K1W1

Looks awesome Mark - good kiwi sounds in that video too - luv it!!

I couldn't believe that one. It came up on T/me but was brand new from a model shop. Wasn't cheap but I just couldn't believe a store had it available at all. I was on the buy now button real fast!!

Thought I would share some pic's of a few of my more 'special' collectibles (well, hopefully - if I can remember how to post them) Couldn't resist this when it popped up on NZ's favourite auction site..... Then this one came up. Another must have.......... ....and last but not least..... This one has to be my favourite...... I'm not really even into Grand Prix or F1 but just love these.

This is pretty cool. Not "helpful" but awesome track......... (not posted a link before so hopefully works)

Morning he who isnt really the walrus. I'm pretty new to this but have some comments that I hope will benefit you in your build. Like many on here, it all started when I got a Scalextric loop track for Xmas when I was about five. It had vintage F1 cars with little pin at the front that you could pull out to get 'real' car engine noise. That track got added to and modified for several years until I discovered other wonders of the world such as homework and females. Anyway, couple of years ago, I discovered this forum and realised some other adults still craved to play slotcars!! Having a young girl meant I had the perfect excuse to spend a little bit of money and put a track together..... family time I tried a plastic offering to start with but it didnt really do what I wanted and there was alot of talk on here around routing a track so I decided to give that a go. As the others like Munter have mentioned, I think the first stage will always be draw 50 tracks on paper and try to see what you want in a design. I did this and eventually, ended up pinning my favourite one on the wall and now have something with cars running on it that resembles the sketch quite closely. Number of lanes is a major as it is so related to the amount of space you have, the type or size of table you want and the number of friends called Marshal you can round up. I saw my track as a father-daughter project and wanted as much driving lane in small space as I could get plus I have no mates called Marshal so I opted for only two lanes. In hindsight, I would probably go with at least three next time. The style of track can also be a difficult decision. I like all sorts of car styles and motor sport so I struggled with how to do this. Rally cars mixed with racing trucks and F1??? Dawned on me at some stage that I could do what I consider a targa/hillclimb style track and thereby realistically run all sorts of vehicle in a sort of "Historic Day" type race scenario. This might not be important to you but allowed me to have a track with elevation, lots of different turns, squeezed lanes and a long back straight, etc. What I hope might be helpful to you are the things I got 'wrong': I didnt worry at all about the length of each lane. I'm not aiming at team or club racing so I figure that the levels of driving, differences between cars, marshalling lack of skill and other variables will all even things out. If it was an issue, we could race x number of laps on lane 1 then swap and race x laps on the other lane or something. I used copper tape to save money - I wish I had paid the extra for braid. I didnt allow enough room on the outside of my corners. In my old Scalextric days, it was normal for the cars on outside lane to fly around the corners with the tail dragging along the barriers. I left a normal lane width on outside of my lanes and now my prized NSR and Pioneer cars drag their butts around my simulated concrete walls which is horrible. I'm now faced with trying to add a border style strip around some of my corners to widen the lanes so the cars need to drive around the turn. Rather hard to do - make sure there is room when you are planning and building!! Last but not least - dont underestimate how much you will love the track and how much you will spend on cars you just have to have!!!!!! Hope what I have added here will benefit you in your build. Look forward to seeing what you ddecide on and how it goes. Cheers Wayne

This is brilliant..........light the blue touch paper and walk away........ Good luck, while you're furthering your naked mole rat modelling career, I'm just gunna buy the cars I like. Soooo much easier lol

Notchback conversion!! Cool. you guys scare me with the things you want to take on! Look forward to the pics!

I bought the Jerry Titus Mussie yesterday. I think it's beautiful in that 60's pale yellow with matt black and I prefer the notchback look so very happy. Doubt it will get it's wheels dirty - staying nice and safe on the shelf I hold the honour of making the first purchase ever from NZ's newest (and possibly only??) dedicated slot car shop which is located in Whakatane. Hope I'm not out of line with a slight plug to help Damien on the way and wish him all the best!! Awesome to have someone willing to put his round bits on the line and open a retail business for our hobby. The shop looks great and will get even better as they sort things out over the next week or two. He has heaps of stock to drool over and is setting up a Carrera digital track for playing or testing your purchases. Hope it works well and the locals get behind him with it. Not sure of the actual shop name but it's Slotcars Ltd I think. Has been online for some time and now you can go visit and have a chat with them. Excellent!!

I'm not totally into Chargers but would it be for 4 speed manual? (Please dont shoot me if they aren't even 4 spd lol)

Sweet as, thanks

Hi Mac - dont mean to derail the thread as I know nothing about rear wheels/ tyres but are you selling the cars after the club event? If so, I might be keen on a couple of them if available. cheers Wayne (Tauranga)

Hi - not sure whether there would be anything suitable but maybe a fish tank background would work?? Nice long patterned pic and reasonably cheap? (Maybe not one with plants on it though!!)

Cheers peeps. Have one of those lights already Embs - sort of where it started. I'll prob try and set up some welding on a bench with the light hidden amongst things somewhere. All good fun - every slot track needs a workshop!

Thanks

Had too many paperclips and pens so..... Bit of kiwi no. 8 wire mentality.... bent a paperclip or two and stole some wheels off a parked Polypocket scooter.... Some sanding and another piece of Poly's scooter for the valve.... Cut some of the pen innards up and added some of that horrible epoxy putty stuff to make a couple of gauges and the welding handle. Its probably too big but never mind Bit of wire from an old phone charger for the oxy acetelene hoses. Would like to find something a bit more pliable so it sits or hangs more like a hose would but this will do for now... Need a coat of paint and some tidying up but that's something to do over Christmas when I'm sick of the in-laws. Finally, into the workshop.

