INSANE SPEEDWAY

[TuscoTodd]

WOW! That is coming together quick!
Nice!!! :D

[midmoslts]

Today I worked alone on the track. Tom offered and was planning on coming to help, but I wasn't feeling like working on it after work. Somehow I still found myself out in the garage tinkering with it. Then I figured I may as well do something productive if I want to get it done. So I started putting the legs on and soon had the 2 front stretch straights standing on there own. Then I clamped the dog leg between them and added the turns on each end. The excitement started to get to me and I set out to get the middle straight up and connected. Now I was really in the zone, however it was time to go start the grill for dinner. That ended up being the end of my progress for the day. I will try to add a picture tomorrow.

Tom seems to think that I should do a separate post about the fixtures/jigs that I have built for track construction. I wasn't sure about the hole idea as I didn't come up with the ideas on my own, but after I thought about it I think that it is possible that I have put my own spin on a few of them. So if you have any interest in the details of the tools, keep an eye out for that post to show up after the track has been completed. I will try to be as detailed as I can and if I miss some detail that you want to know about just ask and I will do my best to answer.

While I will admit that this build has been a fair amount of work and I am not even close to done I will have to say that it has been a rewarding experience. Tom has been a great help and we have been having fun working together on the track. If anyone decides to take on a track build I recommend doing it with a friend. The fun you have along the way will be part of the hole experience.

[dreinecke]

WOW!!! That is a great looking track and you guys aren't screwing around! The Professor is a hard worker from what I've seen.

I'll add this to my "must visit" list when I'm in MO next!

[midmoslts]

I am sure we can make that happen. Just give me a heads up.

[HomeRacingWorld]

I think Tom is right. Good info that is easy to find.

Now don't work him too hard...or yourself. You will need your energy soon :)

[midmoslts]

At the rate I'm going now I'll be somewhere eventually. I just hope someone lets me know when I get there.

[btaylor]

Dang, that looks great!


Bob

[midmoslts]

I made a trip to the store to get hardware to bolt everything together today. Other than that I didn't really do anything but some straightening up. Thought this may be a good time to do a recap.

On day 1, worked on my own after work. Laid out some legs. The reason for this is that I was wanting to try to use some plywood that I had from some stuff I had taken apart in the past. As I was not sure how many I would get from the material I had I wanted to get them laid out to see how much I would still need to buy before the official start of the build.

Day 2, worked on my own after work. Laid out and cut some legs. Had to quit when the pulley on my table saw broke. Now I could tell that I was going to have enough material to get all the legs done without buying any more.

Day 3, Good Friday so I had the day off. Today I had help. I started by fixing the table saw then we started by cutting the triangles for the legs. 35 legs so 70 triangles in all. Now for the good stuff. The track has 6 straightaways so we set up the table saw and ripped 3 of the sheets in half. That quick we had the material for the straights prepped. We didn't cut any of them down to length yet. In the end we could have cut them down to the exact length that I had drawn them to, but we opted to be cautious and wait until we were further along and double check as we went. Next we set up to do the turns. We started with the 96" 180 degree that sits in the middle of the track as the overpass. By the end of the day we had all the turns cut and everything laid out on the floor. We still had not cut down the straights. Cleaned up lots of sawdust and called it a day.

Day 4, working with Tom again. Tom worked on cutting the slots in the legs and getting them assembled. I must say that tom worked hard on this part. Legs look simple, but if you want the slots in them so they are adjustable it is a lot of work. While Tom worked on the legs I cut 2x4's down to the width of the track and then ripped them on one edge. The reason to cut the one edge was to give a square edge to put against the bottom of the track. Then I started on the elliptical router jig for the first slot. Next up was screwing and gluing all 2x4's to the track. Got started on gluing the parts together until we ran out of glue, daylight, and steam.

