Something Grew Overnight @ LRS...

The small, practice session sized crowd almost reached capacity overnight. Matt's generosity put another nail in my coffin. My family and a couple of my daughter's friends went over to Matt's for a cookout. We had good food, fun with our small cars and a big car, rockets, fishing, etc. Plus, he put 3 packs of 21 Carrera figures in my hands to help save my eyes and to make the LRS crowd more respectible. I will still paint some of the new ones for more variety. However, painting a shirt or hair will be a lot easier than painting them completely from a blank white figure like the MRRC figures.

He owns my soul so much. He does say on occassion, "The Devil comes in various forms." I'm waiting for the day that Soul Contract shows up in one hand with a pen in the other. Thanks again and again Buddy.

A Small Gathering @ LRS...

Well, I've slowly and I emphasis slowly painting some MRRC figures to fill the recently aquired Carrera double-decker grandstands. I go on record now by saying, "Painting little plastic figures absolutely sucks!!!" I really need a light magnifier to do these. However, they are decent enough for now. Later, I might do the additional washes to bring out the detail more. This already represents hours of my life that have gone by.

I used a toothpick to do the eyes and lens of the shades.

I also mixed my own colors for the clothing and accesories.

I did do a wash of sorts on the Grease Monkey. He had to be dirty.

The Marshalls and yes, every corner has a yellow flag. The 4 right flags were made from a piece of wire and a print our of color on the PC. It works for me.

I got a long way to go for a good sized crowd. A club memeber said that I've got the Practice Session crowd right now. The good thing is they can be added little by little. I see pre-painted Carrera figures in my future to save the cross-eyed headache of painting them myself.

I also used the same self-stick vinyl as I did on the grandstand to do a finish line effect with 1/2 inch white squares. I like the look and hope they hold up to the cars and guides rolling over them.

Long Time, No Updates...

I've slowly been working on scenery items and deciding how I want to do those scenery items. I finished painting the table top green. I decided on a Carrera Grandstand. The double decker with the VIP Box up top. I've figured out where the pits are going to eventually be and will be aquiring the double door Carrera Garages and the VIP Boxes that fit on top of them down the road.

I got lucky with the bottom 1/2 since it was given to me by my buddy Shawn and the top 1/2 was a great deal at $25 shipped. I had planned on painting them because they're just too white for my tastes. Luckily, Shawn had already painted the one he gave me grey as I planned on do them to begin with. However, he used the small can of Testors primer to do it. So, I had to either repaint it or bite the bullet and match it with the Testors at $4.00 a can. I hit Michael's 3 nights in a row coming home from work with one of their 40% off coupons each time. Every dollar saved adds up in the long run. I also lucked into about 5 cans of Testors in various colors in the clearance section at $1.49 each. Bonus!!!


Moving on to the issue with these Grandstands. I hate the seat stickers that came with them and Shawn's had faded big time and wouldn't have matched the new section. Plus, I don't have too many people. (Thanks Matt for what I do have) So, how can I jazz them up with a smaller crowd? I went to the real world for inspiration or madness depending upon your outlook. I purchased some white self stick vinyl for the Cricut machine the Mrs. has with the thinking it was going to do the cutting of 178 1 inch squares for me. She already had the black vinyl. Figured out where this is heading yet? Checkered flag seats!!!

The problem was that the cutting blade and matt that holds the vinyl in place needed to be replaced and that was another $20. I opted and chose to do it by hand. So, using the straight line cutter she had for her crafting projects I cut the 178 squares. I then had to remove the stickers from the one Shawn gave me and it was a pain in the ass. Then out came the tweezers and a very sharp Xacto knife to cut the vinyl from around the stair section. 2 days and who knows how many hours later, I ended up with this.

I still need to paint the sides of the roof grey to match and I'm thinking about paint the roof a flat red. It will need custom Welcome to Legion Region Speedway stickers for the advertising space too. Plus, all the little people I still have to paint by hand...UGH!!!

Then with the help of my Dad these came into play next. What are they? A little support, that's what they are. I have Ninco walls with the fencing and wanted to add them to my layout. They look great, but more importantly they work. The problem is that I'm running Scaley Sport track. So, the tabs that lock them into place don't work. I also, didn't want to damage the walls with nails or screws to hold them in place.

So, we came up with the wooden supports that have a groove that allows 2 wall ends to slide into the groove and be held in place by clear silicone. Then it was just a matter of screwing the support to the table.

Tell me that doesn't look cool. I dare you!!!

It will look even better once the trees are put behind it.

Layering = Visual Depth...pure and simple.

Here's the overall shot as it looks today. I still need to decide on how I'm going to make my other walls around the track. I want to paint a track logo in the big open green area in front of the grandstand. The monitor is where the grandstand will end up once it's replace with a LCD TV/Monitor. It's slowly getting there folks.

Wiring Is 95% Done...

I got the last of the driver stations installed the other night. I think they look really nice. I'm glad I mounted them to the inside of the side of the table. This keeps them back away from things the could bump them or get snagged on the bolts.

The only issue I'm having left is with the main str8. We put a jumper in the middle of the 11' str8 thinking this was the ideal location for it. However, when a car hits the str8 before and after the power tapped section of track they slow down. Also, it is only happening on the inside and outside lanes. It has me scratching my head. So, it looks like I will be adding a jumpers to the very beginning and end of the main str8.

