Hsere at the museum is a rare 1/40th Gakken set from Japan. It includes a Ferrari and a Lotus. I believe the set was made in 1965.
Here is a rare Gakken set from Japan. The Lotus and the Ferrari are 1/40th scale. Most people don't know Gakken made a set in this scale. The cars are rather nice built more on 1/32nd quality standards. The way the cars are held in the box are also very unusual with  cardboard fitting in the nose of the car.

   

The first race of a busy two months at the Barn saw the return of the super-fast WHO Mod cars. This is the penultimate time we'll race the Vipers in their current guise - the Pro10 traction magnets will be downgraded to Pro4 from next January. With the cost of a new Viper car creeping up to £60, we're hoping the weaker magnets will keep those armatures cool and the current crop of cars will last for many seasons to come.

   

Simon's track plan from July 2015 was rescued from the archives. With the bridge and succession of short straights, this one can't be raced successfully flat out - although the Pro10 traction magnets come into their own in maintaining frightening speed through the corners...

   

Twenty-seven racers took part, including WHO debutants Fred, Ian, Sathya and Mark. They would be racing Mega-G+ cars along with Simon and Kev. Of our other rookies, Stephen had his new 2026-spec Pro4 Viper to test out and James borrowed a full-fat Viper from Gareth - Dylan's usual race car. Apart from Kevin's Bulldog, all the rest of the cars were Pro10 Vipers...

   

The first round of heats were hit and miss. Some drivers were being cautious, others trying to find the limit of adhesion and going beyond it. There were the typical sounds of car hitting perspex, stripped pinions and axles popping. After a rapid fourteen heats, everyone had two scores on the board and the top of the table looked like this...

   

Pete was a smidgeon ahead of Gareth, with Jerome, Andy and John locked together a lap and a half back. Scores and lap times were significantly quicker than 10 years ago. Isaac was ahead of Ollie in the battle for junior honours, with James ahead of Stephen as the top two rookies - both enjoying their first tastes of WHO Mod machinery and driving the Vipers very well...

   

The second half of qualifying saw Andy bang in 29.6 in white - the best score of the evening so far. That jumped him up to provisional pole, with a 28.85 in red setting the target for his rivals. It was a select bunch that had three clean runs in the bag - errors, mechanicals and plain bad luck had dropped some of the faster Vipers down the grid and putting on huge pressure for the final run. Gareth, Deborah and Keith had lapped in the 3.7 and 3.8 range - significantly faster than Andy, Pete and Jerome - but hadn't strung together the 2-minute heats they needed to challenge for pole.

Added to the drama was a power drop in white lane, affecting about a quarter of a lap. That harmed Jerome's chances of pole, but seemed largely resolved when Pete had a crack in the final heat - his 27.3 left him two laps behind Andy...

   

Some very tight battles there, none more so that the rookies running Tuners cars, who would kick off the finals.

But would we be seeing some of the fast Tuners runners recover from disappointing heats and cause some surprises in the top finals?

   

Nine cracking finals gave us the usual levels of excitement, joy and pain. For a time it looked like Keith was going to make it all the way from the D Final to have a crack at the race win, but he faltered in the B Final...

   

The A Final was breathtaking - Andy getting a couple of meters at the start and staying there, despite Pete's best efforts. All four drivers were on great form and as the chequered flag fell, all four were separated by not much more than a lap...

   

Congrats to Andy for the win, to Isaac for the Junior medal and Kev for the Tuners victory - just beating top rookie Simon M...

   

And that gives us this championship table with only October's race to go...

   

A big thanks to everyone who came along and made it another great night at the Barn. Apologies for the brief race report - we have a solution for that coming next month.

Just upgraded both my laptop and PC from Win10 to Win11 even though the windows update checker says both were not compatible.

There's an easy way to get round the problem, if you're interested, watch the vid...



