An interesting track build into the future

dr_dodge Thursday, 10/6/2022

Hello,

what a great place y'all have here

this weekend I am going to try to build a multi car (3 lane) mountain track

from scratch,

current list of materials:

2" pink foam
3 - 6" x 4' cardboard tubes
discarded flooring (6" strips)
glues
additional cardboard tubes of various diameters
elastomertic roofing compound for road surface

edited for new materials:

metal tape and jumbo skewers for straightaway guardrails

disassemble to transport
4'  X  2' footprint  (yes 48" X 24")

hoping for 40' of track in it

based upon the concept of vintage futurism cities
it also needs to be easy to build the corners
they will be all routed/shaped foam 

I will share all weekend (hopefully)

again, thanks for all the knowledge I have gotten,
maybe I can contribute something back

dr


Discussion

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AP3_Diecast 10/7/22

What a great theme.  Sounds like you may be a Metropolis fan.  There is a subreddit called RetroFuturism that may be helpful for ideas if you need some.  Looking forward to seeing this come together.


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dr_dodge 10/9/22

so, progress for the weekend

6 corner blanks with 45° add ons done

weighted floor boxes made, but not weighted

simple roll tests yielding hopeful results,
along with power shaping with a sander tests on scrap
(will most likely use 220 wet for finish, and dust control)


the idea is to try and create 3 lanes for racing depending upon the car



hope to launch 4 lanes, wit 2 added launch bays
EMT's in one, out of control semi in the other
(the semi is chaos canyons fault...the street sweeper...lol)

with this in mind for scenery


  • It looks great, can't wait to see it finished. An idea occurs to me so that all the curves are not in the same direction, you could cross a straight line to equalize the number of curves to the left and right, I don't know if I'm explaining myself. All the best — riditz
  • I think I can fit 2 more curves in, and was seriously thinking about adding another 15° to the 180 curves so I can cross over. It come out as a weird angle with the current curves and suspect it would try to sling the cars into the crossovers gaurd rails to hard — dr_dodge
  • I did some mock ups last night, and am gonna pass on the crossover. Messes up the look, and I think I will be hard to see unless you look straight down on it — dr_dodge
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dr_dodge 10/19/22

So, I glued and spiked the corner assy's last night
each corner is 2 pieces of pink foam, a lower and the 45° added outside rim
the shape is below.  so now I would like some input.  what shape should I make the corners?


so I am thinking about something like this, (the blue lines below)
corner entry is flat, and then the trought starts
sanding the trouth so the corner is still downhill even though the panel is level
what do y'all think the best shape would be?  I have 6 corners and would consider any shape.
I can even make 6 different corners, too and see which is better.

 
I really want the cars to attempt to settle in 3 lanes and race
(the corner is 24" across the flat)

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dr_dodge 10/19/22

To shape the foam, I plan on cutting out a series of shapes,
to put on my sander, between the sandpaper, and the face of the sander
like this
the various shapes will be the angle/contours of the curve

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Deedose 10/19/22

I think you should try to make the whole turn banked . Otherwhise , the cars might loose a ton of speed , or fly off the track when they hit the turn's outside wall .

(that much banking worked well enough)I made a tutorial about how to make banked turns in cardboard . It wasn't the waterial you were going to use , but it can still be interesting : www.redlinederby.com/topic/tutorial-how-to-build-180-curved-cardboard-turns/5103


  • I saw your "banked curve build". very good. what angle do your banks seem to be? — dr_dodge
  • It depends on how much you want to make it . — Deedose
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dr_dodge 10/20/22

I plan on the curve to be banked, and sloped

I think the first attempt at a curve will try to follow this shape


15° angle changes (in aerodynamics sharp 15° angles are the same as a curve, so hoping this applies to HW's)
I can make my sander block the same 15° cuts and hopefully shape this easily
about a 1" drop from corner entry to exit

with any luck, I can get the cars to "lane up" like this

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dr_dodge 11/8/22


First tests of the straights has gone well
One of the goals is for the 5 1/2 ft long straights to not have tall retainer walls that obscure the cars.  Control of the cars will be by directing the wheels below any body overhangs.  The straight is a composite flooring plank, floor finish down, with the smooth plastic surface up.  The pointed ends were cut off the skewers, and they were stacked, overlaped and covered with metal tape.  The gaurd rails are less than 1/4" tall, but deflected/controlled the cars great (except off roaders, but that will be a different track)


the metal tape I used, bought locally



will take some pics this evening

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dr_dodge 11/9/22

some pics



about 4 seconds run for a 5' segment,
making progress

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dr_dodge 11/26/22

well, I have come over to the dark side,  lol

I bought 3 nascar crash sets today at wally world today

I am going to use the foam to support the crash corners

itching to start running cars, and watching y'all's vids, those curves work well

has anyone ever contacted adventure toys for single parts?  If I do 90° corners, I can get 3 extra corners, but need the transitions

by the way, set that thing up (1 set) outside and instantly droze the cat to overdrive, hilarious

dr

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dr_dodge 2/17/23

Been a while but tore off into this thing today,

using crash track very stable with 4 corners, orange trak launch, rocked!

2 more layers , Very UN stable, need weight in the boxes. and a lateral bar (maybe 2 for ease of setup

scrounged a bunch of 1/4" stainless rods ~10" long

holes in the thick cardboard tubes hold the corners up well, need more, and better spacing.

easy to re adjust to figure this out

used all 3 sets of crash w/ X as a splice (need more track...lol)

and 4 orange sectionals for the hand launch

very happy so far, will post pics (vids?) this weekend


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dr_dodge 3/2/23

Did some testing, this is what the current config is

Need more grade in the top sections, less in the lower 2

cars ran pretty good

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