat gun and rolling pin and they ended up working really well. - even better than finding an original because now i dont need a convertor straight before and after them.

Added a lick of paint to get rid of that hideous tan colour, while it was raining, between digging holes for the shed posts and im pretty happy my scoobie and focus will be riding the bumps well and truly.

Cheers Gloveman

 

[GlovemanP510]

Hey folks sorry I haven't checked my thread for a while I've been busy building my new shed in every spare moment I have so that I can have a place to build my slot car track and put some of these pieces that I am making. Although last weekend was so icky weather wise I was able to churn out a few new items (big thanks to dda and his Spa Franco for the inspiration and information.)

In answer to the questions

Injector man - yes I hope so (how long will depend on when the misuses' patience wears thin)

Tileguy - Have no plans to weather the pits but won't rule it out just yet

Slothead - I will take some more photos and post a how to for you - it was surprisingly easy just used a heat gun and scalpel cause like you I wasn't interested in using converter straights.

Now for some pics of what I made

Can't wait to set them up properly (although it seems I will need to make a few more.)

 

[GlovemanP510]

For slothead and anyone else who is interested here is a bit more info on how i modded up some sport track straights to fit into the humpback bridge sides so that i didnt need to use a convertor staight.

1 remove all the steel track by carefully bending the metal tabs out. i use a flat head srewdriver to do this as i found it kept everything flatter.
2. store all the little bit safely to avoid being annoyed later.
3 using a scalpel carefully cut small v grooves in the bottom plastic surfaces (see photo 1)

photo 1

repeat the pattern at the other end. when cutting the v's on the sections where the track runs only cut down through the bottom most section not all the way as this would weaken the track too much. On the other ribs i cut all the way to the bottom surface of the track.
4. Once that is done the track is flexible enough that you can bend it well enough to work out where to cut small notches for the lumps on the ends of the sides to fit. (see photo 2)

photo 2

be careful to only cut the notch out of the very edge section as the inner one is needed later to hold everything together.
5. once all the notches are cut get out your heatgun and start to warm up the areas that need to be bent working in strips across the track. This bit was a bit of trial and error but with a little patience eventually the shape should look something like the bridge. Better to bend the track a little past what is required as this will allow the track to sit flatter when finished.
6. once i had done that the most challenging part is trying to shape the rails. In the end i just used my thumbs to bend the rails very gently a little bit at a time. once the first one was the right shape it was easy to math the others to its shape. (be careful to get the orientation of the rails correct)
7 refit the rails into the track. I used a screw driver again wedged between the rails and then another to flatten the little tab around the track.
8. Attach the sides to the track. if you have cut the notches at the ends accurately it will actually stay together quite well. but i used a dremel to drill a small hole through a little dimple hole in the sides right through the inner rib on the track and then slid a dressmakers pin into place to hold it all together (see photo 2 again)
9.paint to desired effect if desired
10.race!

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well after working hard on my shed it is nearing completion if i was lucky enough to get a few days without rain it would probably be finished by now. Of course rain means that i can work on the slot cars.

After getting lucky and managing to lay my hands on a pb pro and Lap tower second hand (thanks PhilR) and then aquiring the correct cables to make it work (mega thanks GregR for the cables and support) i have again become distracted from making the gantry and refocused on producing a surround for the lap tower

The idea was pretty simple in concept and again has that toy racing look to it. I was playing with the kids when i noticed an old Kaliedescope (think thats how you spell it) and my imagination kicked in that it looked a lot like a support column. After convincing my son that he didnt really need it any more, the concept was born.

Again the materials were all scrounged (whole thing was made from scrap materials) so im pretty happy with the result and more so cant wait to actually race now that i have it all working.

Semi finished result.

the kaliedescope base means i can swivel the tower to point towards where the drivers are standing when it is set up and im really pleased with the polished aluminium front. Thanks PhilR again for the tip of putting a piece of flouro green acrylic (old clipboard) in front of the LED display as it certainly does enhance the vision of the numbers.

Now i think i might get around to a little barrier fence around it and planting a few of the trees.

 

[GlovemanP510]

Well been away with work for a week and havn't acheived much lately but i did manage to finish off my lap tower enclosure to keep the beer swilling race fans from climbing the tower. Did it during some down time on the weekend and am pretty happy with how it came out.

There is a recess in the base going out of the side and back so the whole thing can sit flat on the bench when it is all set up nicely.
Really love the fact that the whole thing can swivel on the base and again most of the materials are scrounged making it even better - notice i did away with the witch's hats!