On this page you will find my complete step by step assembly of PistonHead Raceway. I hope you find this helpful if you are going to build your own home track.
Construction Of PistonHead Raceway
This is my first attempt at constructing a slot car track. I referenced the sites "J&L Raceway - Building Your Own Slot Car Track ","Slot Car Track Construction-Slotmaker ", Track Building Instructions-By OldnSlo and Building Slot Car Tracks for their expertise.
Below you will find pictures taken during construction. Special thanks go out to Jean Marc, Joe and my son Ryan, without their expertise this project would have never materialized. "Thanks Guys"
Not being a craftsman posed a problem and makes it a little harder to accomplish my task at hand. First thing I did was engage the services of Jean Marc St.Pierre and Joe Wathy a couple of friends who said they could assist me with this undertaking . They have prior woodworking experience which really helps. The track plan is pretty simple, which helps made it easier to build. The simple design that I used was J&L Raceway, but I decided on using a bank at one end which would make it more complex, but I felt that this was worth the effort. So, here is a brief description of HOW WE DID IT, along with some do’s and dont's that we experienced during construction.
The first thing I did was to get permission from the wife to take up most of the available basement space. I begrudgingly got permission and then accurately measured the space where the track would reside. I then contacted Larry Geddes from J&L and he was kind enough to forwarded me a .gif file (Illust#1) of his track with the basic measurements. I then had my son Ryan draw this up in AutoCAD so we could get exact measurements and the degrees of arc (curve angle). This information is necessary when cutting out all the pieces. Our track ended up being 10’ x 28’, and I left about a 1’5” area around the circumference of the track to access cars, turn marshals etc.
I finalized the lane spacing at 4.5” & the minimum curve radius is 15”, and I also used 4.25” gutters. I arrived at these figures after reading many articles regarding the newer 4’.5” chassis that many racers are using. This should allow any scale to be run on the track. Your plan should also include a material list & and access to all necessary tools to complete the job.
The actual track building began with the roadway being made from ?” MDF (medium-density fiberboard). It is the ideal material for routed tracks. It is easy to machine, has a very smooth surface, & is surprisingly quite flexible, but very messy when routering. Cutting the straights is of course no problem, we just used a table saw, but if this equipment is not available to you, the lumber yard where you purchased the material will cut all straights to length for a nominal fee. The curves are a little more involved, and the outer edge must be smooth & truly circular, & the curve angle must be very specific. We used the same 3 special jigs ( Illust#2, Illust#3, Illust#4 ) that I copied from the ASCT site to produce curves, one to lay out the inner & outer curve edges with a pencil, one to rout the outer edge (after rough sawing), & one to guide the saw for the radial end cuts, governing the curve angle. Drill a hole in the MDF panel & secure a bolt or screw in the hole to provide a fixed center for radius jig. The final step after all jig work is done is to remove the bolt or screw & saw out the inner edge freehand, just following the layout line. The completed curve blank should resemble a piece of plastic track, only larger. The desired curve of the dead man curve won’t fit on a single sheet of MDF, so when we cut out our 140 deg. turn, we actually made it a 200 deg. turn, then cut off a 60 deg. section which we spliced to a 180 deg. section to make our 240 deg dead man curve thus saving some material.
Before doing any routering, we use used a 2’ section of straight track as a test piece and completely routered all slots. This piece was later used as a lead in and lead off of our routered straight aways so we did not have to waste 2’ of material on each section. “Important” to make sure that you measure the gutters on the test piece to ensure that you have exactly 4.25” spacing on both sides of the track. If you are out just a 1/16” your slots will not match up where the tracks transforms from inside lane to become outside lane as in entering the dead man section. Our straights are actually full-length, so that the pieces can be spliced together into subassemblies, each one consisting of a full-straight, a curve, & another full-straight. We joined all 3 sections and routered all at one time. The router jig we used for the first (outer) slot has 2 rollers (These are 1-3/16” OD ball bearings mounted with bolts) that must always follow the outer edge of the curve; it just won’t work against the inner edge. Handling the track in subassemblies allows the roller jig to follow outer curve edges only, regardless of whether the curve is left-handed or right-handed. We routed the slot .350” deep as did J&L. This will supposedly accept any guide.
