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I then asked good friend Paul (paulthetexan) if he could put what I had drawn on paper onto CAD for me with the intention of having the track CNC routed. Well Paul managed to replicate my scratchings onto a disc using the CAD program and I delivered the disc to a local workshop. A few hiccups sprung up. I was told they could route 3.6m sheets of 12mm MDF. Nope. Only 2.4m sheet sizes so I ended up with a lot more joins than I had hoped for. During the transfer onto CAD we discussed elevations and decided that one corner in particular would be better if it was positioned on a flyover or bridge rather than at the entrance to a tunnel. A sound argument and on paper it looked fine. That decision came back to bite me big time but more on that later. After several months of delays with the CNC people the track was completed. One thing they did do was to make a miniature mock up of the track out of paper so they could understand the relationship of each board relative to the ones around it. I must admit I was advised before hand to do that myself by some mates but I was too slack to do anything about it. But thanks to the guys in the workshop it was done anyway for their own use and subsequently passed onto me. It proved to be invaluable during the assembly process. For those contemplating building their own track I will try to keep you up to date on costings, the cost and supply of 12mm MDF and routing it cost me $585.00, a bargain if you ask me. There were 14 sheets all up which included 4 half sheets.
I had to trim the original base table down from it's 4.0m width down to 3.6m to allow it to fit more reasonably into the smaller room. I don't really think that 400mm will be really missed but access around the table is now good.
So off I set and began to lay sheets of track. I started with the low sheets that were flat on the table and had 9 sheets screwed down when it was time to construct the fly over bridge I mentioned earlier. It was a realisation that my design was flawed. The main feature with the track is it's large radius curved straight. I did not want a traditional straight line straight so I went with what you see in the photos. A bending straight with a radius large enough to allow cars to go flat out (I hope). Trouble was the cross track (flyover bridge) was not perpendicular to the main straight and therefore covered far too much of the track below. Combined with the second flyover, I was only able to see the cars on the lower section for about 2.0m of the 7.2m straight. Decision time. Leave it alone and keep going or change it now. Laziness said leave it. everything else screamed out to rip it all up and change it. I have to live with this for a long time so up it came. With the help of several good friends we cut the track along the fence seams I had routed into the track to allow 3mm MDF fencing to to pushed into the slot negating the need for screws, nails etc. I had to use those seams to allow the track to be split or separated on any given sheet to reconfigure for the new elevation changes. And I am so glad I did. What it gave me was the original track design that I knew was just so right in the first place and to show off that curved straight.
The track being less complicated than the original Ninco track is shorter in length but the shorter length then allowed me to fit 5 lanes in rather than the 4. The spacing is 90mm between lanes (Ninco spacing) which allows me to be able to run 1/32, Plafit Mini Z 1/27 scale and Carrera 1/24 cars. All of which ran very well on the old track. I could have gone wider to allow the 1/24 Plafits etc to run but I feel the 1/32 cars look lost on the track with spacing wide enough for the bigger cars to run. Running length is 30.0m.
Here are the progress pics so far. The slots have just been primer/sealed.
