Laying Copper Tape over Track Rails and Testing

Laying copper tape over rails is a PITA, but definitely worth it when it comes to power consistency. I've got one lane done and took a minute to test with a Carrera BMW M6 GT3. The track is just basically functional - I haven't set up the driver stations yet (those will be located at each end of the "U") so I'm getting whiplash standing in the middle, trying to follow the car with the stock controller and a 2-foot connection wire. The video is shot from a wide-angle webcam I just installed to see if I can get a complete track view.

 

For now, I'm collecting some of the components I'll need to finish things up, some driver station hardware from Slot Car Corner, two adjustable power supplies, additional wiring and other odds and ends. Obviously there's still a lot of scenery work to do, but at least I'll be able to do some testing and tuning as that work proceeds. As noted previously, this is a1:32 Artin track is 50.25 ft (each lane) or 15.31 meters.

 

SJ EP 13 - Track Build Guide #7 - Stone Walls and Bridges

In the case of The Schweizering, part of the slot car track runs up into an old city enclosed by a medieval-era stone wall. In this video, I'll show you how I did this, and how you can create garden walls, retaining walls, a bridge or even a building on your own track. As you'll see, I had a little bit of fun in the opening scene...

As far as materials, this can be done using rigid insulation foam, a few simple tools and some basic paint effects, like dark washed and dry-brush highlighting. After the demo, I'll show you a few new additions to the racing garage and also highlight some awesome upcoming slot car events - one in the USA and one in Brussels. Check out the video HERE.

 

 

 

Slotmania! Brussels Promises to be a Fun Event

One of my Facebook friends, Julien Giloteau, reached out to me a while back to tell me about an event he is organizing for next month - SLOTMANIA! BRUSSELS.  He sent me some posters, additional info and some video links to check out - and it's clear that this looks like one of the best-organized events I've seen in a while.

Of course it would be nice to attend but a trip to Europe is not in the cards right now. Regardless, they have lined up not only a number of vendors, but have arranged for some manufacturers to be on hand as well, including Scalextric, Slot.it/Policar, Scaleauto and Avant Slot. They always have some notable folks in attendance, including race car drivers and this year - Adrian Norman.

Julien notes that they are tryinig to expand the event format beyond just the typical swap meet and vendor meet to more of a convention-type showcase. I think they are on the right track. If your close enough, be sure to try and make it. There is also a fabulous promo video out on YouTube - Be sure to check it out HERE.

SJ EPISODE 12: Track Build Guide #6 - Terrain and Land Forms

Does your track skittle through a desert, roll through the hills or climb a mountain? If so, how do you create that environment? In this episode, I'll talk about the various methods that can be used and show you how I go about creating and shaping the land forms used on my track. There's a lot to cover here, as it's kind of an old-school method, but one of the benefits is the low cost, as old newspaper and plaster cloth won't do much damage to your wallet.

After the demo, I'll talk about the possible pitfalls of getting hobby advice and also ask for your thoughts on slot car content you enjoy and how you might use Facebook groups.Check out the episode HERE.

 

 

Looking Forward to the 79th Cleveland Slot Car Show

I've attended the last two Cleveland Slot Car Shows and come away not only impressed with the overall organization, but managed to come away with some great slot car buys as well! This Spring show (set for April 21) will have many activities throughout the weekend. Racing will begin Friday evening and the whole day Saturday. Live auctions on Friday and Saturday from the show, with a special charity auction Saturday evening. A slot car forum is scheduled for Saturday evening with manufactures, vendors, and old timers fielding questions on the slot car industry.

Organizer Greg Bennett has let people know that there will be a good selection of 1:32 vendors again, as well as a 1:32 race event to enjoy. That's good news, as the larger scale cars have had an increasing presence at the last few shows...a trend that appears to be continuing.

The show itself will take place on Sunday, starting at 9:30am, with all kinds of door prizes and lots of old and new slot cars in all scales. We are putting out a request for a vendor or venders interested in selling and sitting in on the slot car forum that sells or makes controllers and metering devices for testing slot cars. For more info, contact Greg Bennett on Facebook HERE.

SJ EPISODE 11: Track Build Guide #5 - Curbs & Cobblestones

Since part of our track runs through an old medieval city, much of it features cobblestone surfaces. While there are some labor-intensive methods of achieving this look on the track itself (primarily etching a pattern into the plastic track with a soldering iron)  I'm using something simpler for the street curbing and walkways. In this video, I'll show you how I do this with some Google image searches for a cobblestone pattern and some basic computer graphics. Add a little weatherstripping and you've got some nice curbs.

