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new kid on the block!

58083 Views 324 Replies 37 Participants Last post by  Ember
hello all, after far too many hours spent reading all the excellent advice and information on this site i've got going with my wooden track and literally up to my elbows in contact adhesive, grouting and paint mixing, and loving every minute of building my new sandstone cliffs.i got going again with the old scalextric track over the summer as a neighbour gave me a load of old curves, the track grew, bigger than the toy room and into the big space i've got near my workshop, during august that track was decorated and filled with props (with help from my 6 year old, who built a lego snack area for the pits!) and we have since staged a successful tournament last saturday with 27 drivers of all ages (not bad for a village of 250 people), since then i started on track number 2 in wood, have done the levels, routing and nearly finished the cliffs, but awaiting the copper and still tons of modelling to do.....but how happy am i doing it?, you get to regress to being a 4 year old mucking about with dirt and paint and glue, then when its done you turn in to an 8 year old and speed around a small spanish village at 1/32nd scale....GREAT.

anyway, just wanted to sign in and will try and post some pics soon of the 2 tracks,(when i've figured out how!)

cheers sig
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Sorry, One additional thought!


I have been working increasingly in 1/43 over the last couple years, A change in scale might make your task somewhat easier?????
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The video is fabulous and it is actually one more reason to do it. I am sure you will find ways to make it your own. The challenge was always, I thought, to do it for the slot car world. There have been so many movies with car scenes it would have been strange if some with similar theme had not been done yet.
thanks for the support y'all, it feels like i can't write that particular story because its already been written albeit in a different language..anyway what the hell, i've gone off and started routing anyway becAUSE I'M SICK OF WAITING FOR THE POSTMAN
heres the routed bit of the spiral, new and improved...inner radius only 5cm (2 inches ). still need to wire up all the cross overs yet.if you go too slow it sticks, but if the tails out you're ok, then if you go too fast the car tails out at 90 degrees and 'jack knifes' , its dead tricky but great fun, each car needs a different trick it appears....

on the topic of 1-43 is the guide the same size for the slot....could be better scale for the fotos, but obviously better if all the cars work on the new track

can you get scaley motocross bikes?
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Oy .. that's almost like my avatar, which [I believe] was drawn up a couple of thousand years ago .. everything is recycled! .. But the cars do cope with that .. not too tight?

Reg. 1:43, sig .. The SCX guideflags are different than 1:32, I think. Very, very thin and with regular braids. But I'm not fond of how the F1's I've got ride, as they are very light weight so the braids push the frontwheels about 3-4 mm up in the air. I'd like to tinker with them a bit, but still unsure about how. Although they've run [fronts in the air] on Scaley track without any problem.

CarreraGO!!! has no moveable guide, only a pin/keel, and a braidsystem like the bigger scale Carreras. Brushes/braids in the pressed brass fittings. Look into Mini-Slots section .. There's been some postings, I think, about how to improve their running. But both makes seem to lack a lot in torgue.

There's also a very interesting posting about 1:43sd slot cars .. with a linky to custom made chassies>> ..

@Graham .. out-of-the-box into the circle? That's innovative! There was a record lable in the 70'ies [?], Vertigo, was it not, with a bit similar *swirl*..

-- ron --
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Hey! That is the spirit! Advance. The spiral is a great idea I did once something in that spirit, i.e. a track segment that forced sliding. I did not take it to your level because I wanted it to be "realistic" is the rally sense. I really enjoy your go beyond the beaten track slot approach.

On the apprehensive side I think that you might have gone too far, or shall I say too in, in your spiral. Can you put a video with a car going through it? It might motivate me to extend my forced sliding element in the track I am building.
That looks so cool! Reminds me of a rally car ripping up the handbrake and doing a full on smokey doughnut then driving off
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just been trying it...done the lead in now and the electrical connections, works fine, after learning the ropes a bit, the inner diameter pretty much stops the car dead but if the throttle is up the back wheels skid round, slide the tail out and off you go, runs smooth and then ease off as you go out other wise the drift goes too extreme, the ideal angle is 45 degrees to the slot, if it swings too hard it goes off to 90 degrees and either stops the car (looses contact with guide) or jumps back on the guide spring. to be honest i don't see what all the fuss is about, you could easy do a hairpin at this radius. just need to learn the road! i'll be putting a post or telegraph pole in the middle, it somehow helps visualise the drift with the centre marked
i'll do a vid but just lost my imovie trying to upgrade it to the one with slow motion...now i cant do anything!, i'll use a mates mac.
give it a try, it took about 2 hours to do!

cheers sig
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QUOTE (sig @ 5 Nov 2009, 17:06) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>can you get scaley motocross bikes?

Scaley have done sidecars you can pick them up at the bay of E every now and then, but they are tricky to drive without magnets.


