MAGracing Forum

Raudi1 wrote:... I see "vintage 1/24" made an awesome bullring oval w/ the Keid method... What switching method did you use? Hoping to save a ton of time in trial and error... I'm willing to learn.

I answered your IM but in case you missed it:-

The Demel Cuttoff saw, with the 1/4" MDF glued to it base (which is the material I was using for building the track anyhow), makes a cut that is about 1 mm deep - which is the thickness of the wire. You can tweak this by affixing thin pieces of tape to the "foot" to finely adjust the depth of the cut to match exactly where you want that wire to be - but suffice it to say - very little material is removed.

It is very easy to "freehand" and you can also remove a rectangular recessed area for the lane change plates just by moving it around -
There is so little material excavated, and the MDF material is pretty soft - so the cutoff saw can easily clear or mill a small recess, and because of the 1/4" MDF "foot", it is guaranteed to not go any deeper than that 1mm depth- no matter where you cut.

When you do this yourself you will see just how shallow the 1 mm "slot" is - not at all like the woodworking a typical routed wood slot car track requires.

So yes - I used the lane change plates as per the manufacturer's instructions - and filled the "milled" or "routed" recess with a small amount of spackle or plaster.

Here is link to another discussion on a dedicated slot car board that might be interesting as well:

http://www.homeracingworld.us/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1175

Thanks much. Agreed the saw is much easier than routing a traditional slot table... Got about half my track done this weekend in couple hours. Hoping to get cars and switch points this week.

Yes, raudi and I got started on the track and the routing seemed the easiest way so far. I'd like to see what the traction difference is between painted wood vs painted cardboard vs painted plaster. I'm sure the thickness of the paint also plays a role.

We've taken a lot of photos and should be able to show some progress at some point.

Hella Keld,

Thank you for sharing your method. Guess I have to check that. Looks very practicable!

Regards Jens

Any one wear out a blade yet? Got about 30' to 40' and it is starting to cut slow.

Brion.

Heat is the worst enemy of any tooled steel. MDF has resins in it that will get pretty hot while machining the board. Probably your best bet would be to to your cuts in short bursts giving the blade a chance to cool between bursts. This would probably be especially true when cutting curves where the blade must flex to cut 'round the curve. Rotary type blades really are only meant for straight cutting so special care must be taken to use them beyond their untended design.

MA

Thanks Mike. I might have pushed the saw a little hard also shortening the blade life even more.

Brion.

Hi guys,
I also will try the Dremel method, 'cause the plastering is sooo messy....
I made a support via 3d-printing.
I attached the thing with thin double-sided adhesive tape. The security mechanism of the saw is still working with this part.

Can you use normal woodglue?

Can you give an indication of how much glue one needs (per x meter or so)?

Renngarage wrote:Hi guys,
I made a support via 3d-printing.

Besides sharing that nice picture can you also share the design?