Advice Needed On My Track

hawks10 · #1 10-30-2002, 11:39 PM

Hi, I am currently building a track that will be about 4feet x 6feet. I am using 2 boards (which are fake wood wall panels that you tend to find in basements of old houses). The size and weight is perfect because at the end of the day I need to be able to store this in my closet since space in my appartment at school is limited. The walls are made from the zipzaps track barries (2 sets) and the grass is green felt. Now I dont know what to use for the actual racing surface, right now it is just the brown color of the wood. I want it to be black and with a little more grip (no too much though) I heard some people say use "chalk board paint" What is this, where can I get it, is it spray on or brush on, what colors, what texture, etc.....

I kinda want the racing surface to be like spray painted primer (if you know what I mean) except black, not gray and I dont think I can get black primer....any suggestions?

When done, this track will be awesome and I will be sure to include many pictures, I jsut need to know what to use to cover the racing surface....

Thanks

Speed-D · #2 10-30-2002, 11:49 PM

I have used black "foam-core" board. Which is available at any hobby/craft shop. The surface is the constancy of construction paper. The grip is good but I can still slide with the right set-up.

I am in the processes of building a "track table" that will be lined with Vinyl. I have read that that is a very good surface to race on.

If the track is too rough it will wear down your tires at an accelerated rate. Who needs that?

AceQ · #3 10-31-2002, 02:28 PM

I've made two Arena Tracks from Luan board at a size of 6'x8'.

The first surface was a felt / turf but after many long nights of racing, we decided it had to much grip. Even with the slower engines we were flipping the cars at every turn.

The second I painted it with standard indoor paint right over the luan board. You need a TON of coats to get a smooth finish and after a few days the natural dust in the air lets the cars slide a tad. I used 5/8" Nylon around the interior and the cars don't jump it, in many cases they bound off and keep going.

Since you can easily paint over paint. Try just normal indoor paint, if it has to much grip, paint it again with something else. It comes in flat, satin, semi-gloss and glossy, you have a ton of choices in color as well. Finally, it's cheap!

-AceQ-

TeamSuxor · #4 10-31-2002, 05:29 PM

Many people advise the use of latex paint which should be readily available at any store that sells home improvement stuff or house paint (vs. art paint). I haven't tried it, so I can't really say.

There is some discussion about blackboard/chalkboard paint, but all I've been able to find is chalkboard spraypaint at Walmart. I don't really have an area appropriate for spraypainting, so I decided against that solution.

What I've been using is black gesso acrylic (probably any acrylic paint is similar). I find that I can make a little bit of paint go a fair way, but it does require a few coats of paint to look good -- 2 is typical unless I mess up and then I apply a 3rd to hide any mistakes I made. Acrylic paints are water soluble but can also be glopped on similar to oil paints...I'm not sure that's an advantage for a racing surface, but the variability does give you some flexibility on how you want the end result to go. It's pretty easy to mix acrylics to get the color you want and the paint is cheap.

My experience with the gesso is that it's still a bit smooth, but I'm painting over foamboard which is a pretty smooth surface to begin with.

Another option that you might want to look into is rubberized paint (haven't found any to try, so I can't comment on it), or mixing sand with paint to get a grittier feel. I'm not sure how that affects grip and I'm not sure I'm a big fan of that.

My primary complaint about the gesso is that when I left my cars on the surface for several hours, some of the paint attached itself to the tires so now I have some sticky tires. Ugh. I'd assume the latex paints wouldn't have this problem.

bherrin · #5 10-31-2002, 05:36 PM

I have seen chalk board pain in a can at Home Depot in the paint section. I have also seen spay can primer paint at Pep Boys in assorted colors. You may also be able to just by a chalk board in a size that suits your needs. Then glue and infield type felt where you wanted it to be.