And there was an release with a cool sidecar from AA-bodies
read about it here


looking cool with the spiral of death

chips
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Hey, can we have a video of that donut, complete with smoke? Yeah, yeah!
QUOTE (PSRRFH @ 5 Nov 2009, 22:47) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

chips
Are those digitally chipped?

Three in one lane looks interesting!
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QUOTE (Graham Lane @ 5 Nov 2009, 22:07) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hey, can we have a video of that donut, complete with smoke? Yeah, yeah!
now heres the thing.......
as luck would have it last week i got a smoke machine for the halloween night.....so add 2+2 and get an effect for burning rubber on a slot track,!!! if i drill a hole in the centre of the spiral connected to a length of flexible tube going to the nozzle of the machine then as soon as the car passes a sensor going into the burnout the machine fires and as if by magic smoke from the tyres! which the car as it spins then dissipates around
just had a little try and it looks remarkably realistic

oh dont i just need to get that vid editing program sorted out, cant show you anything!!!
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Oh serendipity is a wonderful thing.

On the side of your other issues (discovering things/ideas only to find out someone else has already had/done/tried/released them) It's probably very true to say that there are no really new ideas in the world. Only new ways of applying them.

Looking forward to you getting that video editing sorted out. I wanna see circle work with tyre smoke!!!
ok so it works, but not with a hole in the middle, yoou have to drill little holes in the slot so the smoke comes up from the slot on the inner most curves of the spiral, then i rigged up an old paint bucket as the smoke store so that it comes out of the holes slower, the effect is ok, but needs to be done propwerly and with an electronic sensor otherwise you can't concfentrate on actually doing the donut!


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Brilliant!!! Even the still photos look oh-so-good.
WoW!! You now introduced special effects into the slot world. Are going to set up a trigger so that when the car enters the inner circles the smoke starts coming out? You are raising the bar too high for us to follow. Please keep going at it.
QUOTE (rallyP @ 6 Nov 2009, 06:20) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>You now introduced special effects into the slot world.
Yup...pretty amazing. Just imagine the possibilities!!!
Cool as hell
I have always wanted to do that to my industial are smoke coming out pipe etc. etc.

anyhow here's a little smoke....:)
&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6">[URL=http://www.youtube.com/v/
The 1/43 SCX cars have a guide very similar to a 1/32 scale guide and operate just like any 1/32 scale car you are used to, In addition to being about 1/2 the size of a 1/32 scale car there are many more scenic items available in O Gauge train stuff and is close enough to 1/48th scale that many 1/48th scale military modeling stuff can be used as well!! The 1/43 cars probably lack a little top end speed, but on a tight twisty layout the difference would not be noticed!!
The Carrera Go's cars have a pin guide which would not work as well on a twisty track, but many of these can be retro-fitted with a Ninco or Fly guide!

I got a smoke machine as well, but my idea was to run smoke out of the chimmny's of the houses on my layout. Problem with most of the smoke machines that you can get at Halloween is that they use water and for obvious reasons that will not work for me!! So I have been leaning toward getting a Lionel or MTH smoke unit, but these are very smelly!!!
I love the donut circle (with the smoke, great idea) and it would be a nice feature to add to your next layout, possibly with a switch so you did not have to do it every time you went round, only occasionally or not at all sometimes!?

Inspiring as usual!
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hmmmmm! do you want the good news or the bad news?.........good news ! ok, well my model kits arrived all fine (except for the revell thunderjet which contains 2 left hand parts of a fuselage and no right hand side...i'll need to contact revell i suppose)

bad news is that i 've rigged up the models in their places on the mdf and they look titchy!...so before you all say "i told you so" and "yes what do you expect mixing 1:48 with 1:32 cars" yes i know, and i measured everything out but when you actually see them they're smaller than i expected....that said-i think they will just about scratch by as passably in scale with some of the smaller cars...porsche , ford gt etc, the big american stuff , forget about it.its a shame as the catalina and the fortress i wanted to look massive and imposing and they look a bit too normal. but hey!

so first thing i did was look at 1:43 cars , and to be honest couldnt find much that was very good, mas mojo you'll have to persuade me some more...one of the most important things for me is a good slide on this track, and i wonder if the dinky little cars will have the weight behind them to be able to tail out like i need?????


you'll notice in the pic that i put the fortress were the widow was supposed to be, there just seems to be lots of space on this particular sheet of mdf , all of a sudden.

also because its a one laner, you don't need the width of a proper track, i might need to increase the density of the track and add some more crossovers, and more props. it strikes me at the moment as really boring..smoke effects or no!

so...what do i do? i can beef up the models with the full diarama, seperate wings, raise them up a bit more etc, and use smaller cars.. and intensify the track density.but i'm not over sure as yet whether it'll work?


so any tips ffrom the top would be grateful to help with my dilema!


cheers sig
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