Yeah, 16 more wires to cut, crimp, run, tack to the bottom of the table and solder to the underside of the track pieces. It couldn't be easy...could it?

Driver Stations Viva Las Vegas...

I know you can buy the plastic colored fender washers online to show which colored wire clips to which post on your driver stations. I figure it's $10.00 I could use elsewhere and I like to be different from the standard. I looked and looked for something white, black and red that I could use to mark the controller posts. I'd find enough white and red of this or just enough black and red of something else. However, never enough of all 3 colors.

Then I remembered I had a cheap card players kit with 2 decks of playing cards, a stack of yellow, white, red and...YES, BLA....uhhh blue poker chips. I didn't let the lack of black chips stop me and out came the black Sharpie marker. Very soon a white poker chip became a black one. I think they look pretty good and still give you a little chuckle at the same time. I only wish I thought of this last week, because I know someone who took a trip to Vegas. They could have picked me up some better looking chips to use.

Viva Las Vegas (with my upper lip twitching)

ALWAYS DOUBLE DOWN

I Forged Ahead & Into The Night...

I ended up staying up until 2:30 AM Sunday morning getting all 24 jumper wires run, cut, crimped and installed on the distribution blocks. I just have the driver stations to finish now. Our backs and necks are sore today. My right hand it toast and swollen from all the crimping. However, it's a sweet pain since it means I'm that much closer to being club racing ready. Soon folks...soon.

Track down...

Later on the night that I got the lights bought and hung I pulled out all the track pieces and started getting it laid out on the table. It was so much easier putting the track together standing up. I didn't miss being hunched over or on my knees on the concrete floor.

I actually gave my Dad the wrong length for the table when he drew it all up. It was suppose to be only 17' long. However, the extra foot on the end in picture #1 below will allow me to place my monitor in the left corner of the table for the timing system. So, a mistake that paid off for once.

I plan on trying to create an elevation(s) somewhere within the layout. I've got a couple of ideas swirling around, but until I actually do it and run a car around to see how it will actually work...they remain just ideas.

Photo #1

See anything wrong in Photo #1? I put all this track in a box and upon taking it all back out to build the layout I had a R4 curve go AWOL on me. It couldn't be a piece that I had 5 extras of...could it?

The box did end up on the side of the basement that everything was piled up in and I'm sure it fell out into the mess. I'll have to do a search and rescue. Unless, the track gremlins are playing a nasty trick on me. However, Dan, one of our club members, said he might have one laying around his basement for me.

Photo #2

I'm thinking the outer section of this end might become the elevated section of the track.

So, next the big task of wiring the 4 driver stations, the track for the variable power supply and who knows how many power taps around the track. I'm not looking forward to this part, but I've got several of our local Cincy Slot Rods Club boyz ready to help. I just need to get the funds for the supplies together.

Day 1

Everything on the side of the basement where the track was going to be built got shoved to the other side of the basement. Can anyone say, Yard Sale?

My Dad had taken my doodle for my idea of the framing for the table and made it stronger, better and cheaper. He's a draftsman and woodworker...need I say more?

He drafted out the framing of the table to be the most sound table using the least amount of wood. He had the parts list down to...10 @ 2"x4"x96", 4 @ 2"x4"x12' and so on.

He used 3 different length screws and knew how many of each we needed. He figured out how the 4'x8' sheets of OSB had to be cut so they would not only cover the framing, but would fit down the stairs to the basement since they double back.

All of the above was great and ended up saving me money from not buying more wood that what was actually needed. He even figured what pieces were to be cut from which length of 2"x4" to make the cut waste as small as possible.

I picked him up around 9 am on a Saturday morning and we headed for Lowe's with his list in hand. We had to get their rental truck to get this all home and figured an early start would get the truck without a problem. However, the truck was already out and not expected back for around 50 minutes. That wasn't a problem because it would take that long to inspect and choose all those 2"x4"s for straightness. Plus, I had to get the boys to cut down 4 sheets of OSB to the correct sizes we needed. It also gave my Dad some time to help a couple of younger guys make sure that they picked the right wood for a project they were working on that day. He said, "I don't work here, but I can give you my opinion and if I was wrong that's okay because I won't be there." The guys gave a good laugh and were glad for the help.

All the wood picked, cut and loaded on the truck we headed home. We unloaded all of it into the garage and took the truck back. We headed over to a Sears Hardware store for the screws. It pays to shop around folks. Lowe's had the best deal on the wood because of a sale going on that week, but they couldn't come close on the screws. They didn't have a box of screws under $7.00, but Sears had what we needed for under $5 per box.

Once we got back home we unloaded all of my Dad's tools and setup his chop saw. We slid all the 2"x4"s via the basement window and attacked. No nails on this job. Everything was drilled, countersunk and screwed together for strength and easier dismantling if needed down the road.

We put in 7 to 8 hours that day getting the frame work done minus the legs. In the picture below we had aleady used around 100 screws. However, the knees, ankles, legs and backs were killing us at this point and so we called it a day. The plan was to call each other around 10 am Sunday to see if either of us could still move and if so we would continue with the build.