[dandan2012]

so it begins again...

what started life as a scalextric drift set on the living room floor christmas 2011, grew to the point where the missus couldn't vacuum the carpet so I was moved to a one of the spare small outbuildings at the back of my pub! I built a table against 3 of the walls in a U shape using four 1.2m x 2.4m sheets of wood and spent a small fortune on scalextric sport digital track and set out to build my dream track.

I had a few weeks of fun but then my inexperience of slot cars took over and i began to be a tad hasty in getting my track finished, I started to build scenery, papier mache hills, expanding foam cliff faces etc etc and realised after a few days what a mess I had made and how poorly laid out my track was! so this was dismantled and torn down...

and phase 2 began, a more flowing faster to drive track, once again over the last few weeks I have had great fun and am really happy with my track...

however my new issues have arisen from where my track is situated, I am in a very compact small room, areas of my track are very difficult to reach without having to climb upon the table so i have decided to rebuild once again in a bigger spare out building that we have, this way I can build a table where the track can be accessed from all four sides....

So here it is...

The Royal Oak Raceway... (if you haven't guessed yet, my pub is called the royal oak

)

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...1980/track1.jpg

I was hoping to use this thread to document my new build, get peoples help and feedback and hopefully help a few newbies like myself along the way!

so first of all what are peoples thoughts on the track design?

Thanks for reading!

Dan

 

[MrFlippant]

Two initial comment aside from the normal "wish I were in your shoes right now" kind of thing. ;-)
1) still too wide. reaching crashes on the infield from either side will be a pain. Remember, the lap doesn't need to be as long as possible, so long as it's a fun as possible. Work for a fun track before a long track, because no matter what, you'll be making many laps, so even a short lap that's fun is a good race.

2) all your turns, that I see, are single radius. You've got lots of R2, a few R3, and a hairpin, but none of them are mixed up. You come off a straight into the same radius you go through the turn on, and leave it from. Try mixing things up a bit, like entering on an R4, then down to R3, and then R2. Put some esses in there with varying radii as it goes. Your track looks like, and will feel like a "slot car track" until you mix up those turns a bit.

 

[dandan2012]

Hi Greg,

Thanks for the advice and i see what you are saying, things can look and feel a bit to uniform when all curves are using the same radius, never really thought about that till now!

so on your advice I have had made a few tweaks and come up with this...

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Ember]

Dan, this second rendition is definitely better. But, I'm with Greg in thinking you're still trying to get too much track on the table. I know it's really hard not to cram as much as you can fit in there, but try to resist the dark side.

I can recall someone posting a theory somewhere (I think it might've been on Auslot) but it went somewhere along the lines of 'the best track has lap times between 5 and 11 seconds, with around 9.5 secs being around the optimum. The reasons given were concentration levels and the way the brain works. Not sure how realistic the theory is, but a poll was taken of favourite tracks to drive and most fitted into this framework. Of course, one could argue using this theory, that the ultimate track must actually be shrinking rather than growing as human concentration levels and abilities are dropping. But enough of that...

A thread that may assist in your quest to build an interesting and challenging track is Show me your curves. It contains a collection of composite curves to challenge the thinking and the driving skills.

My own track is small, 14m lap length, and simple as well as being analogue rather than digital. But I know myself well enough to know that a permanent track was not going to keep me entertained unless it was a challenge. Three years on from its inception and I'm happy to report that I still find the track a joy and a challenge to drive. In fact, I've recently been visited by a couple of very experienced racers who were surprised at the challenge a simple little track offered. The joy comes from a rhythmic flow, the challenge lies in the corners and the elevation changes.

Embs

 

[Ade]

hi
great space you have.

. I would look into getting more differing radii curves and mixing them up a bit to create more realistic corners..

And from experience of my last ssd track to many parallel straights do not look right either. Looking from one end of the layout all you really see is a car going up and down not running on a race track.

 

[athrlyth]

Nice one Dan, I have to agree with what the others have said. I like the track except where is overlaps, personaly I think it would be better if the overlap was taken out just bt missing a straight or so.

Anyway if at the end of the day you have fun then its got to br right, and if not you do have a pub called the Royal Oak, to fall back on

Athrlyth

 

[dandan2012]

Thanks everyone, Yeh it seems I am being a bit greedy with my track, I guess I am trying to use each and every last piece of track that I have as I don't like to see the money that I have spent on track be wasted! (I am moving into a fairly large outbuilding now though so could possibly build Royal Oak Raceway 2 with the spare track I end up with!

)

I will play around with some more track designs later today and post on here. Meanwhile I will hopefully be trying to start and clear out the outbuilding ready for the table build at some point, I'm really looking forward to having a blank canvas ready to set some tracks out and run some laps to see which I like. I also need to spend some time cleaning the track up and nipping up the connections on each track piece as this seems to be the problem I had with power issues on my previous tracks (best dig out the long nosed pliers and my INOX I guess!)

