[out2passya]

Hi All,
Im sure there are posts on this but I cant get the search engine to to score.
Has anyone had experience interfacing scaley track and routered wood. Im interested in various ways of doing so and experiences of members on this forum, ie is it worth the hassle, pitfalls etc.

Rather than dropping the scaley and gooing to full wood I thought Id make some simple wood sections, thus free up scaley track so we can use it elsewhere.

 

[300SLR]

How much do you need magnet traction on your wood sections?
The standard plastic track rails are attracted quite strongly to traction magnets.
Wood with copper tape / braid gives zero attraction to traction magnets.
Wood with "magnetic" braid is attracted to traction magnets, although usually not quite as strongly as plastic track.
There are other solutions such as magnetic paint on wood, although usually not as strong as "magnetic" braid it does make the traction magnets work where ever you want it on the track. (Unlike normal rails where the attraction disappears when the car gets sideways)

 

[Michael363672]

There are a few threads in our club section

The building of our tracks

Or here. Routered lane changers

Michael

 

[jmswms]

QUOTE (Michael363672 @ 23 Aug 2012, 07:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>There are a few threads in our club section

The building of our tracks

Or here. Routered lane changersThese links don't work for me. Seems to be a general problem rather than one specific to my computer. I'd be very interested to see you "Routered Lane Changers" since I'm doing a digital Scalextric Track right now. My plan is to embed the plastic digital pieces, but I'll remove the rails and replace the rails with magnabraid. The end result should look seamless, and have the precision of the Scalextric digital pieces. I tested routing the XLCs myself, but I think it's difficult to get the necessary precision without an CNC machine.

 

[MrFlippant]

there's just an extra http at the front of those links

QUOTE (Michael363672 @ 23 Aug 2012, 07:02) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>There are a few threads in our club section

The building of our tracks

Or here. Routered lane changers

Michael

FIXED!

 

[out2passya]

Thanks for that,
Looking at this photo

it looks like you removed the scaley metal track pin and cut the plastic tags off and just butted it up against the wood yes?

re mag
yeah we are aware that mag or non mag becomes an issue. We are still playing/debating with this.
At the moment I intend on making some wood straights which dont need the mag as much. Its only corners on the end of straights (where the car has built up momentum) that really need the mag for breaking and holding onto the corner. This can be fixed a little with banking the curves? Or using scaley track in these spots. Once the cars momentum is down non mag cars seem to be ok as long as the track is not super tight.

 

[Michael363672]

We started off with Mags in the cars, to aid lane changing at speed, but soon everone agreed that the after the feel of them running and cornering without mags, it just felt wrong with the mag in place, also once the mag lets go thats it the car is history no chance of saving it at all.

So out came the mags and all classes now run mag free but with Silicone tyres on the rears

We also now have changers that have been routed in to the wood track and I know Lee is working towards replacing all of the plastic parts with wood as soon as he can

Michael

 

[out2passya]

Thanks Michael, I was just about to start a new topic or at least start looking into some posts re the mag v magless, then read your post above so will answer here first.

First of all I have removed a mag from a pair of identical cars,(so one with and one without) to compare. I really dont recall scaley being so slippery ok it was 20 years ago no mag then but without the mag in this new scaly set it has massive wheel spin(I dont recall ever having this trouble) on straights and slides out at sniff on corners. I was still able to lap in 9sec as opposed to 5(magged). Magged up it just felt unrealistic, super fast and really not much skill. un magged tho it was just tedious, unrealistic in the opposite way.

Something in between would be nice.

I moved the magged position to middle and that was getting closer to what Id consider fun and still a challenge. But really in order to use routed track and remove the hasle of magbraid or magpaint etc Id like to maybe add weight or just get slightly better grip. I was thinking of playing with the throttle settings too because Im using only the first 1/3 of the throttle anything more and it just wheel spins.
Semed to have trouble with a crossover too with non mag car. Just wacks into centre. could be a dodgy bit of scaley.

