# Shadow's Yet-to-be-named Speedway progress.



## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

Howdy all, and happy NASCAR season if you're a fan!

Not too long ago, my old box of track came back to me and I've been working on restoring it. This, for me, is what you might consider a little-at-a-time project, and I don't suspect the track will be done and race ready until early next winter. But this will be a progress thread of sorts. (don't wait with bated breath...updates will be sporadic. I'm not in a hurry to get this done, which I think will serve me better this time around) 

Some background:

Once upon a time I had my slot table. Stuff happened. Life got crummy. Had to tear down and mothball it. It ended up going to a good home because at the time I didn't see having room for a slot table as being realistic anytime soon. The fellow that got my track is a dear friend (a 1:1 racing buddy.) and was newly retired, and he has a huge collection of slots from when his son was little, so I thought of him when housecleaning...and the track went to his basement as a project for him.

Fast forward about 4 years, life is different for me. More stable, good partner...and we have a nice size basement that isn't seeing much use. Over Christmas I came across my box of cars (I kept those) and began to consider building another raceway. Bounced the idea off the Mrs. and she thought it sounded fun. (bless her she's a race fan too.) Next step was price out track etc, and I decided to inquire of my friend if he'd ever actually done anything with the track. A couple Facebook messages later, he was on my doorstep with the box, complete with dust on the top for having sat unused on a shelf in his basement.

*The box!*









So now the project has begun.

The first thing I need to do was give the track pieces themselves a good going over. Way back when, I'd painted the track surface with a thinned grey primer, and then skimmed the rails with a razor as per the instructions on Greg Braun's site. The good news was, the track looked ok with the grey. The bad news is that it didn't run as well as it had. I suspect that it is because I hadn't been as diligent at getting the paint off the rails as I could have been. Before I'd gotten to the bottom of that matter, life got in the way, had to tear the track down and box it up

So the first step is to try and restore the track pieces. They're a little dusty and there's no shine on the rails. I'm a little paranoid about damaging the rails, but I also know they need to be well cleaned. My tools of choice were an old dull butter knife and some fine grit sandpaper held on a block with some double sided foam tape.

*My tools of choice*









Bit by bit the rails were becoming sparkling and functional. Then I realized something. I simply didn't like the color of the grey paint. It didn't really look like pavement to me. I hemmed and hawed over it for a while. 

*Before and after rail treatment*









Realizing I have 2 more months before I'll actually be able to build the table, and I have some time. I decided to stop what I was doing and see if I could find a paint that would go on thin enough and look a little more like pavement for my liking. And I found some. I like the color a lot better, even though it still doesn't look completely like a roadway. Unfortunately, real pavement is hard to reproduce because it has a texture that doesn't represent well at this scale. The only time real asphalt is a uniform colour is when its freshly laid down. I only ever saw one track that duplicated pavement well, and it was a 1/32 track and the amount of work the guy put into it must have been nuts. (damned if I can find the site anymore either.)

So anyway, this is the colour I have and I rather like the results. Here's a picture of the old colour and the new. Its a Behr enamel, thinned out and applied with a tack sponge rather than a brush. Tack sponges are meant for forming pottery but work great for painting. (I'm a face/body artist so I have lots of them.) I was a little concerned about putting yet another layer of paint, but I did a few test pieces and it didn't go on too thick. (The texture on the track plastic is still fully visible.) 

*Tack sponge. They're hockey puck shaped....just cut em' in half
*









*Paint. A test shot at 4.99 down at Home Cheepo. At the rate I'm using it, this jar will do about 10 speedways.
*









So now I have track pieces in a colour that I can live with.

*The old* 









*The new*









The next step is finding the extra pieces I need to finalize a layout. I have considerably more room to work with than I did the first time around. I'm at a severe shortage of 15 inch straights and 12 inch turn pieces. So if anyone has any for sale or trade, let me know. I don't have a lot of trade bait other than a few unused and still in the clamshell later release JL X-traction cars. 

So the plan down the road is to do up a 4x12 table in decent plywood. Wire it myself to run off a power source. Gonna just bite the bullet and get a Trackmate system, which will be well worth it when I consider the amount of futzing I'd need to do do build one that works. From my experiences before, timing is a necessity, even if you're just playing alone. (How else can you tell if that last brush spring tweak you did helped or not?) 

So anyway, thats all I have for now. We'll keep y'all posted.


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## rbrunne1 (Sep 22, 2007)

For realistic looking pavement with a racing groove, go to downtowndeco's thread: http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=335080

Below is a picture to pique your interest.










Bob B.
Clifton Park, NY


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

I don't know about how things work where you are, but around here, a fresh layer of asphalt simply means the water department will have to dig 3 or 4 new holes per block, and patch them haphazardly when they're done. I believe this is per the contract designed to keep the mechanics around here busy replacing struts, ball joints and shock absorbers!! :lol:

It's a daunting task Shadow, but you'll get there. The key is try to do even just a little bit each day or so, even if only for 15-20 minutes. Bring a radio down with you, listen to tunes, a ball game, race, etc to keep your mind occupied. Set yourself up like a business, and have departments. Clean and paint 5 pieces of track on day 1. On day two clean and paint 5 more pieces, and scrape /clean up rails on the 5 from the day before. It would help immensely if you started with a terminal track and tested each piece as you clean rails. This way you'll know each piece is 100%. In no time you'll be through the pile. What's good about it is, once you got it all set, it shouldn't take much more than a light wiping after you get it all together. Do make sure the rail contacts are clean where they connect.