After the demo, we'll also take a look at a new addition to the garage, highlight some European YouTubers and see how you can enjoy worldwide content using YouTube's Auto-Translate feature. There's so much good slot car content out there, and language doesn't have to be a barrier to enjoying it! Check out the episode HERE.

Car Tunes with Pete and Joe

If you don't sleep in on Saturday mornings, I suggest you grab a cup of coffee and have a listen to Joe and Pete's semi-weekly chat stream CAR TUNES.  If you don't know, Joe created the Irreras Carrera channel on YouTube while Pete is the creator behind the Show-Me Slot Cars channel which hosts the chat. Both run Carrera digital, and they provide some entertaining banter as well as some helpful info on running digital setups.

In addition, they have also set up a Discord site that will allow the Slot Car community to host discussions ans "rooms" on a number of topics. It's a great way to gather and disseminate info as well as carry on conversations after your favorite live stream is over. Check it out HERE.

SJ EPISODE 10: Track Build Guide #4 - Guardrails, Barriers and Walls

You pay good money for your slot cars - and you don't want them flying off the track and getting busted into pieces. That's why we use various kinds of safeguards, like crash barriers, guardrails and other types of walls to ensure those slot cars stay where they belong. In this video, I'll share a couple of ideas I use to create good-looking items that will help protect your cars with a big, beautiful wall. LOL.

After reviewing those techniques, we finally dig into our Mail Bag to answer some questions (both the questions and the answers are all in fun) and I also talk about what we're seeing these days in terms of slot car content. There's a lot going on. Watch it HERE. Enjoy!

Track Building: Driver Visibility Comes First

As much as I love building scenery, we have to remember that the point of having a track is to race cars...and to do so effectively, you need to be able to see them on the track. So after test-fitting this building for the high side of the track, I decided to make it a single level with roof deck instead of a 2-level building with deck. I just didn't want to obscure the racing sight lines with too tall a structure - and it will simplify construction, too.

 

This did allow me to raise the ceiling height a bit, too - to something more like a scale 10 feet high rather than a standard 8 feet.  I am trying to document the construction of this scratch building, but it's quite complicated and also will require some specialized engineering to allow access to the interior for placing figures and other bits.

My solution was to allow part of the building to swing open for this access, which will be possible after the gondola platform tower (for the sky lift) gets lifted off - which is another part that will be constructed separately.

Other than the grandstand/pit building, it's probably the most complicated structure on the track. Lots more work on this to come, but wanted to show some progress.

A Milestone for Slot Journal

Just wanted to take a minute and thank the slot car community and other hobbyists that have supported the YouTube Channel over the past year. It was only 20 days ago that we hit 400 subscribers, and over the weekend we went over 500. Considering that since May of last year (10 months) we've posted 9 videos and 2 shorts, I'm pretty happy with the results so far.

What's great is that over the fast several weeks I've been able to get lots of footage and photos in the can, so now it's a matter of organizing and editing all of that into some more episodes. I'm also coming up wiht some ideas for new segments, including a fun AI-assisted bit that I think will be fun and entertaining. Stay tuned!

SJ EPISODE 9: Track Build Guide #3 - Making Borders

You don't want your slot cars rubbing on a guardrail if they drift around a curve. You need some space - and that's what track borders are for. My problem was that I didn't have enough of the stock Artin borders...so I had to figure out a way to make my own. That's the basic point of this episode.

The solution I offer here is pretty application-specific; all the joints in my track are getting filled and painted, so the fit between track and border just has to be "good" not "perfect." If you're keeping your track's stock apperance, you'll want to be extra careful with trimming and fit to ensure it looks neat. After that, I share a vintage car that's new to me, as well as some thoughts on "Datsun Mania." It's all in fun.  :-)
You can watch it HERE.

My "Buy List" for 2024

Now that most all the manufacturers' 2024 offerings have been made public, everyone is making their "buy lists" out and many are sharing them on YouTube. This can be a fun exercise...up to a point. For my own part, I try to limit this topic to a brief mention on one of my videos.

In this case, my focus is primarily on Scaleauto - who has projected a few of the new LMH and LMDH hypercars for the coming year, including the Porsche 963, the Cadillac, the Peugeot and the BMW. In addition, Slot.it will be coming out with an Acura hypercar, and the new Carrera Ferrari 296 GT3 is also on my radar. I'm sure there will be a few other new cars that will pique my interest, but my budget will have it's limits. And limiting my interest to primarily Lemans/Sebring etc.endurance racers definitely helps.