Thats it.

Ah - thanks. I get the brushes pretty cheap through work but sisal is a good idea and cheap. I tried to get some of the stuff used for tying around gift boxes (forget what it's called) but couldnt find any so resorted to masacring a few brushes for a good cause. Also in process of making an oxy-acetelene welding set up which I will put some pics up of some time. Love playing around with this stuff. one day, might get to racing some cars!!

Got slightly creative the other day and made some of these.... Took quite a while but getting quicker as I get the hang of them. Started with a cork sanding block and cut it into bales (Got 18 from a block I think) Couple of 4" paint brushes with the appropriate hay coloured bristles were chopped into 5 or 6mm pieces. PVA on the cork bales then a quick roll in the hay (The bales - not me) bit of wifey's cotton and ready to feed out!! Looks good enough to eat Ended up with wookie hands - the bristles stuck all over the place. Eventually worked out to leave the glue to get tacky first then you dont have so much coming off onto hands. The stuff on hands comes off in clumps though so it will end up on the barn floor surrounding my hay bales. Also, the cork dust from cutting looks like really good soil so that's in a jar ready for later use somewhere around the track too.

That looks pretty good. Mark - you wanna buy some Ninco railing bakc off me!!! lol

Nice job. Love the broken bits

Cheers Embs - it is def airbrush ready paint so it will use distilled water if I need to. For what I'm doing, prob doesnt need thinning at this stage but I guess I might get more into that side as I progress. I have some primers coming at moment so that should help with some of the stuff like figure painting and mixed base materials (lol... hiding balsa grain where I thought it was smooth!??) I'm really enjoying just plaing around to try and create a bit of weathering and shading. As I've never done it before, even though it might not be up to other peoples standards, I'm enjoying it and happy with the results. Very rewarding stress relief :-)

Cheers Phil - Ive been using Iwata Com-art acrylics (without thiinning as I thought I'd start with the minimum amount of variables and opportunities for problems - lol). It's pretty thin out of the bottle and seems to flow pretty well. I think the spiders were mainly just a stuff up with trigger control on my part but I will start experimenting more as I get used to the basics. I need to get to a shop for thinners, etc so will do so when I can. I think the tip on 360 is quite large and there is one - no choices. (I may be wrong with this) Reading reviews, etc, some ppl say you cant do thin lines with 360 because of the tip size but others say its great for anything so I figure that if some people can use it no problem, then its good enough for me and what I want to do. (On a diff note - I bought a few figures from the UK which arrived today. Looking forward to painting them and seeing how that goes as well of course. I will prob leave your ones at this stage and just try and get through what I've got but thanks for the price and even looking into doing some for me.) Embs - I was real close to buying the Anthem 155 then I decided for the relatively small difference in price, I'll go with the 360. Both excellent brushes so hopefully, I can get some reasonable results in due course.

Again you guys - thanks for the help and comments. It is great havnig people that are willing to pass on experience and advice I decided to splash out a bit so I bought a Badger 360 Universal. It is the model which can be used as a gravity feed or a syphon feed - it has a small grav feed cup that can be swivelled 180deg to form the reciever for a syphon feed adaptor straight off the bottle. After spending way too long online googling and youtubing..... I couldn't decide whether to go grav or syphon so for not too many more $$, this gives me both. I spent another couple of hours last night with it and sorted mycompressor questions - it comes from the factory set quite low but can be turned up as required. I mucked about last night with different pressures and eventually worked out that it's way more to do with paint control than the air pressure (at my stage of learning). I turned it down reasonably low and managed to achieve what I consider pretty good narrow lines and dots (along with a whole lot of mess and spidery looking blow outs along the way of course!!) I painted up a couple of easy items with base coats and a bit of 'learners' weathering. While I'm stoked that I got some results and they look a lot better than unpainted, I'm not that happy with the look so will keep working on them. one of the works in progress is a foot overbridge which is a really good item to learn on - I was trying to make it look like concrete finish and have it looking way to dark at the moment but will see what happens with a bit of light colour over the top. Hopefully, it will pull out the highlight areas and leave the shadowed dark areas in corners, etc. Will see what happens and maybe post a pic if I'm happy with it. Couple of nights off now with other things happening so wont be posting pics for a while. Cheers Wayne

just heard from the compressor supplier and sounds like it's set quite low from the factory and the user has to dial it up to suit. (Maybe they should supply an English instruction manual!!) At least I now know where I'm at with that part of things so it comes down to airbrush skills or lack of :-) Been googling and youtubing lots and also had a chat to cousin who is an airbrush artist so that's given me a bit more of an idea on what to expect. Roll on home time!!!!

Thanks guys - Embs, I might try that. It was only showing 20psi on the compressor dial so I wound it up a bit to 30psi but I might have another go with it wound back down to show 20. its an auto compressor that is meant to be factory set to deliver constant pressure from the reservoir (well above 20psi). I'm wondering whether the gauge is faulty as it seemed to be a bit "all or nothing" when I was trying to start the air flow. Good fun mucking about though and I'm sure I'll get used to it or work out how to make life easier as I practice more. I figure that the base coat on a couple of items is easy enough and I can muck about from there as I learn. If all goes wrong, can fix them up down the track (excuse the pun) or just hide them in my layout somewhere not too obvious!!