WAX ON PLASTIC LAMINATE??

[GILLS]

Hey guys, in an earlier forum I stated that I had just built a new plastic laminate track. My dad is an retired commercial millwork and casework business owner, and he has been trying to get me to use some of his Johnson's brand furniture paste wax torub into my track to make the surface faster. My concern is will the wax may adhere to the wheel edges. I know that the wax is good for filling the pores in any wood and will seal out moisture. Have any of you experimented with this????

[Panzer]

I've used Butcher's Bowling Alley paste wax before on the running surface and sides of the guide strips. It reduced ETs by about 0.030 seconds on a 32 ft. wooden track (birch P/W surface 1 5/8" clear pine guides). More importantly it equalize the lane bias to almost nothing.

[DMWOOD]

We also have a plastic laminate track but we have never put a wax on the running surface. The hard plastic surface will make a fast track without doing any waxing.

We clean the surface of the track before the race but by the end it will be covered with graphite, dust and dirt from the race. I don't know if the wax would help or not with this problem.

I think that this track surface might be harder on the wheels than the wood track. My sons car, after running on our track for the pack race, had dirt particles imbeded in the wheel surface. We sanded the wheels smooth before the District race and did not notice this problem afterward. I am not sure if the wood track was the difference or not but this was my experience between the two.

If you do think about waxing, try a small section and do some tests to see what happens.

Good Luck!

[Stan Pope]

I've used Butcher's Bowling Alley paste wax before on the running surface and sides of the guide strips. ... More importantly it equalize the lane bias to almost nothing.

Great point! I think that you are saying that reducing lane bias should be the basis for deciding to use wax on the surface or not. Specifically, if one tries a surface treatment and it increases lane bias, clean it off!