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Creating
a
Landscaped, Moveable, Permanent Layout
Part 3
My intention in this project is to create a landscaped
rally circuit that I could put up and down very
quickly and store it easily as I don't have the
room to put up a permanent track. Last month I set
out my track and arranged it though elevation changes
to make it challenging over the long term. This
month I'll take you through my trials and tribulations
of landscaping and installing lights.
Landscaping and Lighting (Phase 3)
Cutting polystyrene created a lot of mess and
I was hugely glad of advice from members of slotforum.com
who suggested using a hot wire cutter. They also
suggested popping in to my local Games Workshop
where for £12 a battery hand held version was
mine.
What a revelation, I spent the next two evenings
happily slicing through expanded foam and polystyrene
making nice clean cuts and creating my landscape.
Basically I smoothed the transition between the
different levels with them aim of making them
look more realistic. This involved slicing and
quite a bit of gluing extra bits of polystyrene
on. I chopped blobs of foam off and re-glued them
elsewhere intending them to end up like boulders.
There is no right or wrong way of doing this and
if you go to far cutting you can easily glue more
back on - I found it satisfying and therapeutic
and it's cheaper than a £50 per hour shrink!!
The next thing I did was to make my pile of red
SCX barriers that I would be adding around most
of the track for a bit of car protection, look a
bit more realistic. I have yet to come across many
bright red barriers - they are normally aluminium,
so I popped to Halfords and picked up a 400ml can
of Plastikot aluminium coloured spray (£5.50). I
then cleaned the barriers in warm soapy water (to
remove any grease) and thoroughly dried them. Placing
them on copious amounts of newspaper, I opened up
all my cellar windows, donned a face mask and sprayed
them. 2-3 light coats each side leaving them to
dry between each coat (about 1hr). The before and
after are shown in the picture below and I hope
you agree they look significantly better and make
the track that bit more realistic. If you don't
want the hassle, Ninco are releasing silver barriers
later in the year.
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Knowing the inadequacies of my electrical skills
I was very happy to discover you need none to
be able to install the GS lighting system. I got
the GS lighting kit that includes 15 halogen lights
that needed no soldering or electrical know how.
The 1 page instructions are very simple and easy
to follow and with polystyrene all I had to do
was position each light (worth spending some time
to ensure you get the best coverage) push it in
to the polystyrene and then make a small channel
in the polystyrene for the wire leading to the
edge where the wires for 5 lights congregated
in to a junction box.
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In the cases where I was placing the light straight
on the MDF, a 6mm hole was drilled and the posts
slotted straight in. You get three junction boxes
so 5 lights to each and then the three junction
boxes connect via a flexible and long lead to a
further junction box which connects to the transformer.
I glued (with hot glue) all the lights in position
taped down the wires. I was extremely pleased with
the results which took me about 3 hours in total.
However pictures speak a thousand words so below
are a couple. All I can say is they are very easy
to install, look good (metal posts (although they
can be painted) and you can race by them in total
darkness (which is how the pictures are taken).
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The next stage involved gluing all the track and
borders down. I placed the two halves of MDF together
connected up the track and then using my trusty
hot glue gun liberally glued the track, borders
and barriers to the polystyrene. Don't skimp on
the glue and if you get it wrong let it set and
then prise it off with a little force. Once I finished
I separated the two halves and put them on their
ends just to ensure the track stayed where I intended
it to - worked perfectly.
Right now to a major hiccup - I thought I'd spend
an evening driving round the track trying out all
my rally cars on the Monte Carlo hill (it's already
been Christened). I tried to fit the two sections
together but I could not get all the track pieces
to connect - no matter how much wiggling I did they
did not want to join. Um…..a little bit of a problem.
After some beer and a discussion with my engineering
mate (cheers Derek) we concluded I had 2 options:
1) buy a lighter (i.e. thinner) piece of
MDF and re-glue the polystyrene and track to it.
The polystyrene combined with the MDF should provide
enough rigidity
2) slice about 5mm off one edge of the
MDF to ensure an over tight fit and add some doweling
rod plugs to ensure a horizontal line-up. Then
to ensure 100% electrical connectivity get 10
female/male connectors and solder them via electrical
wire to each rail so that when you push the two
sections together you are not reliant of the rails
tab only for connectivity (see the picture!)
After a trip down the M1 and time to think (well
as much as you can with Tony Robinson reading
Puss 'n' Boots) I decided on option 1 which I
felt would negate any long term problems from
over engineering and my slightly dodgy electrical,
drilling and soldering skills.
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So I hope next month will be the final stage -
transfer over to a new MDF sheet and then on with
the painting, texturing and finishing touches.
Famous last words!!
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Tuning
your car with weight
You might have guessed from my ramblings over the
last few months that I prefer to run my cars without
magnet. Not only do my cars last that bit longer
as they don't have the high speed crashes that seem
to plague magnet sledges, but I also believe your
driving skills improve as you notice a real difference
in lap times if you can keep your car in a straight
line. I think it is like learning to drive a car
- if you learn to drive in an manual you can always
change to an automatic (with magnets) but if you
learn in an automatic you can't drive a manual!
Anyway on to my point - if you want to aide road
handling and cornering speed in cars you are running
without a magnet, some well placed weight can do
wonders. However weight is not confined solely to
the world of magnet less racing. If you run with
magnets and find the guide pops out too often sometimes
adding some weight up by the guide, rather than
another magnet, is much more effective.
Firstly what type of weight - compact and bijou
is what you are after and as such lead is best.
Sheet lead if you can get it (try a golf shop) or
as I do use the strips that come in pre defined
5g and 10g blobs which are available from Overdrive
at GS. This comes with an adhesive backing but I
add a touch of superglue just to ensure it stays
where it is meant to. Superglue is strong but with
tact and diplomacy it can be removed without damaging
the chassis.
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The basic rule is to get the weight low in the chassis
so keeping the centre of gravity (COG) low. In terms
of how much is needed is verymuch a matter a preference
and driving styles. I use a little but some of my
club members like to basically recast the chassis
in lead. However if you have a lot of weight then
unless your motor has significant torque (pulling
power) then your acceleration and braking will be
severely affected. Basically play around with the
amount until you find the weight that suits your
style.
The crucial thing is where you put the lead. If
you find your guide pops out as you accelerate hard
then a few grams up by the guide will sort that
out. I recently raced in a Fly Classic series and
the only weight I added was 4g up by the guide.
I found I preferred the cars (a Ferrari 512S) handling
without any more weight than this.
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To aide cornering I usually (not always) add some
weight as close too but not behind the rear axle.
If you put it behind the rear axle it will tend
to make the car more prone for tail sliding and
potential spin offs. I find that weight is normally
best if you can fit it between the rear axle and
the motor although I struggle most of the time to
fit it in that position. As such I normally locate
the lead just in front of the rear wheels on the
outside of the chassis and in the example below
of my Scalextric NASCAR chassis.
However this is the position that currently suits
my racing style and it is by no way the only place.
I advise you to try out different weights in different
areas. You'll find that you'll end up to with differing
positions and amount depending on track type, car
and your driving style - only your own experimenting
will tell you what suits you. |
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