I did a sort of test with digital fish scales. Not really accurate/resolution enough tho, still interesting.
Placed a car with two little hooks under the rear wheel arches. hooks are tied togther with twine.(fishing gear come in handy

and then up to the scales.
Lifting the car till its(mag) just lets go I get about 120grams. Lifting from a piece of wood is about 40g. So im saying that the mag adds about 80g of downward force. (about the same as the cars weight(86 in this case) funnily enough).
Of course we must keep in mind this is not the same as a lead weight of 80g. The mag imparts no momentum where as a lead weight would. I think.

Please comment on my thoughts below.

I need to look at a grippy paint to put on the MDF.
Wider sweeping corners,
grippier tyres
weight near the rear wheel.

 

[Michael363672]

That is why we use silicone tyres

The standard tyres are of no use what so ever

You can try treating them etc as some will say but this will create an uneven playing field between those that know and have the time vs those that don't

Silicone tyres put you all on a level playing field

Personally I only ever put weight up the front and try to keep it as little as possible

Re grip I prefer to drive to the conditions, last night we ran our SCX NASCARS that have Wasp tyres on, now these have less grip than our silicones but slide miles before the car will deslot, so all you had to do was be slower into the corner then accelerate out of the corner, you could moan they were not as fast or as grippy as our other NASCAR Class, but then there would be no point in having two classes he same?

Where are you located in the world also ?

 

[MrFlippant]

Sand those tires, Mark! Why they come unprepared for racing, I don't know. Even with magnets in, cars will work better with a little buzz on sandpaper than without. If you can get them sanded evenly around and across, you'll be golden going magless. A drop of oil soaked in will make them even better. Do that before spending out on replacement tires for everything.
Also, depending on the paint and how it's applied, you'll have more grip than you know what to do with, even with stock unsanded tires. For example, I painted my routed test track with flat interior house paint (latex/emulsion) using a roller, and the very slight knap texture, coupled with the "rubbery" nature of the paint itself, created a very grippy surface that all of my cars run exceptionally well on, even ones that have terrible traction on other tracks (see AutoArt).

But yeah, just pulling the magnets from a Scaley car and putting it on Sport track will often be somewhat disappointing.

 

[out2passya]

Thanks Greg, confirmation on what I was begining to think. I should have mentioned that yes I made myself a little tryre sander and have been checking rims for plastic mould tags and sanding both front and rear tyres and rounding the edges. I have noticed massive improvements.(magged)

When you say oil do you mean sewing machine oil? I havent tried that tip yet. A little scared

oil on tyres goes against my instinct :lol. But I understand the concept of softening the rubber.

Me thinks scaley track is slippery. I was telling Kev last night that I reckoned the paint roller was the way to go

I have some test peices (MDF) Im in the process of making now and will experiment.

 

[MrFlippant]

I don't know what sewing machine oil is, specifically, but it could probably work. Scaley Sport track is on the slippery side, especially compared to classic or Ninco. But, it's all about the tire or tire prep, really. Sanded and oiled stock tires will grip nicely on Sport track. Silicones even better. I like urethane tires, as well as some of slot.it's softer rubbers, or NSR tires, but I don't always want a lot of grip, such as for rally cars.
I'd give the sewing machine oil a try. Just a drop on each tire, smeared around as well as you can, then let it soak in. If it doesn't look dry after an hour or so, wipe of as much as you can and wait a little longer. Once the look of oil is gone, the tire will be ready to run, and very grippy. Depending on the oil, this can last a day, or a week, or more.
Of course, cleaning is still necessary, so have your tape or wet rag or whatever handy to clean off the dust and such.

 

[out2passya]

yep new tyres trued up and running much better. will try oil next.
Also reduced the power to 88% so its got better resolution down low and thus better control of intital wheel spin.

We are getting there

 

[Ade]

hi
i would go easy on setting and buying everything for grip,for paint i used standard off the shelf emulsion.

Tyres were swapped to urethane and with no weight added the performance is just about right.

To much grip and it will be as boring as mags on sport track.