[L.Cerante]

Hi all,

After showing the demolition of the old track link here now here follows a 'refreshment'.
I decided to change radically the design and conception of the project to make this a pleasant build.
This new step was named phase two. Pictures now please.

I started with a fast and solid table structure:

This is my room (studio, atelier, end everything else in one place) - The reason for this mess is because I was wiring the track and panels, sockets etc. I have also cut the boards. The plans and layout were already done.

I will return shortly with more pictures.

cheers

 

[L.Cerante]

All right folks!

First of, many thanks for all kind words! Per, Bill, Frank and bleep It gives me the spirits to go on

Now please, come on...I spent long years with envy of your tracks!

So sorry to keep you waiting all day long...(@Perthor) I had a very busy weekend (and month). I'll drop a few more pics now.

After the boards have been placed I routed the mdf and that took only a weekend to be done. I opted for a very simple track design without elevations, tunnels etc (unfortunately I don't know anyone nearby who enjoys slot racing [not popular here] thus there's no need to elaborate a complex layout) So I have made the build itself the first priority.
And, yes...I still do not have enough 'gold' to start a digital track, so it's important to mention it is analog.

Ok, I placed only a few challenges (I'll be racing alone 99% of the time (snif) so no panic if this might look inadequate for an experienced slot racer.

Here is the narrow part of the course. I imagined it would be interesting to have this kind of section.

While I was planning the look and feel of the track I came up with the idea of a realistic tarmac surface. So I made an experience with gray tile grout on a piece of wood.

Than I move on to apply this effect on the entire track. And here's how it was done.

I made the texture with a sponge painting roll like this.

And here how it turned out.

After the tile grout have dried I painted selant to avoid plaques and parts of the grout to detatch. A coat of selant must be applyed also on the mdf before spreading the 'tarmac'.

That's it for today. I'll come back soon to show more.

cheers!

 

[L.Cerante]

Thanks for watching folks,

A little more to show.

While that I built some plastic kits from Revell and Lindberg. Ford T and Coupelet and Rolls Royce phantom. I have also built the Henry Tudor House.

The Henry Tudor House is almost finished now...just need to make the roof which consumes time...lots...

cheers!

 

[L.Cerante]

Thanks a lot gentlemen, I appretiate your words!

I've been working hard on my track these days, but first a little more updates on the scenery.

I have concentrated the focus now on the cobblestone village. I began modelling the road and pavements. Sorry about the poor quality pictures, I'm still learning how to handle these big cameras.
Here we go.

Then painted a primer gray with airbrush

Finished the cobbles with sandpaper

I'm not very satisfyed with the colour of the pavements, so I'm thinking if it'd be better to paint them with lighter shades of beige or sand colour

...any ideas?

Well while I was stucked at this point I moved to another section to make it refresh my ideas. I have used here many different materials such as tile grouts (for soil), woodland scenics grasses and noch alpine meadow grass. I'm not sure if I should put crash barriers at this turn.

...but the result was very satisfying.

I made these trees with home made fine turf (stained sawdust and floral foams) and polyfiber from woodland scenics.

thanks for looking!

Leo

 

[L.Cerante]

Hi,

Thanks folks!

@Greg
Indeed the track is analogue but the reason of that lane changer is very simple. I have two lane changes in my layout (one LC is simple and the other, seen on this picture, is able to be configured) so the idea is to make the track lengh longer when there's only one driver, in this case the car will travel on both lanes.

@Ember
For me the cobbles look ok, but I like the idea of dry brushing ...but I may try it with a very soft one as I don't want to see any marks of it on my cobbles. The problem is actually on the side walks. I was thinking about painting the pavements borders with a different colour from the cobbles too, but I'm not so sure how to do it. Airbrushing don't seem to be the best idea though.

- On the Das clay, first, I paint pva glue on a small area of the MDF then I stretch the clay on an acrylic base using a hand roller, then I cut a section of the clay and glue on the MDF, just now I model the cobbles with blades. I keep repeating this process untill the road is finished, step by step, cause you need the clay very wet (you need a water spray) while making the cobbles. The good thing about Das is it doesn't shrink after it dries, and won't come off at all if you paint pva glue before laying the sections.

cheers!