SJ EPISODE 8: Building a New Track Part 2 - A Table for Your Track

Everyone's slot car track needs a place to live. Where you gonna put it? In this video, I share a brief overview of my own track table - its overall layout and construction type, practical considerations, and testing prior to finalizing installation. Though I don't get much into carpentry details, a big part of this project involves building the cabinetry that provides support for the track and plenty of storage.

Afterwards, I share a couple of new purchases and then some thoughts on new manufacturer offerings and a group slot chat you should definitely drop in on. I think this will be a pretty popular episode. You can watch it HERE.

SJ EPISODE 7: Building a New Track Part 1 - Planning

The new track build series kicks off with what I hope will be a fun and interesting group of videos that will help take viewers on my personal track-building journey. As mentioned previously, I want to start at Ground Zero and proceed through the entire process, and in this first installment, I review some of the most essential considerations that slot track builders will want to think about before they start laying parts and pieces out on the table.

In the video, I cover issues like what kind or racing that will take place, the space available, building a table for the track, power and control, and basic approaches to scenery.  I also note some other topics that might be considered do's-and-dont's, but really are items that you should think about before going to far. Everyone's tastes and preferences are different, so feel free to make your own rules as you go! The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH5Owd2g7pFJ1USpI_ntriw?sub_confirmation=1

Twitter to get "X"d out - Moving to Instagram

Even from the beginning, Twitter (now "X") has not been the best place to post content - at least not for slot car enthusiasts. There were enough accounts to make it worthwhile, but as time has gone on, fewer and fewer of them have bothered to post content there. The most prolific posters seemed to be several Japanese commercial tracks and stores, which always offered the challenge of translating whatever text content accompanied their (often beautiful) photography.

As a result, I've finally decided to post whatever additional content I have over on Instagram. I had opened an account not too long ago, but had only posted a handful of photos - as much a placeholder as anything else. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a number of folks in the slot car community are already on there - so I'm thinking this will be worth the effort.

Another factor in this decision was the fact that the owner of so-called "X" has generally ruined what was once a fun and engaging platform. I had accounts for several of my areas of interest in addition to slot cars. But the final nail in the coffin was when they removed the ability to post "latest tweets" onto your web page, which was an important component of my site's home page. In any case, while I am not deleting the "X" account, I will no longer post anything new there...I haven't been doing that for a while, anyway.  My next task is to delete references to Twitter on my web page and YouTube videos, and replace them with links to Instagram. The instagram page is at: https://www.instagram.com/slotjournal/

SJ EPISODE 6: Back in the YouTube Saddle Again - with The New Track

In the much delayed Episode 6, I talk a little bit about my absence from YouTube and some of the life changes I've been going through (retirement, grandfatherhood). Thankfully there's been plenty of great slot car content on YouTube over the intervening months, so that's a good thing.  I also explain how and why I've temporarily set the track control tower project aside to work on a new priority - namely, a track to race on. We'll get back to the tower in a bit, but the main goal now is to take my subscribers on a trip to see how the track is planned, built and completed - from A to Z.

After we get a look at where things stand now in construction, I spend a couple of moments taking about some things and people I've come across on YouTube and Facebook. I always enjoy giving a shout-out to people who are taking the time to share their hobby activities, as well as their ideas and tips that can add to our enjoyment.  Hope you like the episode - you can find it HERE.

Welcome Back...with The New Track

 Yes, it's been way too long since I posted here or put out a video...but a lot has happened over the intervening months.I spend much of the Summer vacationing and traveling, then received a nice retirement offer from my employer that was simply too good to turn down. Of course, a lot of planning and paperwork goes along with the territory, and that took a lot of time and effort as well.

Add to that the fact that I became a first-time grandpa in late September and you can understand that I've been a little busy. That has been a lot of fun for me, but now that the holidays have come and gone, I'm ready to devote some serious time to the hobby.

Over the last month or so, I've started on construction for the new track - it's very similar to the last one I had. The New Schweizering features more R3 and R4 turns, has a better flow and some additional adjustments to not only improve flow but also to provide better support, electrical systems for lights and wiring, and scenery improvements. I'm re-using some components from the old track (like the castle) and rebuilding most everything else from scratch.

I've got  a few pics here, but since construction has begun, I've been documenting most of it through some videos and photos, so you'll be seeing some of that here and on my Facebook site. YouTube videos are coming as well, so be on the lookout!