...my laptop now seems quicker so a happy bunny

...and now I don't have to worry about using Fusion 360 which is stopping Win 10 support in a few short months

                             

Here are two 1/43rd scale wood bodied prototype rail type cars from Japan made around 1958-1960. Both cars have working electric lights on the roof. 1 car is a fire truck and the other is a police car. The motors are both 3 1/2 volts. The front grooved brass roller type guide is fixed at an angle so the vehicles can only go on a circular type track.The front wheels are metal while the rear are rubber. There is a flat thin piece of metal soldered to the chassis right behind the front left metal wheel. This is how the current moves. The manufacturer is unknown. These bought in Japan years ago by a friend of mine in Chicago and then sold to me.

This is Bernard S. from the Houston Texas area. Looking forward to being in this forum !

Hi, this is Bernard. 
I have a large slot car museum located in the Houston Texas area. The museum contains 1,000s of cars and 100s of sets. From 1912-modern and from all over the world in all scales. Here is a small sample of what is in the museum. All are welcome to visit. 
Website

                                                                               

Eight friends gathered for a fun evening of racing. Burgers were on the menu thanks to our gracious host, Jim.

Up first were the 1.5 GP cars. 14k slow motors. A nice warm up.

It's quite possible someone bumped into my arm while taking this first photo. My humble apologies. I suggest we fire the photographer.

   
   

Prewar is always a favourite with the group.

   
   

RevSlot GT's are a lovely class to race.

   
   

Classic LeMans 22k. Some very fast cars.

   
   

A new class has been brewing. Many have already made a Watson front motor Indy car. The cars that were completed got a quick test of the track. More cars are being built. Seven or eight cars in total will compete.

   
   
   

Thank you very kindly for looking,
Ken

I have had a busy week on the motorsport film front. Le Mans 1966 was on channel 4, a basically true tale (with artistic licence allowance) of the development of the Ford GT40 and it was very enjoyable.

Thursday I went to see the Brad Pitt F1 movie. The plot is completely ludicrous with gaping errors in it but it was the best screen depiction of actual racing I have ever seen. No CGI and the actors were actually driving the (tarted up F2) cars at 180mph. Absolutely glorious on a big screen! There are some films that just have to be seen in a cinema and this is one of them.

Overall well worth seeing if you can suspend your disbelief that someone can crash twice in the same race and go on to win!

Anybody else been to see it?

I bought a Corvair kit years before I was into slot cars. I built it up as an unpainted static model. It sat on a shelf collecting dust.

   

Then I figured out how to paint.

   

I made a scratch built chassis, and installed the body.

   

The "Red Rocket" will race tomorrow. I will also pick up a new driver for this car at the same time.

Thank you very kindy for looking.
Ken

   
   
   
   
   

The Ender 3 V2 Neo has done a good few bits for me, but even though its not used daily, after a couple of years there are problems, The temperature sensor for the nozzle has been intermittently wayward for nearly a year, and the SD card reading has become unreliable, even corrupting a card so much I needed to reformat it in the PC several times.

As I approach another railway build where I will be wanting more stuff printing, I thought I should invest in a new one. At first I was going to stick with Creality despite the short lifespan of my unit, but after ordering an Ender V3 , I had my eyes opened to Bambu. After some research I decided to cancel the Creality, and ordered a Bambu A1 in their anniversary sale, along with a 0.2 and 0.8 hot end. price was comparable to what the Ender 3 cost me 2 years ago.

It arrived yesterday so assembly and a few ready made prints to start, and then a couple of my own designs.
I am blown away by how much things have moved on in 2 years !
I expected a little faster , but this is crazy watching it fly around, and add to that all the convenience, sending files over wi-fi to the printer direct from my PC, firmware updates likewise, and the prints, despite the speed, are far crisper. Colour me impressed with Bambu 

The assembly was a little more involved than the Ender was, but all clearly explained (read instructions as most of the you-tube videos are a little outdated ... they have changed one or 2 bits around since the model was initially released). But as far as a "Plug and Play" printer is concerned - for someone like me that wants the print to be the goal, not tinkering and tweaking to get it, it is perfect. 
I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to someone who wants their first printer, or indeed to add to their farm !

I only bought the single filament input version as its all i need, but they also do a 4 colour/filament spool version.