New Track Newby
Starting my first track and I'm documenting it, and of course I am going to over complicate as much as I can. It's Going to have a drag strip complete with start and finish lines then hopefully a meandering open track road course that also is going to serve as a return track. Mostly because I am too lazy to walk over and retrieve the cars after each race. A friend of mine is making an electronic finish line, that shows who won on my laptop, but he takes forever making stuff so I will probably have to cannibalize a toy track for a finish for a while. And of course it's gonna need a name that should take a couple months and 10 or 12 revisions. Anyway wish me luck. Oh btw way my wife had an 8x12 shed built into which all this is supposed to fit, and store my boxes of HW and MB vehicles. We shall see how well this works out.
Discussion
...my wife had an 8x12 shed built into which all this is supposed to fit...
I wish my wife would build me a shed for all my car stuff. You lucked out!!
If your friend does eventually build the electronic finish line and does so in a nice way that he can duplicate, he could have a nice little side business on his hands. I'd be interested in helping that along if you guys ever get to that point. I tried making my own finish line as well but I gave up...had some cool sensors to trigger lights, USB into the laptop...it was fun until it didn't work. I still thing a mechanic trigger is the way to go rather than a sensor even if the latter provides more accurate timing, I just think they can get flakey depending on ambient light conditions.
You could certainly build a usable short track in an 8'x12' area...it could be up to 14' long depending on the drop height/angle if built on a long wall. Thats more than enough track to test on, IMO. Then again, I'm not sure how many boxes of cars you'd be able to fit though...they can consume space very quickly(ask me how I know ).
You could always have the track go around the corners of the room and eventually end at a lower height than it started. Sort of a rectangular spiral.
Kind of what I was going to do only have the track loop back and parallel the out going track. Not sure how to make multilane curved track though. Or is it actually one lane just big enough for a couple cars side by side?
You can still find vintage 180deg 2-lane curves on Epay...Sizzlers Fat Track 180deg curves(aka:"OT") are even easier to come by. Mattel never made a 90deg 2-lane curve, but they can be made with the new style, modular curved track pieces. Single lane orange track is exactly that...only wide enough for 1 car(32mm).
I thought of that too but the door of the shed would be blocked by the track in a complete spiral design.
One idea is to suspend a piece of the track (and whatever solid material the track is attached to) on brackets, then just lift the track up and off the brackets whenever the door is in use.
There might be a couple of problems involving the rough transition between the rest of the track and that small section, though...
Hmmm thats and interesting idea. Still putting the shop together. Got insulation in it sheet rock all around. Almost got all the tape and mudding done. Then painting. Fortunately my son is a construction contractor and he is making this happen.
For free of course....lol. Going to try and talk him into helping me build my track but it's probably more fun to do it myself.
Expansion time already!