Derby Talk

Indy, it's been a hot minute since you've posted this, but do you think you could share some more details on the foam supports you use for the phototransistors for the finish line? I'm getting right to where I need to start building the timer for the track (Our race is in just over a month :eek ...

I'm bolting the middle section, the same way the end sections are connected (though with a single row of bolts, as opposed to double). Because the bolts are 1/4" going into 5/16" holes, there's some play, which means that it shouldn't be hard to move segments around slightly to close gaps when the ...

Okay, so, I have actually started building this thing, so I thought I'd share some notes of my adventures thus far. The track is going to be made of 6 93" sections, each of them 5 lanes wide. This gives a 46.5' track from start to finish. I think the actual running length will probably be about 45 ...

You will probably need to place some additional 20 inch 2x4 shims under each section to minimize flex like MW does with the 1x4 pieces they use. That is what I am hoping to avoid with the PVC....but may need shims with the PVC too. I plan to put a supporting piece in the middle of each section ...

Last winter I had intentions of building a 2 lane test track when I came across an Ebay seller liquidating track sections used to build BSA tracks. I saw the price creeping down and finally pulled the trigger on 2 lanes worth. A few months later after moving them around the garage a time or two I ...

Sled2live wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2024 8:32 am Checking in on your progress.

Nothing to show yet, but the need to start building is growing. Been trying to clear out some garage space. Hopefully I'll have some progress pics soon.

That said, I've also built cars with bent rear axles, using Stan Pope's bias weight system to align the bent rear axles. Has Pope's Place gone offline? If so, we have all lost access to a wonderful resource... EDIT: Never mind! :whew: It seems to be accessible again (for now anyway)... perhaps a ...

Beautiful build! Love seeing the plans!

So I have been chewing on how I want to approach this track build. I'm sort of stealing inspiration from both the Challenger plans and some of the well-known wooden track plans. I really want the gentle curve of the Freedom-style track, versus the "fixed curve" of the Best Track style. Right now ...

Must be an attack from the Slot-Car mafia.

Some kind of test would be great, but I don't know that any has definitively shown a correlation between beading behavior and speed. I usually just follow the advice of what the fast guys say works.

60,80,100,120,150,180,240,320,400, for woods.. [emoji38] So pretty much anything over 40 up to 400… :thinking: Let me restate… if I were to buy one grit size especially for grinding out the DFW notch with this little sander, what might you recommend? (It needs to be effective, but not too agg ...

I think that these plans will prove quite useful as a rough guide to follow for the starting section measurements and such. The basic design of the starting gate is not bad either (gravity powered, like I prefer).

You don't happen to know where I might find a diagram of the Freedom track sections? This earlier post points to the location of Micro Wizard's assembly manual, which has a diagram showing where the section joints reside on an assembled track. This post shows a picture of the first mated joint ...

I had originally thought to build the first section of the track on a more flexible base, while having the other sections be more rigid, but now it seems to make sense that I would, at the very least, need to have the first and second sections of the track flexible. For consistency, I think the ...