my track
 

i built a track and wanted to see what every body thinks

the bottom is two 2x4 ft pieces of masonite, some smooth wood, found at home depot and for the walls i went to micheals and they had this foam board that i cut to fit, than a little spray paint to give road look, its not the most grip and pretty small so i find it hard to go over a 2.2 motor or a 1.6 with green gears

heres what it looks like

that was bigger than i expected, this is my first time with attachments, you can sorta see in the middle how the track splits for easy storage

If you need more grip on your track, mix a small amount of sugar and water and spray it on the corners, or wherever you need traction. Make sure to let it dry first after you spray it, other wise it could get real messy.

its not too bad with stock tires its mostly not big enough to use faster motors

the only reason you have traction problems is cuz you used spray paint, some people use duct tape for the road and its supposed to have some traction...but the only thing to fix your speed problem would be to make a new one with longer straightaways and less turns

yeah, i'm thinking of making another but i was on a tight budget and this was a pretty cheap track and looks pretty good too

well, as a first try, it looks really good. I personally havent ever made a track, except for the time I taped a piece of 3'x5' piece of paper to the floor and drew an oval track on it with a Sharpie
If you even call that a track :rolleyes:
A track that Im gonna build will be abut 7'x7' and have a rally/road course in the center with a Nascar style track going around that, and in between that and the rally course a drag strip. see picture below \/ (btw the square with rounded edges is the Nascar track, the two lines on the right side are drag strips, and the sqiggle looking thing in the middle is the rally/road course)

that should be pretty cool...what are you gonna make the rally course out of?

Great start on your track! Just slap some dark grey latex enamel on that sucker and you'll get plenty of grip. I used porch paint cause it was what I had lyin around. But any latex will do. It has a rubbery consistancy and works well.

but isnt it possible to tear? and then where will u be?

You mean the latex paint? Not at all. It's tough stuff!

so is that like a can that i would brush on, i dont really want to spray because of the walls being foam

Yeah, it comes in gallons I think. You can get it at Walmart or Home Depot. It's fairly cheap too. I used dark grey porch paint. It's tougher than the regular latex enamel. Get some green latex too. You can paint the foam with it. Latex is water based so it won't hurt the foam at all. The porch paint dries kinda flat too, so it looks like a road surface. Check my track out in the track section. You can see the color there. It's under Mullins Motor Speedway. Though I think it is a tad darker than it looks in the pics.
BTW, if you start with raw wood, primer the wood first, sand it, primer again, sand one more time, then finish with 2 or 3 coats of the dark grey. This eliminates any wood grain from showing. It's an old sign painter's trick. But, you are using masonite and shouldn't have to worry about any grain.

umm, i cant find words,

what did you use on your walls base, every thing that puts my track to shame, its like taking out a bat beating it to small pieces and laughing at it

The base is half inch plywood nailed and glued to a 2x4 frame. The barriers are those trim strips that they use to cover the seams of paneling. The ramps and the crossover are masonite built over a plywood frame. The track surface is the grey latex, and the barriers are covered in semi gloss white latex enamel. The outer wall is baseboard painted with the same white paint, but I mixed in some dark blue until I go a nice sky blue color. That's the beauty of the latex paint. You can mix almost anything with it as long as it's water based. The track grafix and the orange parts of the barriers are vinyl decal material that I got from a sign shop. They will give you the left over ends and pieces left off the rolls they use. The barrier ads are the ones everybody is downloading from the net. I used them, but made many of my own in Photoshop and printed them out on photo paper. The landscaped areas are sculpted styrofoam covered in model train grass. The landscaping materials where ordered from Discount trains and a couple of other online sites. The red and white track stripes are colored electrical tape. I first layed down a strip of white, then cut the red into squares and spaced them out over the white. You can find it at Walmart or Radio Shack.

how much did that cost you to finish, and how but is the entire thing

I have 150.00 in it so far. This is because I had all the materials lying around already. All the cost is in what I ordered for the landscaping. It's still not done, and probably never will be. I have plans for a lot more stuff on it.
I'd guestimate 300.00 plus if I had to buy everything that's in it so far.

wow mine was like 15 lol, but mine has some thing yours doesnt the ability to grow! i can add as many pieces of wood where the track splits!

hey i was wondering if you have any exp with lxx boosters i see a real good deal on toyeast and wondering if i should go for it or not

Not sure if you are asking me or not. But, no, I don't have any of those. I've heard they are good though.

This is true. But, if this thing got any bigger, I don't know where I would put it:D . Actually. I have thought of going off from the side with another piece of plywood. I could tear out the hairpin curve, go over to the other piece, go crazy all over it, and come back to the other side of the hairpin. But, I don't know if I'll ever do that.

i found some latex spray paint in my basement and i was wondering if that would be fine if it got on the paper and foam of my walls

look here if u dont wana buil your own:

http://www.rcmod.com/store.html#105f

that snap track looks wicked cool.

i have one i'm just asking about the paint to get better grip, my track is in this thread, 2nd post i believe

oh...well, i go directly to the newest post.

hey skyline, sorry it took me so long to answer your question. the track will be made of a big piese of plywood, maybe two, the hills on the rally track will be made with wood or foam, and to simulate 'dirt', I'm gonna cover the 'dirt' portions of the track with sandpaper.

try this for the dirt parts :) take elmers glue ,delute with water and mix with sand . paint or roll on to what ever... as far as the exact mix thats something you will have to work out....doin a dirt/sand track for my itty bitty sandrails. once complete ill post pics (now if i can just get my 13yr old son to do his part on it LOL:D )

hmmm...

Another nice idea

Thanks

-David

id do that one, so if it rips, u dont have 2buy sandpaper.