 

[L.Cerante]

@Ember
Thanks a lot for the tips, Ember...I'll definitely give it a try.
QUOTE Don't try to build up too much colour at once.
This was certainly what caused the problem, you're right, I hushed to get things right. Maybe that's the key that was missing. I spent the whole weekend trying to make things look good using only airbrush...unsuccessfuly.

@Greg
That's the idea. I have plans to convert this track to digital in the near future, I'd have done it already but the parts, lcs, circuits and everything else are not available in this country, so I have to import everything and that is considerably expensive.

@Brad
You're the master and I'm only the pupil...this section wouldn't be possible without your 'tutelage'. I'm glad you like it!

cheers

 

[L.Cerante]

@Slot o fun

Thanks, well they (the trees) are actually made with natural branches I collected from a shrub in my backyard. I am lucky to have unlimited branches and they grow fast the whole year. I simply cut several branches (green or dead) leave them to dry for a couple of weeks and there, it's ready to receive the scenic materials. I fix a needle to its base and then stick into the ground.

I have already submitted a post about the cobblestone road, you can view it in This link. If you have any more questions just ask!

 

[L.Cerante]

Ok, I have more fresh updates! These are not shown on my website yet, so feel lucky to follow them at first hand.

I have built a little more of scenery around the Tudor house for a start.

I made a fence of balsa, a gate (that can be open or closed), gardens, vines, benches etc.

The plants are lichens I found in my garden! The reeds are woodland scenics field grass. (great material btw)

I made a parking lot at the back of the building.

Thanks for looking

Leo

 

[L.Cerante]

Hi folks! Thanks!

@dreinecke
Thanks for your compliments! Well, I like to build in scale what I see in nature, so the grass areas you're about to make can have many different looks depending of what you want to reproduce.

In my case, I wanted to have a rather dry soil and summer (+ - sun burned look) grass. I first modelled the terrain. I have used styro sheets (glued with pva glue) to make the elevations than I made a mixture of white plaster + tile grouts of different dirt colours. After applying this mixture I have made marks to the terrain, dig marks, bumps etc.
After that, I loaded a sprayer bottle with liquid water based sealant and applyed to the terrain. Than I sprinkled many different types of tile grouts of different dirt colours. I have used a hard brush to blend the different tile grouts ad libitum. Let it to dry for a day than used the same sealant to cover the area where I'd lay the grass. With the sealant still wet I applyed 5 different colours of static grass - burnt grass, light green and medium green from WS and alpine meadow blend from Noch + a home made static grass (stained white flocks).
I hope this was of any help!

@Dick
Actually there's only one coat of varnish in my fence. I have prepared a magic mixture of mineral spirits+dark wax (bitumen)+ soft varnish. The balsa absorbs by capilarity everything revealing a very nice texture.

> I am fininshing a new section and will be posting news shortly!
Cheers!

 

[L.Cerante]

Hi folks,
It's been quite a while since my last update. Well, here I am for it.
I have worked hard on the scenery these past weeks and I have some fresh material to show now.

The entire track is now finally ready to be copper taped and I hope to have it done by this weekend and will be able to race on it after one year and a half of wait.
Well, the track surface gave me a hard work because I had the crazy idea to make it with tile grout so to look like tarmac (in appearance and texture), well it does really look like (and now looks really satisfying to me) but I paid a high price. If you are ever to follow this idea be aware of such hard work.

The cobbles have also been completed and now is ready to be taped. One detail remains...I was looking for a silver foil instead of the traditional copper tape, I think the copper tape would just look too bad on the cobbles... Anyone knows if there's one silver?

I tried to make track side tarmac gravel

This is the dirt road that I made with tile grout. It has been a little difficult to make it able to be copper taped, but I have sealed the slot borders with a very good resin sealer and the tape now will just attach perfectly. The good thing is that's almost invisible.

The outskirts of the village

I came back to my home town (Ascot, uk) last autumn and took this opportunity to pick up some 'toys' at London hamleys. I found these telephone booths at a souvenirs shop...

Thanks for looking!

