# Lil Bear Raceway re-build



## racer8nut (Mar 25, 2010)

Hi All
Over spiring break I took on the project of re-building my slot car table and track. This is the progress I have so far. The track table is about 9.5 ft long and 35 inches wide. It is a track where I can run an oval or road course just by switching out a couple of track pieces. I am on the fence about the chicane which comes off the front straight. I can switch it to a smoother curve. The track runs on 12 volts with each lane having its oown power supply. Eventually, as time allows, i will be decorating the track. Please share any thoughts or suggestions about the layout. 
Thanks:wave:
Rich


Complete View


Here is a shot with the optional straight piece for the oval


Other end of the track


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## Crimnick (May 28, 2006)

Cool!:thumbsup:


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## FOSTBITTEN (Aug 1, 2013)

Very cool. I would say no on the chicane they are the work of the devil. Cool setup!


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## beast1624 (Mar 28, 2009)

I agree. Let 'em rip! The guys that say you need twisties to make a challenging layout (in my experience) are the guys who don't know how to drive 'alls' out.


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

beast1624 said:


> The guys that say you need twisties to make a challenging layout (in my experience) are they guys who don't know how to drive 'alls' out.


Well, fair enough, Beast - that'd be me. But maybe some of us just have short attention spans and get bored on long straights and constant-radius curves. 

I'd say keep the chicane - I mean, it's not as if your course is starved for high-speed straightaways. Might be more fun if you moved it a few sections to the left to add a bit of visual variety, kinda like (most) real racecourses, and to give the white-trigger-knuckle guys a moment's needless anxiety once a lap. One of the advantages of having a two-in-one layout is that you can make one require a different driving style from the other. If Beast comes over, just plug in the converter track and let him oval around on max-length straights to his heart's content.

Say, is that _cork_, Racer8?

-- D


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## racer8nut (Mar 25, 2010)

Thanks for the great suggestions and thoughts. It is really appreciated.

D slot- yes that is cork. I hit my local Michael's and hobby lobby with 40% off coupons and bought 5/32 thick roll cork. I was trying to add some sound deadening to the track. Unfortunately, the room bounces sound around pretty good. 


I am still experimenting with and without the chicane before attaching with screws. My goal was to get the oval down first, then work with the road course. My plan is to create a removable section of track so I can easily change form road course to oval. The designing mind is on overdrive:tongue:


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

> *Racer8nut*_ sez_:
> ... 5/32 thick roll cork. I was trying to add some sound deadening to the track. Unfortunately, the room bounces sound around pretty good.


You may already know this, but it surprises a lot of track builders - no matter how much cork (foamboard, fabric, whatever) sound-deadening stuff you have under the track, if the track-nails or screws go down thru it to the wood tabletop, they will carry the track vibrations right down and the wood will act like a sounding board. The cork will make little or no difference. 

One solution is to use a splut of silicone seal under, say, every other track section and then do the final nailing down. After it dries, pull out all the nails or screws. The track is stuck to the flexible cork by flexible silicone - no direct connection to the rigid tabletop. 




> I am still experimenting with and without the chicane before attaching with screws.


Experimenting - good idea. The best way to answer your chicane question is to build it each way and do some test runs on each. It's easier to get the right answer by driving it than by imagining it.

Are you planning to use borders (a.k.a. spin aprons) on the curves 








to give the outside car somewhere to hang its rear wheels out as it goes around?

-- D


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## racer8nut (Mar 25, 2010)

I like the silicone idea. I will have to try it out. Yes, I am planning on putting spin aprons on the track. In fact I went down to my local train hobby shop and picked some up. 

I did move the chicane down the track  and I like it better. I took out the afx chicane and replaced it with a 6 inch curve and another curve to make a milder chicane. It offers a nice challenge to standard direction of racing. Since I am not running brakes on my track, I can switch the polarity and run the other way. That's was fun and offered even more of challenge. 

Once, I get everything set up the way I want it. I plan to landscape, put up retaining walls/guard rails, lights etc... It is a long , slow project down the road, but going to be well worth it in the end. I will post pics of the progress.


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## Dslot (Sep 2, 2007)

racer8nut said:


> Yes, I am planning on putting spin aprons on the track.


That suggests another possibility for soundproofing. 

After you get the track the way you want it, tack it with small nails so it won't move while you install the borders. As you tack down the borders, you can put a small dot of contact cement every few inches on the inside of the border material to glue it to the edge of the track piece, but not to the tabletop cork. Be sure to continue the glued borders a couple of inches down the straights before and after the curve. 

The edges of all the curves will be bonded to the borders, and the borders will be permanently tacked to the tabletop. Then pull out the nails on the track sections. You may need to add some sections of border, or strips of scrap from the leftover tabletop cork on each side of the track in the middle of the straightaways to keep the straight sections from shifting once the track nails are pulled.

The advantage? No track is glued directly to the tabletop. If you decide to change the track plan and pull up some track, you just pull the nails on the border strips. The track will not be pulling up chunks of cork with it, as it might if you glued or siliconed down the track pieces. You'll have a reusable surface of flat, undamaged cork. Of course this won't be a benefit once you start gluing down scenery and accessories, but in the first stage you might be glad to have the flexibility.



> I went down to my local train hobby shop and picked some up.


Sounds like you'll be using HO railroad cork roadbed for the borders. You may find it is slightly thinner than the track pieces. *Swamper Gene*, one of the heroes of HobbyTalk's golden age, had *a great idea* for a minimum-effort way of bringing it up level with the top of the track. Much easier than curved or multiple shims.



> Once, I get everything set up the way I want it. I plan to landscape, put up retaining walls/guard rails, lights etc... It is a long , slow project down the road, but going to be well worth it in the end. I will post pics of the progress.


Please do. Looking forward to seeing them. It already looks great with just the cork surface.:thumbsup:

-- D


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## racer8nut (Mar 25, 2010)

Thanks Dslot. I am working with the felt idea. That is awesome! I am hoping to get some more work done on it this weekend. My main challenge is getting removable pieces for switching between road course and oval. I will have to fabricate drop in pieces out of track. I really want to to get the skid aprons down and retaining walls up... but everything in time. 

I am trying something for sound deadning. I have some thicker pieces of craft foam rubber. I am cutting sections of it and gluing it down the underside of track in the middle. I will see how it works out.:wave:


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