18 Ft. Track Build
Why stop there? I glued five stick together and stuck them to the ramp to be guides to keep the track straight.
This works fine for now, but I'm not sure I like how they look. In the future I'm going to try using velcro to hold the track in place. We'll see how that works.
Sweet, dude! Looking like a great little track.
Good to see the use of popsicle sticks too, one of my favorite crafting items. I might suggest putting the popsicles UNDER the track between the guides. It works great and the track looks nice and clean. Two sticks side-by-side fit perfectly under the track.
I wrote it up in the blog a while ago...
http://www.redlinederby.com/2010/09/kee ... -straight/
I did see that in the blog. I think I was just getting lazy and didn't feel like measuring and marking where to put the sticks under the track. It may come to that though, I was rushing forward to get the track set up. I think I can back up a bit and start fine tuning/working on the details.
I started in on a new starting gate. At this point I'm not sure if the middle piece is needed. I made some holes on the sides because I had a different idea that I abandoned. I suppose they're good if you need to give the cars a little poke/adjustment. These blocks are 3 1/2 inches tall and about 4 inches long. The top flat part is about 1 inch wide before the angled down cut.
I have to put a piece across the top and will hinge a pexi glass front door across there. I had to race though so here's the old starter in relation to the new one that is under construction.
while looking through a junk box, found a "burl-esque" plastic body , FEATHER WEIGHT CLASS ?
Bought these little hinges at the local hardware store. Had a broken TV stand with a door that I took the magnet and Metal "latch" from. (You can't see the magnet here. It's on the starting block. You can't see the metal latch on the right because it pulled right off) After 24 hours of drying, it took me about 30 seconds to find out J.B. Weld does not stick to Pexi-glass. The magnet was pretty stong. Pulled that thing off after a couple test. The wood the hinges are attached to is also from the TV stand.
That little magnet was way too strong for this little door. So I moved the whole door over so that the metal on the door just barely makes contact with the magnets.
I made the door so it would clear the high way track, but I quickly found out that some of the lower profile cars could stick their noses out.
Popsicle sticks to the rescue.
Ending up with a real Frankenstein of a starting gate, but so far after a little bit of testing it works well. I'm a little worried about its durability...and kids will have to stay away from all the sharp object sticking out in all directions.
The track is about 24 feet long now. It's also been moved indoors, for the winter at least.
Also since I had the pop sickle sticks out I glued two of them together and then glued them on the ramp to hold the starter in place. I also did one stick on each side of the starter and it fits in there nice and snug.