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Hey guys,

thanks for replying, I may have to illicit some help to get pics on here, I dont do much with message forums and all. I am taking pics as I go to document the build. If you want to see a plasti dip coated track, go to www.oldslotracer.com and check out Myron's second track. Myron is a great guy from Oklahoma. When I began this I tried to contact several track builders to learn from their experience. Myron was one of the few people to reply to me. He built his first track and painted it with latex. He said that the track got slick pretty quick when racing. The tires got dirty very fast. So, he came up with the idea of the plasti dip. I thought it makes good sense, should remain very clean, and have good grip. Probably a epoxy coated track would stay clean, but less grip maybe, I dont know. It's a roll of the dice and I have never raced on any home slotted track so I had to make the call.

My story is not so unusual, I am 46 and grew up racing slot cars, only to live through the demise of the hobby. Luckily for me, flying RC with my dad filled that gap. Now, having discovered scale racing, and that home slots live on, I am back. However, the plastic track and magnets is just not delivering all that slot cars can be. When I found luf's site, I knew I had found what was missing.

It's great to have you guys reply, I logged on to www.slotcaraddicts.com but the forums is not so active. More power to them and I will continue to check in. I am on there as "johnnyfly41" but I couldnt get on to this group with that name as it says it was taken. Probably that was me trying to log on and never figured it out. See, I said I am a little slow.

I look forward to the day when my cars are going around a routed track and all that Carerra track is on ebay. dont get me wrong, i have had a blast with the carerra track, it's just that I know it can be a whole lot more.

I am also racing 4" flexi on a commercial track in Sterling IL called Penrose Raceway. I have not been down there much, prefering to work on my new track instead of going racing. Plus, having discovered the scale cars, I must say, I prefer that to cars that drive great, are fast, but only remotely resemble a car. I have high hopes to get some killer performance out of my very realistic 1/32nd cars.

Anyway, I am only on here tonight because I was just too tired to go to the shop and work on the track. I have been hitting it pretty hard of late, even worked from sun down to sun up one night this week. That was fun, but my body reminded me that i am not 19 anymore most of the next day.

I decided to call my raceway "Pretzel City" because my home town, Freeport IL is called Pretzel city. Besides, dont most slot car tracks end up looking like a pretzel anyway ? I had another name, not worthy of print here.

My track is mostly a paper clip sort of layout with one overpass. It's built in "Luf boxes" four of them are 4 by 8, the last one is 6.5 by 8. The first three sections measured about 46 feet 6 inches for the center lane, outer two lanes are 46 feet 8 inches. The last two sections will add probalby another 40 feet and will probably not be so equal in length just eyeballing it.

I am using the trackmate IR sensor package, probably I will download the free timing software whatever it is called and get my 21 year old computer guru son to get that working for me.

I may run some speaker wire to various locations for the eventual track lighting. Thats too much to think about right now, but I will try to plan ahead a bit. I want to do scale scenery, mostly grass and trees. I dont really have a large infield that would allow me to do a pit area, garage etc.

The track is pretty flowing, very gentle grades, large radius turns with gentle banking.

I am using 3/8ths inch MDF and it works great. Definitely folks you should get the Luf video, taping tool, lexan strip and perspex strip. The system works great.

Reading some other posts, there are a bunch I would like to reply to.

Using the Luf system I layed out my center lane using the lexan strip. Since I am doing the 3.5 inch spacing, I initially spaced the strip 3.5" from the center lane. The problem with this is, then, when you go back to route the two outside lanes, your nail holes from nailing in the strip will be at the edge of one of your slots. Lesson learned, when laying out your first route, space it 3" or 4" from the actual location of your center lane. Then when you route the other lanes at 3.5" from the center, the nail holes from nailing down the strip wont be near your slot.

That is a description assuming a 3.5" lane spacing. Maybe everyone else figured this out without routing, I did not. I learned the hard way on a couple things. Another, I tried to route only putting every other nail in the lexan strip. Do this and you get a wavy slot. I had to refill and reroute, which worked great by the way.

I also thought I could route in the wrong direction and keep the router against the fence, after all, it's only a 1/8th inch cutter in MDF. Guess again, the router will drift away from the fence and again you have a wavy slot. Only route in a direction the same as the direction of your cutter travel when it is closest to the fence. To do otherwise means that the cutter is pulling you into the work and away from the fence, dont try it.

I made a duplicate of the router base, it is really handy as a layout tool. I also made a compass both for layout and for my router, never used them at all.

I am sure my son can get some pics on here, if you have some quicky advice, that would be welcome too. I promise, I will get the pics up soon.

Thanks for the replies, thats what makes this such a fun hobby and we getto learn from each other.

John

Hey guys, can someone tell me how to attach pictures ?

I see the tool bar there but it says insert from URL or one says photobucket ???


Is there a way to attach pictures from my folders as in how I do a email ?

Awesome pictures of your track by the way Mike. I hope I can come close to that quality of scale scenery that you have there. Planning on doing the wire screen, foam, plaster cloth method as seen on Luf's video. Looking forward to the day when I can just tinker with scenery and race on the track too.

If you can educate me on how to attach my pictures, without taking too much of your time, that would be great.

John