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Some Advice Please


Roath

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Got some builders bog to fix the slight glitch where I started and stopped..doh!

 

Got the inside slot done , I found some metal brace strip which comes in long rolls and in short pieces. I found if you lay out a long piece ( I got 4 meters cut) into the slot, then use smaller 300 mill ones to fill the back of the slot , that I got a perfect edge to route against.

 

I made a rough router base to give me 100 mil gap and did the inside lane in two goes ( this is about 1/3 of the track I guess.

 

So far so good. Not as messy as I thought!

Spot the few glitches... pushing a car around , I am surprised that the few small wobbles don't seem to affect it at all.

 

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Spot the few glitches... pushing a car around , I am surprised that the few small wobbles don't seem to affect it at all.

 

It is surprising how rude the routing has to be before the cars are affected.

I strived for a smooth line when building my tracks.

 

Fix your stuff ups before you regret them later on.

 

Great progress.

 

regards

 

 

ps interesting looking router

Edited by munter

John Warren

Slotcars are my preferred reality

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What a difference cutting out the track makes.

 

I just mocked up the elevations with some boxes... but I think I may need to do some under cutting as I want better elevations than this. What do people use to undercut?

 

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I do not under cut, just clamp up the elevation changes using clamps and blocks of wood and then each day add some more blocks and the MDF will hold its shape,a LIGHT spray of water will help.

 

The elevation changes in my track were don ethis way with 12mm MDF.

 

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My track is MDF 16mm thick so I had to undercut to get the elevation change I wanted.

 

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I used the circular saw set at 8mm deep. This is the first attempt.

 

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To get a 30cm elevation change across the single piece I ended up doing a cut every 3 cm. Here you can see how close the cuts are under the track.

 

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This is the corner from underneath. I needed the heavy framework to keep the track bent.

 

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Cheers

 

Paul

May the downforce be with you.

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Lots of good examples there.. thanks guys. B)

 

Sports Racer - 18 mil??? Does it hold up your house??

 

Munter - as normal you work looks like perfection. I normally want everything just right and will spend ages. However I have seen many examples now of what what looked a little rough here and there, looking perfect once the hills and scenery was added... so I am trying the do it faster approach for a change! That said, I am seeng a some wobbles and cuts not quite right and I'm itching to re do allot of it..

 

Phil - thanks - thats what I will try. I'll get some clamps and framing today and try clamping it into position graduly.. I may need to do some undercutting to get some of the banking right , but lets see.

 

3 more sheets of MDF picked up yesterday so I can start on the next pieces while butted up on the ground... then these ones will be free to mount into position :nice:

 

What I am stressnig a bit now over the slots. I'm worried that I havent done them deep enough. I just did it by sight and checked with a scalectrix car. I read now the slot it cars have much deeper guides.. yikes. Making the slots deeper would be a real pain...

Edited by Roath
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Roath, the standard guide for Slot.it and everything else except Carrera is only about 6.0 - 6.5mm - the Ninco "Pro-race" guide is about 6.5mm

 

Slot.it's "Wood guide" is 8mm, but that is not what comes standard on cars, and from our own experience down here in HB, there is only a tiny potential gain, so really not neccessary in your home racing situation. The standard guide on Slot.it's is only 6mm-ish

 

Also, remember that the pick-up braids underneath the guide will "soak up" about 1mm of the guide blade depth, so as long as you have cut say 5.5mm deep or more, you should be fine.

 

- just to give you a bit of comparison. - I used think 9mm board for my track as I was trying to keep it light, and I cut 6.5mm depth, and I can more-or-less run a Slot.it wood guide when testing cars, but it scrapes a bit.

 

If by chance you DO have to do some re-cutting, a base plate in the router with 2 guide pins set only say 300mm leading and trailing the router bit, woukld enable you to re-cut with minimimal tracking error aroiund corners. - -

 

The "Orakei" track as detailed int he NZPR proxy race series page 1 of the thread, is only a 4.67mm depth! and they get away with that okay.

"Slot width is 2.6mm wide and depth is 4.67mm ie; won't take Slot.it wood guides and the slot.it after market grey and black screw held guides are a bit fat. Ninco pro-guides are fine as are the std guides that come with slot.it cars."

 

ps, I really like the flow you have around those corners in your design

 

pps, you can check out munter's work, and a few others with a "weekend away in sunny hawkes bay" with the family . . . . . . :nice:

 

free slot racing thrown in as a bonus......