Day 5, Working together again. Back to gluing and screwing things together. Started clamping the sections together. We started with the parts that we knew were fixed points and would not change. The 8' straight along the back was joined to the 180 overpass turn. Next we checked the length of the straight that connected to the other side of the turn. All was good so we cut it and clamped it in place. Then we clamped the 2 turns on the left end of the track in place. Every thing still looked good and was following the track plan as it should. Now we were onto the turns that have off angles (more or less than 180 degrees). The 14' straight was clamped up with the corner on the left end of the track and the others were laid in place to be sure we didn't miss any important details and that they would all be able to connect at the tangent point. Still looking good so the corner was cut to size and lamped up to the straight. Again laying all the rest of the pieces out to be sure everything was fitting up properly. Then the front stretch on the right was extended to the 9'6" length and put back for a final check. Still looking good we located the tangent and cut the turn. Another part out of the way and everything still going as planned. We keep repeating the check fit, find tangent point, mark, cut, check fit, and clamp in place method. As the sun started to set we were running out of energy, but we had all the track cut and fitted together on the floor.

Day 6, working with a little help from the wife for about an hour. We got the legs on the front stretch and dog leg. Stood them up and clamped them together.

I have been tinkering, but not doing any real work beyond that. I do hope to get some done tonight, but will have to see how I feel by the time I get home and what's going at home when I get there.

[TuscoTodd]

Boy that is coming together nicely!
Two thumbs up!

[RazorJon]

looking good cant wait to try out a few laps :text-thankyouyellow:

[midmoslts]

Tom and I worked for a little while and got the 14' straight on it's legs and clamped in place. The floor in the garage is far less than level and that is going to make for a fair amount of work before any of the slots can be routed. We talked about doing it and looked at doing it in different ways, but didn't do anything.

I don't think that anything more will get done this week. I worked 7am to 5pm and then went back to work at 8:30 and stayed until after 11pm last night. That kind of put me in a funk not to mention putting me off my sleep schedule. At this point I think I am thinking more about racing cars than working on the track. I think Saturday should give me my fix. With any luck I wont be to worn out to work on it on Sunday. Only time will tell.

[midmoslts]

For the build I did give thought to the idea of using copper tape. It would make the build go quicker and require a few less tools, but I really wanted to do it right. In my mind braid is better and that is what I decided to do.

I decided to go with SCC for the braid. I have run on Harry's tracks that use it and they run great. I'm sure that there are other places that I could have bought from, but I chose to go with the folks we know and boy am I glad that I did. I ordered the braid on Monday night about 7:30 central time and the next day they sent me an email with all the tracking information. The box arrived Friday and was packed really well. So much so that I want to share pictures of it. Let me tell you that they know how to package the products that they sell. With all the spray foam in the box not one hint of it on any of the product. Thanks SCC guys.




As an added bonus I made a trip to HRW on Saturday for the fun run and ended up with some very nice items that the SCC folks gave to Harry to share with us. I will post more about it on the fun run thread. If you haven't been following that one you should check it out. Thanks for having me Harry and Cindy. Thanks to all who support it as SCC is just one of the many.

[midmoslts]

I had been tinkering after work most days. Managed to bondo a router mishap and lots of screw holes. Last night I got it all sanded down and the wayward slot re-routed. Then with help from my 11 year old son we put the 96" overpass turn in place and brought the middle straight up to elevation. After all the legs were re-adjusted we started working on putting the last turn in place. By then he was wanting to get back to his game boy and mom came to the rescue. Together we put the last section in place and clamped it all together. Tonight I hope to get all the joints lined up and bolted together. If all goes well I may even manage to get the last of the slot routing done.

[midmoslts]

I thought I had posted these pictures already, but I guess I forgot. This is the beginning of the slot routing. I decided on the elliptical routing method. If you look close you can see the turn in starts back on the straight and eases into the turn and then becomes a constant radius. I made my jig with different settings for different radius turns and so far I like the way it is working out. The track is 24" wide with 4" lane spacing and a 6" gutter inside and out. With this method the inside gutter gets smaller in the turns and the outside gutter gets larger. So far it has come out to be 9" on the outside in the center of the turns.

[btaylor]

Thats Awesome Karl! going to be one fun track. Maybe i can stop by and run next visit to HRW!

Bob