Corners to straight transitions
I am into slot cars also, and thought this may be useful
the site is here, and they talk about scratch built track, and the tech to make a fast track
www.slotcarracing.org.uk/trackbuild/bking.htm
they are using MDE for the tracks. has anyone used MDE?
the interesting part is about the transitions (into/out of curves)
think banked drift corner.
I thought that all y'all printing tracks may find the info useful
dr
Discussion
I did some experimenting with I first discovered diecast racing and the angle of banking needed was pretty steep unless the turn was 4 feet wide.
I used an online calculator (towww.omnicalculator.com/physics/bank-angle) to figure what angle was needed and it worked pretty well as a card board mockup. Essential it was a large cone. Once I knew the banking angle I used a bit of trig to calculate the circumference of the top and bottom of the cone and lay it out. In something other than cardboard it would have worked very well but the corrugations was some weird winkles. Gave up and bought a crash race set.
Two things I'm tryin' to consider, long term durability, and video ability
I am talkin' a 4+' OD ( 24" rad, min at the flat) going flat to light bank to worse,
a ruthlessly open corner that can sit on the ground, with a drop to the flat floor for runout,
I want a portable mt track, thats what this build is; must fit the trunk of the challenger
breakdown/setup in a reasonable time
www.redlinederby.com/topic/an-interesting-track-build-into-the-future/5338
MDE is heavy, but to hold the last part or the track from moving,
and adding stability as a whole is what I was thinking.
we drag on fridays, and so many wish we had a mt, too
this is walk ins "off the street"
dr
I've found the palight I use to be great to work with, shapes well and can have added shaping with heat. Glues together and paints really well and is easy to cut with a knife.
For your drift corner, you can also add some 'grip to the outer edges to slow cars that are just straight sliding, by dusting spary paint onto it. I doesn't add a rough surface that bounces the cars but does add a level of grip to get the wheels some traction and slow the over sliding.
- What type of shop/store should we be looking at here in the States to purchase this kind of stuff? Does it go by other names? I've always had issues trying to find raw materials like this in bulk. It seems you can find sources online like eBay or Amazon etc. that want to sell you a "letter" size sheet of almost anything for a ridiculous amount of money. Expanded PVC foam board, chip board, and acrylic sheets are great examples. — AP3_Diecast
- Some past discussion about it, see Page 2: https://www.redlinederby.com/go/1109 — redlinederby
- AP3_Diecast I get it from a plastic sheet supplier. You could also try a signage supplier. Signwriters print onto it and use it for display stands etc. Glues easily with hot glue or I mostly use superglue. — Chaos_Canyon
- Try this site https://www.palram.com/ — Chaos_Canyon
- election season is here, let the sign harvesting begin...lol — dr_dodge
Thanks for the link. So this is Expanded PVC Foam Board. If it's helpful to others, this materials trade names are Palight, Sintra, Komatex, and Celtec. I'll have to check around at local stores, but this US national distributor at least sells 24x48 sheets from it's website, which up to this point is the largest I've seen buyable online anyway. www.piedmontplastics.com/products/pvc-foam-sheet. Side note, this stuff is also great for making dioramas.
- Are you talking about fluted polypropylene, the stuff that election signs are made of? You can buy a pack of 20 of those on Amazon for about $25. — LobotomyScam
Here's another thread with photos and video of a PVC foam track that got started. Worth a browse.
Great reference...here's some more past discussion about banked turns, many of which use the same slot car source.
As far as the MDE...I've seen a few in the past that have used it in their builds but not as the track itself. Personally, I find it heavy and messy to work with, but now that we've seen people literally carve tracks out of concrete, something like MDE might be great.