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## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

slotcarman12078 said:


> I don't know about how things work where you are, but around here, a fresh layer of asphalt simply means the water department will have to dig 3 or 4 new holes per block, and patch them haphazardly when they're done. I believe this is per the contract designed to keep the mechanics around here busy replacing struts, ball joints and shock absorbers!! :lol:


You must live in my city 

As far as the rest, that's actually pretty much what I'm doing. The beauty of using a sponge instead of a brush is that you get a uniform colour very quickly, and if you do it right (not too much paint on the sponge) _none_ of it goes in the slot. 

Most of the track in that box in the first pic was cleaned over the course of a couple of days, and when it came time to lay down paint, it took a little less than an hour. The track that was left out of that first batch....which were the ones with those little lane stickers, all got cleaned up while I was sitting in front of the TV watching the Bud Shootout on Sat nite. I'll paint that over the next couple of days, then cleaning and testing. There's NO way i'm even gonna think about putting this together permanently until I'm sure every piece works.

Now I just need to settle on a layout design, get the new pieces I'll need, and get them painted up too. Part of my motivation for changing the track color is that I made a mistake last time, and mixed black and white to get grey. Think I can remember what "recipe" I used to get that colour? No sir. 

Bottom line, and I'm sure this will become a theme over the course of this thread is this: One thing I've learned is that there is no substitute for patience. I think the more patient you are, the better your end result will be - and that likely goes to all aspects of the hobby too, like doing custom slot cars and such. I beleive it was impatience that cooked me the first time around. 

Sure you wanna have your track up and running like yesterday, but what's the hurry? Half the fun is getting there, eh?

@rbrunne1 - Thanks for the heads up. It was actually that thread and those pics that made me realize I could do better colour-wise. That LeMans a beautiful layout. The darker "groove" is cool and might be something I'd add down the road. Unfortunately you can really only do that once you have your layout finalized.


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

Shadowracer,

Good to see another track in the making. It is going to look great with that asphalt track color.

It's going to be WAY worth the effort you are putting into it!! 

:woohoo:
:woohoo:

Bob...next you'll be making custom slot cars all the time to run...zilla


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## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

bobhch said:


> Shadowracer,
> Bob...next you'll be making custom slot cars all the time to run...zilla


That, sir, is the plan. :dude:


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

Shadowracer said:


> That, sir, is the plan. :dude:


Oh Yeah!! :hat: Bz


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

Are you looking for name suggestions????

Some names inspired by a great Canadian band ...

- Northern Lights Raceway
- Caledonia Speedway
- The Great Divide Motorplex
- Pepote Rouge Raceway
- Twilight Speedway
- Whispering Pines Racepark
- Yazoo Street Motorplex
- Cripple Creek Raceway


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## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

lol...those are awesome. (A fan of The Band?) 

When its time for christening, I'll definitely look over that list. 

I actually like the sound of Twilight Speedway. There used to be a Twilight drive-in theatre here that is long gone now. Only hitch with that name is the fear that it would make the kids think of sparkly vampires instead of hot-rods.

Caledonia might be out too though. Guys'd be afraid to come over for fear of having their cars stolen and found stripped down to nothing in a woodlot somewhere.


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## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

Howdy all....just touching base.

Nothing much to report lately. I'm currently in acquisition mode. Haven't found the track pieces I need yet, but everytime I get a coupla bucks that aren't earmarked for anything, its down to Princess Auto I go. Currently all I've nabbed is all the terminal strips I need to do the job right. (Those buggers were damned hard to find around here) And some wire.

Also grabbed a soldering iron. I figure I'm gonna go whole hog and learn to solder too. I guess a slotter that can't solder is like a hockey player that can't skate.  So...now I can practice doing power taps on that big stack of 9 inch 1/4s I have. 

And lo and behold, I was running some trash out to the bins at work and discovered someone had left 20 pristine hunks of 1x4s, each exactly 4 feet. Yoink. So that's the framing on my table covered. (I work in an industrial mall and it looks like someone was moving out and dismantled some shelving or something.)

So now its wood this week, even though construction is on hold until our new "roomie" moves out of the basement at the end of April. So that brings up a question: I understand about using the best grade of stuff you can, but is there actually a drawback to using a thicker OSB board instead of actual plywood? It's a heck of a lot cheaper, and for something as light as a slot car track, I would think this stuff would be more than adequate.

Any opinions?


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## Tycoarm (Jan 7, 2006)

I used 1/2" OSB on my current 1/32 routed track. Table was made using 2x4's and drywall screws. For HO scale it should be more than sufficient.


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## rbrunne1 (Sep 22, 2007)

I used OSB as well...if it's kept dry it's equal to plywood.


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## plymouth71 (Dec 14, 2009)

any updates?


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## Shadowracer (Sep 11, 2004)

plymouth71 said:


> any updates?


Yeah...actually I made the mistake of having multiple threads. I wish I'd kept it all in one place. At some point, I may try and amalgamate it all into one thread.

There's the main one here. 
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=362292

And another one here
http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=373531

Currently, the downside is that right now the track is all torn down again due to a move we had to make on Dec 1. Everything is in pieces right now. Having just moved in, with the huge honey-do list that comes with that, then Christmas, I haven't even had time to give my slot stuff much more than a sideways glance. The upside is, its a great basement that is very slot friendly. I'll have lots of time in Jan to get it all shipshape again. I might even rebuild the table a couple feet longer


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

*Yoo can dooo eet!*

The "home" or "garage" thread is a great way to go. Unique to Hobby Talk. It's a great way to keep your eggs chronologically organized in one basket.

You can keep track of you and we can keep track of you. :thumbsup:


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