Also started work on my grandstands the last couple of days, building out of 5mm foam board. I thought I would give it a go seeing as I have no track to play on, again will post photos later, Its my first attempt at this but I am pretty pleased with the results so far!

Cheers,

Dan

 

[dandan2012]

Just a quick one again, heres the pictures of my first attempt at foam board buildings/grandstands!

I have painted areas in waterbased black undercoat (3 coats) as I intend to spray these areas with a grey plasti-kote stone effect spray paint and we all know spray paints and foam dont mix well together! Not sure what to do/how to colour the other areas yet, I quite like the crisp white colour that it has against the black but thats just my view!

Let me know your thoughts!

Cheers,

Dan

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0739.jpg

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0738.jpg

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0741.jpg

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0740.jpg

 

[Ember]

Look pretty darned good to me.

 

[Mr Modifier]

Nice looking grandstands.

I guess you will go with the grey stone effect to mimic concrete? Nice idea - and please post photos when you have done.

I agree with you on the white walls.

It's difficult to see the exact board you are using - is it a cellular foam core or is it the same lightweight plastic type material all the way through? If it is the latter then I have used this and it actually sands nicely using fine graded wet 'n' dry paper so you could tidy up the edges and not have to paint at all.

A little bit of guttering and downpipes (black drinking straws?) would finish these off really nicely. A 3mm black straw is almost bang on scale for a 4" pipe.

 

[dandan2012]

its 5mm foam core cut with a scalpel, did try in the past with a stanley knife but looked a bit poor!

yes, the stone effect spray is to try and mimic concrete, did a tester with some dark grey but it looks to dark i feel, so need to pick up a lighter grey, I have some lighting to install to the large grandstand and still need to glue it all together, great idea with the drinking straws, obviously being in a pub we have a few knocking around!

will sand some test pieces later today.

cheers,

Dan

 

[Mr Modifier]

Funnily enough it was the fact you are in a pub that sparked the idea - our favoured pub for Saturday lunch puts black straws in the kids' diet cokes.

The stone effect comes in two shades of grey - the lighter one is probably your best bet or you could try to be clever (as you have the dark grey already) and spray dark grey at the back of the stands and blend it into the light grey at the front. This would give the illusion of deeper shadows towards the back of the grandstand and probably add some depth to them. If you are going to put figures into the grandstands in the future you could take the same approach - lighter and brighter coloured clothing towards the front and darker, less vibrant colours towards the back.

 

[falkster]

Grandstands look awesome Dan, lets say you had an old mate, errr I dunno, that youve known since you were a baby......would you be able to double your build for beer tokens?

 

[falkster]

Grandstands look awesome Dan, lets say you had an old mate, errr I dunno, that youve known since you were a baby......would you be able to double your build for beer tokens?

 

[dandan2012]

Just sprayed the 2 outer grandstands with the dark grey, the stone 'fleck' in it is quite a light grey so if you can get a good enough coat on with out it running it actually comes through a lot lighter?! have added a quick light set up from some old led strip that i had but hard to tell quality in day light, will add pics later after work... I've got a pub to open!

Falkster...!

I'm sure I could knock you something up, I'm no pro model maker though remember!!!

 

[falkster]

QUOTE (dandan2012 @ 15 May 2012, 16:59) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Just sprayed the 2 outer grandstands with the dark grey, the stone 'fleck' in it is quite a light grey so if you can get a good enough coat on with out it running it actually comes through a lot lighter?! have added a quick light set up from some old led strip that i had but hard to tell quality in day light, will add pics later after work... I've got a pub to open!

Falkster...!

I'm sure I could knock you something up, I'm no pro model maker though remember!!!

How dense am I? I thought what a coinscidence, Im sure I know someone called Dan, hes got a pub called the Royal Oak thats in North Yorkshire and he's just got into scalextric!!!

 

[dandan2012]

A quiet night at the pub tonight enabled me to sneak off and do a little bit more work on my grandstands...

I installed a light as a test, probably need another adding as its not really that bright! and also covered the internal walls with red and blue card

Also managed to get a couple more coats of the stone effect paint onto the smaller grandstands

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0751.jpg

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0750.jpg

http://i1070.photobucket.com/albums/u498/d...80/SAM_0749.jpg

tried to show it against the one painted black to show the effect it has given

Cheers,

Dan

 

[dandan2012]

as you can see everything still needs glueing together and finishing off, also think next on the agenda is a better camera and some better photography skills!

 

[falkster]

Looks awesome mate!! Whats powering the light??

 

[dandan2012]

QUOTE (falkster @ 16 May 2012, 01:01) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Looks awesome mate!! Whats powering the light??

a 9v battery in a switched battery box.