Very neat model making, I have never attempted scratch building "steering", but have used the steering front axles that comes from "JS Chassis" as well as the one from "Chase Cars" on my builds. What is the surface of your track ? At my club, and some of my home track the surface is "Johnstone's Paint For Garage Floors". The club track has been in weekly use for 13 years and shows no sign of wear and is still giving goos grip.
Hello Dave, thank you for your kind words. I sort of grabbed everything around me to make a track as I was so inspired by yours I thought I must strike while the iron is hot! The ply is too thin, very scruffy and water stained. I actually quite liked the effect of the stained brown wood visually. I also didn’t have much paint around, but I did have floor varnish. I did a quick test around the house on different surfaces by placing the car onto a surface and the push it sideways with one finger to measure the grip ( I remember a similar test in the 70s at college to calculate coefficient of friction ( my teacher was right, it did come in handy 50 yrs later!). I was really pleased to see the floor varnish seemed to work really well using the wide, soft tyre modified coupe. The varnish is from B and Q, quick drying which smells like emulsion.paint and is very watery to apply. I thought I had some floor paint but couldn’t find it, however I will use Johnstones for my next build. Overall I don’t have much experience, but the cars do seem to grip quite well except for the Lancia, although it grips this surface far better than the Scalextric surface.
Thank you for your comment. I cut the slot with a router fitted with a 1/8” (3mm) router bit. In my case I used a board that is only a little over 6mm thick and so I made the slot about 5mm deep, not ideal but it is working. I think 6mm depth of slot would be the ideal. You can see some poor slot cutting but the cars don’t seem to mind some quite big wobbles in the slot. If I do a bigger oval I will make sure I use simple radius jigs to work like a drawing compass. If you didn’t have a router I think you could cut out each lane all the way through with a jig saw dress the edges and then screw each oval back on to a base board. That may not work on other tracks but I think it would work on this small oval. I was surprised how the cars tolerate misalignment or wiggles in the slot. Here is a link to making this track and there you will see a comment about dave@winters-lane here on you tube. I stole his idea! ua-cam.com/video/FU-5R1SEJYE/v-deo.htmlsi=uuJGzGreZiQ1m1iy. And dave@winters-lane. ua-cam.com/video/rZ7bBHNbdps/v-deo.htmlsi=SlbcjglXwLeNAe_U
Beautiful love for details, it is possible to see that someone invested his soul into the project.
Very neat model making, I have never attempted scratch building "steering", but have used the steering front axles that comes from "JS Chassis" as well as the one from "Chase Cars" on my builds. What is the surface of your track ? At my club, and some of my home track the surface is "Johnstone's Paint For Garage Floors". The club track has been in weekly use for 13 years and shows no sign of wear and is still giving goos grip.
Hello Dave, thank you for your kind words. I sort of grabbed everything around me to make a track as I was so inspired by yours I thought I must strike while the iron is hot! The ply is too thin, very scruffy and water stained. I actually quite liked the effect of the stained brown wood visually. I also didn’t have much paint around, but I did have floor varnish. I did a quick test around the house on different surfaces by placing the car onto a surface and the push it sideways with one finger to measure the grip ( I remember a similar test in the 70s at college to calculate coefficient of friction ( my teacher was right, it did come in handy 50 yrs later!). I was really pleased to see the floor varnish seemed to work really well using the wide, soft tyre modified coupe. The varnish is from B and Q, quick drying which smells like emulsion.paint and is very watery to apply.
I thought I had some floor paint but couldn’t find it, however I will use Johnstones for my next build.
Overall I don’t have much experience, but the cars do seem to grip quite well except for the Lancia, although it grips this surface far better than the Scalextric surface.
How did you cut the slot in the baseboard?
Thank you for your comment. I cut the slot with a router fitted with a 1/8” (3mm) router bit. In my case I used a board that is only a little over 6mm thick and so I made the slot about 5mm deep, not ideal but it is working. I think 6mm depth of slot would be the ideal. You can see some poor slot cutting but the cars don’t seem to mind some quite big wobbles in the slot. If I do a bigger oval I will make sure I use simple radius jigs to work like a drawing compass. If you didn’t have a router I think you could cut out each lane all the way through with a jig saw dress the edges and then screw each oval back on to a base board. That may not work on other tracks but I think it would work on this small oval. I was surprised how the cars tolerate misalignment or wiggles in the slot. Here is a link to making this track and there you will see a comment about dave@winters-lane here on you tube. I stole his idea! ua-cam.com/video/FU-5R1SEJYE/v-deo.htmlsi=uuJGzGreZiQ1m1iy. And dave@winters-lane. ua-cam.com/video/rZ7bBHNbdps/v-deo.htmlsi=SlbcjglXwLeNAe_U