[BAracer]

#87

"Lots of Chat about Crazy Car Tracks"


It was Track Day at the Chat, so image after image, and advice followed by more advice, on everything trackie, so...

• Indoor, Outdoor, Indoor/outdoor
  
• Small, Large, Really Large, Webcom so you can see the other end
  
• 1 lane, 2 lane, 3 lane, 4 lane, 5 lane, 6 lane, 8 lane
  
• Black, White, Grey, Orange, Blue
  
• Oval, Dakar, Italy, Street, Hill Climb, Flat, Forest, Undulating, Double Deckers
  
• Squeezes, Hairpins, Chicanes, Bridges, Crossovers, Banked, Negative Camber, Esses, Pit Lanes, Lane Changers
  
• Control Towers, Pits, Ladies Toilets, Hill Towns, Cafes, Bars, Slot Car Shops
  
• Day, Night, AC, DC
  
• Attics, Basements, Garages, Bedrooms, Living Rooms with Table Lamps, Outhouses, Warehouses, Offices, Workshops
  

And incase you missed it...

• Petrucci's Christmas Tree, the only one on show!  
  

[MrFlippant]

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#88

...featuring the best use of a marker pen E V E R !


A New Year and a couple of new faces...Frank was a racing instructor turned slot car racer but more significantly a scenery builder extraordinaire! He showed how he found an image of some race buildings on a Corgi box and created the buildings by eye and with a very steady hand...e.g. forming the joints between the bricks in a wall by cutting away the foam around each brick! And JohnK reminded us of the quality of his builds with a reminder that he acquired one of Frank's buildings for his track. You know, the one with the puddle of water under the drain pipe, and the little rust marks on the render from the hanging sign bracket...that sort of detail.

How do you follow that? Well along came Christian from Copenhagen. He told the tale of how he had raced slot cars in his youth, had stopped for 25 years and then joined a local club...only to be reunited with all his slot car friends from his youth. He popped a 1:24 scale BRM onto his screen, but everyone got excited about the powered stand that it was sitting on. But Christian's claim to slot fame is that he developed and sells the LapMaster timing system for slot tracks. Dennis highlighted that it is the system used my most commercial tracks around the world, so it's probably no coincidence that Christian has recently retired from (hard) work. Someone else who would like to retire is Henri, who showed off his latest prototypes of his rolling road product...any colour you want now! He is sensing that there will be quite a demand for these, so remember Henri that we all knew you before you became rich and famous!

Graham gave us an update on the track build in his (massive) shed. The track surface has been been painted, and the lane colours applied. Lots of chat about how best to apply the braid and the detailing of the slot specifically. But the pictures of the overall track brought gasps to the Chat and plans for visits from around the world. And if ever a track could be called "life changing", this one has all the makings of one.

In contract, we were then given a presentation on the preparation and running of a slot car fun day involving a series of Revell tracks laid out to re-create classic vintage layouts from the original instructions. And who wouldn't enjoy running cars on all the tracks, as the photos of the day showed.

Club Corner focussed on the Clash of the Titans Christmas Challenge between Magnet Mike and Digital Greg featuring digital magnet racing. Mike had carefully prepared some race cars and with Greg being more of a non-mag racer, he limited the magnetic downforce to just half a bag of sugar (no digital scales required when you talk about that level of pull!). As someone noted, they could have raced upside down on the ceiling without deslotting...in fact they could have continued up the stairs if they had wanted. Greg seemed genuinely surprised that the SSD chips hadn't exploded due to the effort and amperage involved. Electric Dreams has published their race calendar for the year ahead together with the rule set for the ten classes. A bit of chat ensued about potential class winning cars.

