Car Crashes
Hinge on the underside of one of my track sections --from Redline Derby instructions http://www.redlinederby.com/blog/build-your-own-redline-derby-race-track/
Works great and haven't experienced any warping.
The only problem you'll get with the single door hinge like that is swaying of the boards from side to side, which when folded up has taken its toll on my track. Using two gate hinges on either side don't let the board move as much and keeps things straighter. The downside to the double hinges is you have to be more accurate when you construct the thing because without any play room if you mess up you'll have to rescrew and whatever.
The warping of my boards is almost entirely because I keep the track in my sun room which goes from hot to cold to sun to damp in the course of a few weeks, so mother nature is its worst enemy. But given the beatings this track has taken over the past 2 years, I can't complain one bit. It still works great even if I have to be more careful about it.
if useing two hinges and can remove the pins... run one long shaft through both hinges while screwing them down...
I see almost all home made slot car tracks are created using MDF. They use routers to make the slot for the cars to run in.
I have no experience with that stuff at all but Im wondering if you can somehow use a similar method to somehow keep the track straight, stable, and in place.
I would absolutely think so, Iowa...good call. If you can route slots for the orange track rails on the bottom, I think that would work great. You wouldn't necessarily need MDF but that would work the best.
I think the guy from Australia routed out his track recently, or at least he was asking about it. That would be slick. I suppose you would need thicker wood which would cost a bit more.
I thought about routing out a track but i am going to give the wooden board with orange track on it one last go.
The alternatives I will go with are (if the wooden board based plastic track idea doesnt pan out):
plastic wood planks - which are plastic planks designed for outdoor decking, made from recycled plastic. I had a 5.something metre length cut down to three 1.8 metre lengths. i will glue the orange track to it. The advantage is that there are no fasteners to cause bumps or ripples on the track. The disadvantage is weight. They are twice the weight of wooden pine boards. I will still have transitions between joins (three of).
Because I havent yet moved to plan B, i dont know what other things might impact it, but if they do, i have already thought about a plan C...
extruded aluminium - i had a look at aluminum profiles and will use several cut to length. If this works out I would even get them powder coated or anodised orange. Straight, light... the only problem would be at joins. unless i could somehow figure out a way to shift a single 20 foot length of aluminium in my panelvan (it wont fit...).
I havent heard or seen anyone else use extruded aluminium. but it looks like a good alternative to the orange plastic. We will see if i have to go to plan b or c. .
i wish shippings was not so tuff cause i have (12) six foot long galvanized steel track sections, they have 3/8" high sidewalls and a slightly wider gaps on one end of the doubled over sidewalls and all but the thickness of the metal trimmed away at the other... they snap into each other... 20 GA. drop off at each seam... you or any other racers could have them, .. just pay shipping , $$$
I'm going to place wooden board pieces under my joints (where the boards connect) and see if this smooths out the transistions. Some of the boards might have a slight twist or bow to them that you might not see, or the floor could be the problem. I'll post my results and maybe some pictures if this works out. For now I'm using my left over "Bunk Bed" boards for my track.
Preacher
I've seen posts out there where they use cut rain gutters as lanes...albeit very wide lanes. You work with what you have in most cases.
Ahh, good call. No pretreated. Just get higher quality boards or fake wood.