Leo

 

[L.Cerante]

Sorry about the broken photos I really don't know what happened ( as I can see the photos here

), well here's the post resent,...I don't know if it is possible to edit it, well, at least I coudn't find the way.
I'm linking the pictures now from photobucket.

QUOTE Hi folks,
It's been quite a while since my last update. Well, here I am for it.
I have worked hard on the scenery these past weeks and I have some fresh material to show now.

The entire track is now finally ready to be copper taped and I hope to have it done by this weekend and will be able to race on it after one year and a half of wait.
Well, the track surface gave me a hard work because I had the crazy idea to make it with tile grout so to look like tarmac (in appearance and texture), well it does really look like (and now looks really satisfying to me) but I paid a high price. If you are ever to follow this idea be aware of such hard work.

The cobbles have also been completed and now is ready to be taped. One detail remains...I was looking for a silver foil instead of the traditional copper tape, I think the copper tape would just look too bad on the cobbles... Anyone knows if there's one silver?

I tried to make track side tarmac gravel

This is the dirt road that I made with tile grout. It has been a little difficult to make it able to be copper taped, but I have sealed the slot borders with a very good resin sealer and the tape now will just attach perfectly. The good thing is that's almost invisible.

The outskirts of the village

I came back to my home town (Ascot, uk) last autumn and took this opportunity to pick up some 'toys' at London hamleys. I found these telephone booths at a souvenirs shop...

Thanks for looking!

Leo

 

[L.Cerante]

Thanks for your kind comments everyone!

I'm really happy you enjoyed, I'd not have so much enthusiasm to keep up work if there was no feedback! I really appretiate it!

Embs, you're right, DAS is such a nice clay and I'm an official fan...just wonder if DAS would like to sponsor me for all the advertisement I made of it!

I wouldn't refuse it.
Oh, don't worry about that chap stuck under the car...he was just removing debris from the brades!

Don, I promisse to have an aerial picture posted today, but first I have to clean off the mess! Oh...and here's the name of the shrub...folks here call this esponjinha but the scientific name is Calliandra brevipes. This plant makes also nice looking bonsai.

Bleep, thanks a lot for the link. I found one that is silver backed this one...I just need to know if the back is the side without glue.

And don't worry about postage...I'm used to it. more than half of the material I purchase comes from outside the country. (And half of my money goes do Miss Rousseff at customs!)

And thanks for sharing the link. It's beautiful and very inspirational. Love his trees.

Cabb, thanks! Yes, my buildings are scratch built. I made a section at my website that shows how it was done.

Maran, sorry for not publishing it before but I'm a bit too busy. Will post in the brazilian forum this evening, promisse!

> Well, I hope to come back in a few hours with the track taped.
see you

Leo

 

[L.Cerante]

Hi all,

I have just made some modifications to the track today and here I am for a little update. I expected to have the track taped in a few hours but I've underestimated the difficulty to do it without tape dispenser and other adequate tools and made it using my bare hands (and nails...which of course are all scratched now

for the sake of slot racing). But after one day the work is finally done!

Well but the real fun has not yet begun and the track is yet to be powered (under wiring). This should be done by this week.

And, before it has been taped, I had an hour of fury and removed all the old grass without thinking twice, and applyed my new grass...can't help it.... it is much better!

begining taping...and the new conifers I made yesterday.

A pause for stretching and here we go again for more tape laps...

@Doncaster

This is the only angle that I can fit the entire track in one shot. Notice that much is yet to be done, but I hope to complete, at least the basic scenery in one year...well the other 10...

...

Work is done...for today.

@Bill
So true! But finding miniatures in our scale is a hard task anyway...you have to count on luck sometimes.

@Bleep, @Jens
I have discovered that the back is actually the side with glue...so it won't suit us...but I found one manufacturer in the US (before I checked Kellerkind's message) that makes silvered copper tape both sides, it is Venture tape; code 1660. I will order two for test.

@Dick
Thanks for your kind words!

@Sokjo
Yes sure! Indeed I enjoy building scenery and racing in the same level. Well, unfortunately my camera (nikkon d70) doesn't make movies, I'd have to order one that does or lend someone's.

@Cabb
You are welcome, please stop by often!

kind regards!