Track planning - digital, routed or plastic...

1692 Views 16 Replies 14 Participants Last post by Damo, Mar 8, 2012

bazzer

Discussion Starter · Mar 6, 2012

Hi there. I've decided my 2 week old son needs a hobby when he's old enough

and as such I'm thinking about ideas for a track in my garage. I have done some reading and it seems slot racing is massively different to how I remember! I have some old track and bits in boxes in the loft, so I'll get some of it down at some point soon to give me more ideas. I don't expect any of it to actually work though, so am deciding my parameters for a track based on:

My garage is a single garage, with power and light. It's not clogged up with stuff, but I can't let the finished circuit take over the whole space. So, I intend on a hinged lightweight base board (polypropylene?) with a 6mm MDF 'top'. The hinge will attach to the wall at waist height and legs will 'fall' out as it's lowered into place. At the moment, I'm thinking of one, maybe two boards in line, so a maximum of 16x8.
I would like digital, it makes perfect sense to me.
I love the idea of best racing line too. Not sure quite how to achieve it yet though.
I also see the benefits of a routed track - no magnets to do the work for you, cheaper construction and so on.
Digital in wood - I'm likely going to get Scaley stuff to butcher and transplant, as the majority of tracks I've seen are built this way and the availability of bits looks to be greater.

Since I'm starting from scratch I think it's good to get people's opinions (and please do share your mistakes!) so that I get the plan right before I buy anything at all.

My ultimate plan is to have my son's mates over racing at the weekends, and both my father and father in law to help out with modelling duties. Hope that it's going to be a kind of focus point and hobby we can all enjoy!

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Michael363672

· #9 · Mar 6, 2012

Hi Bazzar

If you up date your profile with a location you may find someone local who has something like this

If you have a look How we built The THORNDIKE Oval

It is pretty easy to do

Now if we were to make it again we would just use the electronics to put into the routed track and then the lane changers can be tailor made

One thing I would say is if you do actually do a best line track it will be very hard to ever overtake on it much better to do one that looks like a racing line but painting the road surface to come into the slots and go away in the correct place

Also dependent on how handy you are with a router as long as you have a straight edge and a piece of flexible tubing to be able to route 1 lane then setup a jig/guide to follow the 1 slot routed already it is pretty easy

Also copper taping is easier as you only need to rout the slot and not a rebate aswell

Michael

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