And to finish off the Chat, Our Alan has a problem that I wish I had. His cars go so fast on certain tracks that small blips in the plastic track are causing them to deslot on the long straight. Alan has focussed in on the behaviour of the guide and braids and front wheels in causing the issue when other cars around him don't have the problem. So a lot of ideas were mulled over by everyone about what the guide does as it hits the imperfections, how the braids could act as shock absorbers, and how the front tyres could be used to mitigate the original problem, along with the invention in live time of a never seen before tuning tip that might just turn out to be as significant as truing and gluing of tyres! 

And if that deep dive into the front end characteristics of slot cars didn't whet your appetite for the World of Slot Car Chats over the coming year, nothing will!

[Bazzer]

You're Invited!

Topic: World Wide Slot Car Chat - #88
Time: Jan 5, 2022 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88933341228?pw...NRRmJwZz09

Meeting ID: 889 3334 1228
Passcode: 636817

Time Zone Calculator for 11am Pacific: 
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/c...240&p6=103

I hope you are able to join us!

Greg

Sorry I could not get to join the meeting, looked like a good one.

Best Regards

Barrie

[MrFlippant]

No worries, Barrie. :) Hope to see you again soon.

[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#89

"Buzzarama-lana-ding-dong"

The bar is being set higher for newbies. Tim and John said 'Hi' this week...one of them has over 500 cars, a YouTube channel and all the social media you can eat. But most importantly, we witnessed the first 'blind date' on a WWC. Finally, after years of having to race against ghost cars, Neil has a new nearby slot-neighbour in New Jersey. in John. However, the is no guarantee that this might blossom due to Neil letting slip a picture of his 'workbench'. I say 'workbench' because no-one else on the Chat recognised what it was due to the un-natural tidiness, clearly defined work zones, spray booth, labels on cans all facing forward, and for those scratch building emergencies, a dremel hanging on a stand like a saline drip. It not clear how Neil might react to a visitor moving something out of place. 

JohnK showed the latest progress on one of Frank's masterpiece buildings. We saw Frank cutting the mortar joints around each brick of the Control Tower last week. Since then he has painted all the bricks and pointed up all the joints and it looked stunning! On the other hand, John had made the first casting of the fabled Porsche 935 body. There was some leakage on one of the panels, so for reasons beyond my understanding, he is going to throw away the mold and start again! Hard, this hobby...

Petrucci made a brief return to our screens before disappearing behind a pile of the cars that he bought himself for Christmas. If you want to see the latest releases from MR Slotcar, Thunderslot, Scaleauto F1 (high nose...check; low nose...check), 911, Viper, and some old stuff from Spirit, watch this piece. 

NewJohn gave us a tour of his home track, from concept plan to actual layout. USP of his track is that it consists of corners and complexes from race circuits all around the world. It even featured the best home track accessory ever...a webcam in the Goodyear blimp floating above the circuit. Other point to note, the table and driver stations were all constructed using "small tools", so stuff that all of us could possible build. But that was as far as his and my skill sets coincided. His fascinating car collection consists of a number of different themes. The one featured this week were TV and film cars. So think Munsters, Batman (with pop up machine guns), famous hot rods, The Monkeemobile and to top it all off, Wacky Racers. Different class!

Club Corner features Greg's next potential tyre challenge, how to true a soft Thunderslot tyre. "Rub flour on them..." came the top tip from Mark Down Under, "keeps them cool and stops them balling up". Dennis is going to give it a try, watch for updates. MagnetMike showed us the subtle changes to his track, Dennis showed us some pictures of an old track and a young Dennis. Paul was after a supplier of magna-braid...looks like there might not be one anyone. Could be what MagMike is after as well. He has an NSR that doesn't go as fast as his Sideways. After a bit of analysis, it might be due to the higher magnetic downforce of the Sideways long can motors. 

Dewann asked about wiring for controllers, and in particularly what will happen if you connect it to the driver's station the wrong way round. Lots of good tips followed. On a similar vein, Bill has a car with sparks shooting out of the motor, not good...John has a Batmobile with flames coming out of the exhaust...cool!

[MrFlippant]

[MrFlippant]