bitPimps.lixlink.com

Pics of my Track in the first stage.











Critique is most welcome.
(sorry for the crappy cell phone pics)

I love the oval with an infield road course option...it looks like its coming along nicely. Did you put a sealer over the particle board before you painted it or is it just a couple layers of paint? It looks pretty smooth, but I couldn't tell for sure.

That thing turned out great, Ed. Did you use a joint compound in the corners? Cool idea. And if you didn't, I bet it works pretty good and gives a bit of grippy texture.



Some vids would be cool, too.







silla

sidewinder wrote:Did you put a sealer over the particle board before you painted it or is it just a couple layers of paint?

I had to look again, but it looks like he used news paper like you would with paper mache. If so, another good idea...







silla

Now that you say it that does look like paper mache... That does sound like it should work...

Paper mache is exactly what I used. The banked turns and walls are made from sheets of 1.5-inch thick polystyrene insulation sheets. I sanded the foam into shape (I don't recommend doing that indoors, shit gets everywhere). The paint is just your standard all purpose Krylon. Two coats of primer and about seven coats of semi gloss black.

The track surface is really sticky. Paper mache makes for a sort of rough surface to start with. The paint smoothes it out a bit and adds some tack. The standard ZZ stock tires I've found work the best. They really stick in the turns.

I'm not really happy with the oval turns, I feel that I didn't make a steep enough bank. I'm also stuck and looking for ideas for any type of modeling.

Overall though, the track is a blast to drive. The road course is just technical enough to make use of the ZZSe's steering but not so difficult that it requires hours of practice to drive. The oval is just small enough that you can't run laps at full throttle so there's a chance of someone out-driving you even if you have the fastest car.

It looks great , I'm guessing it's about 4x8ft since it looks like a full size piece of particle board. Very nice, I may have to build a track sooner or latter, I used to love working with paper mache'.

Update on the track. I don't recomend using paper mâché. The primer didn't adhere well and I have some flaking. The Krylon cured to a hard shell and is a bit slick in spots (random spinouts are frequent). I'm still not happy with the turns.

I'll take some good pics of the flaws tonight when I get home.

Edit: for crappy iPhone typing.

if you want alot of grip I found using skateboard grip tape in some of the corners worked well

EdawgM1A2 wrote:The Krylon cured to a hard shell and is a bit slick in spots (random spinouts are frequent).

try sanding the slick bits to roughen them up.

betty.k wrote: try sanding the slick bits to roughen them up.

but wouldn't that just make the paint peel?
i would go with is the grip tape.

The paint will not peel if you sand it down. All that will do is make the surface ruff as you will cut small grooves into the paint with the sand paper. The only way for the paint to peel is if it didn't have a good bond, and something were to get under it like water, or something that could cause the paint not to bond.

However I don't know how good sanding the paint will do as it really it will be just as hard, so the car could still spin out.

i meant flake not peel

Black primer sanded with 400 grit gives my tracks almost too much grip.

The textured paint works good too and it looks like asphalt.