It should be mentioned here that the spacing between the rollers on the router jig is important, because it will determine how much wider the outside gutters are in the curves than they are in the straights. This gutter-widening effect happens automatically, & is a function of the jig’s geometry & the curve blank radius. The further apart the rollers, or the smaller the blank, the wider the gutters become in the curves. Our outside gutters go from 4.25” on the straights to 5.75” in the curves, & with a curve blank of 42” radius, the jig (Illust#5 ) required a roller spacing of 11.21” to achieve this. All our curve blanks were about the same , so this roller spacing was used on all curves. If your curve blanks vary in radius, but you’d like to maintain the same gutter width on all curves, you must build your roller jig with several different mounting holes for the rollers, so that you can select the appropriate roller spacing for the curve you’re working on.
Since the outer gutters get wider in the curves, the inner gutters naturally must get narrower. My roadway width is 26.5” on the straights, giving us 4.25” gutters on both sides. In the curves, the outer gutter grows to 5.75”, as mentioned; with this result the inner gutter has to shrink to only 2.75” which I felt was adequate. I wanted to utilize the full sheet of MDF with the least amount of waste. What I ended up with is a five lane track measuring 26.5” across, 4.5” lane spacing and 4.25” gutters. The waste that was cut off our straights (49”-26.5=22.5”) left me with a piece of material which measures 8’ x 22.5”. This was used to make all leg braces for the track. All our radius were positioned to the outside edge of all sheets so we could use the scrap to make all tongue and groove sections. We virtually had no waste when doing this project.
Once the first slot has been routed in all subassemblies with the roller jig, the router is removed from this jig & set up in the other slot jig, this one having 2 guide pins that guide the jig using the first slot. This pin jig is used to rout all the remaining slots, with the pins following the previous slot in succession. The pins in this jig are slightly under 1/8” in diameter, about .120”, so they slide freely in the slot, but without too much play. Unlike the rollers in the first jig, they are spaced only 4.5” apart, because no additional widening effect was desired on the inner 4 lanes. Since the slot can’t be routed all the way to the end (Both rollers must be against the edge at the start & finish), this is where our test piece of track was secured to the end of each piece to be routered, thus saving me 2’ of waste on each section.
An interesting side-effect of using this approach to slot routing (elliptical routing) is that the transition from straight to curve is not tangential, as it is in plastic track. It is actually a spiral (Illust#6) , with the straight turning into the curve in a constantly decreasing radius, until the final curve radius is reached. This means that the cars will not be subjected to a sudden change in direction, but will undergo a more gradual change when entering & exiting the curve.
The bank was easy to make. The basic principle is that you start with a curve of smaller angle than on your track plan, and then just push the two attached straights toward each other until the desired curve angle is reached. The bank will pop up by itself. In my case, I wanted to replicate J&L, so the bank will have a curve angle of 200 degrees after bending, according to our drawing. We cut the curve blank to 190 degrees & pulled the straights together with a come-along to get the final 10 degrees to obtain the desired 200. Unfortunately my tongue and grooved sections of the bank that was glued and screwed could not take the force required to make the bank and the screws pulled out of the track. I had to add 3” x ? bolts recessed in the track and later filled with bondo.
We now started assembling the leg braces that we cut from the excess straight sections. These are bolted to 2x2’s that we cut to match the track width. Because most of our pieces were so warped we put each piece in a planer, and planed the side that was to be screwed to the track. This would ensure that the track integridty would stay the same and not twist when we installed the brace.
Our next step deals with paint, braid, & wiring and any miscellaneous things that might be of interest. See Page 2