Recovering Lapsed Slot Addict :ph34r:  *  Custodian of many used screws (mostly loose :rolleyes:)  *  Total kidder  *  Companion of other delusional slot addicts :lol:  

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ps, I really like the flow you have around those corners in your design

 

pps, you can check out munter's work, and a few others with a "weekend away in sunny hawkes bay" with the family . . . . . .

 

free slot racing thrown in as a bonus......

 

Agree, agree.....

 

 

 

 

 

There is meant to be a standard for "slot" dimensions but like lots of things these days, standards are so old school.

 

Slot width and slot depth do matter, so get it right first time.

 

If you are using 12mm then an 8mm deep slot is a no brainer.

I think the router bit I used stated on the packing blurb that 8mm was the max depth for a single cut.

Having a deep slot is also a bit of future proofing if you get further into slotcars.

 

 

regards

John Warren

Slotcars are my preferred reality

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Thanks guys , I'm a HB boy , brought up in Havelock and Hastings . My whole family is stil there , but I haven't been back for 5 years . I think it be a few more years before I do visit again ,but thanks for the kind invite !

 

Trying to get the next two pieces complete so I can mount the left corners into place. If I didn't keep doing little mistakes in the routing and having to fill and redo it would have been done by now!

 

I'm thinking of changing the right side design to make it faster .. Let's see.

 

I've added short cuts to even out the out side lane. Let's see if it works :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been snowed by work and sickness... but got a little bit done this weekend.

 

Threw out the table I built and just started mounting the track on the fly. The elevations were too much for a table.

 

I was so busy working on the track that I forgot Munters auctions were closing and lost the cars I was winning on ....grrrrrrr. Next is it to add the next piece to the back straight so I can finish that elevation and the back wall gibbing / painting done. Must get the spot lights working to lighten up that garage !

 

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I'm sure you guys recognise the tape tool... not sure if it will work yet. A few tests I did were not very good :)

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Edited by Roath
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I'm in love! That downhill, braking, snaking switch is going to be soooooooo much fun! I'm jealous of the room.

 

BTW: Shame the youngster doesn't like a camera.

 

Cheers

Embs

Computers. They'll never catch on.

 

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Tiny Tyers Targa - The build saga continues - Aging wood - A recipe for staining wood - Don't take a fence - Step by step paling fence - An old shed for my new cars - Wooden garage under construction

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Thanks guys. , my goal is to have the track working and looking good for his 5th Birthday. ( so he can invite some friends). I'll be buying up some 2nd hand cheap cars for him and his friends!

Actually the main motivation of building the track is for him. Everything these days is bought and is instant.

 

I wanted him to see that hard work, effort and taking your time to make something will produce far better than going to the shop and paying for it. Its great to have him "helping" as well.

 

Been out of town all week with work, but got the squeeze on and lso drew up the next full sheet and got 2 of the 3 lanes routed ( in another garage)

 

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The camber on that top corner wont be negative. The clamp was busy.. when the inside is clamped up its slightly positive.

 

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Inside lane short cut

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Sorry for all the photo's .. It strangly helps with motivation

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've been wondering how to make the last piece of the track, considering it's been built piece at a time.

 

Decided to rough up the elevations of the right side with box's join it alltogether and add the last peice not routed and route it / cut it out on the track. ( so everything lines up!)

 

Getting there... hope to get the last bit routed and the rest of the track framed up ready to paint next weekend. :)

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Edited by Roath
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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, question time again.. hope people still ready this!

 

I'm getting close to doing the copper. It took ages to finish the framing and get everything bolted down and solid. Had to put in cross braces to get rid of any movement and bolt the lot to the conctre floor.

 

Close to painitng the track now. I visited a club the other night and they showed me the copper tape over laps where the copper tape joined and explained the overlap had to be the right way for the direction of the cars.

 

I want to go both directions... so how do I join the copper? Butt up as close as possible and run solder between them??

 

TIA

 

Rob

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Rob where I had to join tape I just overlapped and then carefully soldered it to minimise the bump... shouldn't be a problem, I have run my track in both directions without any hassles. When I got a break in the tape I placed a small piece of copper tape over that and solder both sides. Seems to work well.

 

cheers

DM

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I'd never soldered anything previously so my welding was rubbish on the tape, but I grabbed the dremel to grind it down a bit & found it melts the lumps & makes the joints as smooth as a baby's bum..

Captain's log: We are enroute to some planet whose name I cannot pronounce to do something really complicated that I don't understand.

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