Thought it was time to introduce my door track. It's 36x80 with a 1" edge and a 1x8 on the front, the remaining sides are covered with 1/4" hardy board. I used #14 wire for all jumpers and used terminal blocks to keep things tidy. If I remember correctly I used #18 phone line for connecting to the track for power points, I used the old aurora service roads to make the working pits and added 9" cross over curves for proper pit entry. I'm currently adding throw switches to each control station for each pit. The track is Tomy and used the 18" curves for the sweeping curve on one end. The high road is 6" from the rest of the track and comes down easily to level. I used ON Slots boarders for the most part but waited to long and he shut down so finished using HO Slot Car Racing boarders. Used 1/4" foam board to bring track to ground level and covered it with plaster cloth. Painted that with medium brown paint, used several different rock molds for cliff faces and added brown pigment for later dings. Used plaster cloth over newspaper for the remaining areas and painted them brown also. Used spackling to finish any needed repairs on the cliff joints and blending into surrounding areas. I've been using Woodland Scenics fine,blended, course turf clump foliage. Still need trees, people, hedges, flowers, gravel for paths and roads near pits and along track in some spots. Tents, Vender huts, most importantly my working machine shop more on that later. I consider it about 1/2 done and the remaining portions will probably take as long or longer to complete, so far I've been at it over a year. More later, thanks for letting me share.
Ogre

A few more pictures.

36 by 80 eh??.... A man after my own heart (same as mine). nd

NICE -- looks smooth! :thumbsup:

You been holding out on us Ogre!

I really like the elevated back stretch and your supporting rock work.

Yeah...holding out is right!
Here are some more perfectly good ideas to swipe for my track landscaping and I almost missed it! LOL

Well...I am just glad you shared! Inspirational, bud! :thumbsup:

Thanks for the kind words. I would have posted sooner but The work moves slowly. Also it took some time to decide which site forum to post it on. I've seen the support you have all given to other people with small tracks and decided this should be the site and forum to post it on. I do have some early build steps that I could post.
Ogre

How about a shot of the layout design too. nd

The scenic work makes it seem larger than a door track. Very nice work. :thumbsup:

VERY nice!:thumbsup:

Post up, Ogre! We love the "how-tos"!
It is always fun to see how ya got from thar to har...er here!! :thumbsup:

Oh gawd yeah Ogre please post up yer journey and give us the whole story! :thumbsup:

We all suffer our slot afflictions together here.:p

Love the elevation change too, it really adds to the layout. Very nice. Please do post a track map too!

Definitely love the how tos. Great looking so far and door trcacks are great. I had to scale down from 12'X4' table to the same size door. Worked out great! :) rr

Thanks for the kind words. To me it was important to be able to have a good percentage of the track landscaped. So I new the track would be short but as long as it flowed well that was alright. It's close to being a paper clip execpt for the pits. They were the hardest to fit in since they were old style, 3" adapter tracks helped a lot. I traced the track on the door using the track pieces as a guide and made underlayment from black shelf liner from Home Depot. I glued these down on the tracings. I used 1x6 to get the height I needed and them shorter to get the drop I wanted. I used Gorilla Glue and a small electric stapler-nailer to put it together, applying the glue heavy so it would expand and form a small support against the uprights. struggled with the track till all was flat and had good electricial contact, then screwed it down. I have unscrewed it and made some adjustments with out any problems. I followed the instructions on this site for a lot of the build.
http://www.hoslotcarracing.com/ More later.
Ogre

Nice Job!

It's close to being a paper clip execpt for the pits.

Elegant simplicity, with a couple 2 or 3 places to watch yer arse or yer outta the slot. :thumbsup::thumbsup: nd

This will be all untill I make some major improvements. Some may find them helpfull others may find them boring. I'm not much of a talker, But will be back. Ogre

I knew I wanted working pit lanes from the beginning; however other then locating the service roads on e-bay for a reasonable price and placing the pits in close proximity,I didn't know how to go about making it work I posted on several sites asking for help but other then a few replies about wanting to do the same I had no success. Using old crossover 9" cures or 9" strights from Tomy,(in my case I used the curves) I was able to exit each lane properly. I used a manual switch for railroads and have not finished yet, but while searching for something on e-bay I came across an item that would make all this very easy if I had known about it in the beginning. Granted it's not cheap but will allow everything to be electrically activated. I hope it will help with someone's desire to have working pit lanes. I think a small electric switch could be mounted on the controllers.http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=ho-models

This will be all untill I make some major improvements. Some may find them helpfull others may find them boring. I'm not much of a talker, But will be back. Ogre

Very similar to the Paperclip from Braun's site (not implying you copied it, just that I like that design).

Should provide some good lap times and racing. I prefer a fast, less technical track for casual fun.

I haven't taken a lot of time to work on the track untill now. Not much but thought I'd share the build of the machine shop, one thing I'll say about the machine tools they are pricey little things. Not sure if I need more or not, but I need to make air lines to each machine plus electric. The air compressor is pretty small; I'll have to search for a large one. Still need lifts, welder, barrels, etc. Will be installing sound for the shop and need to find a way to hide the speaker, maybe install it in a home made HVAC unit on the wall up close to the top. I can't seem to come up with anything better for a see through roof then thin plasitic sheet, maybe a half roof? It's hard to believe theirs nobody else interested in working pit lanes, perhaps it's the cost to go electric and the fact it would probably only work for 2 lanes, O well, more later.

Cool stuff on the machine shop diorama. I have a small collection of stuff for a future scene- if you go to Walthers you can find a variety of super small die cast hand tools like screwdrivers, hack saws, hammers, pliers, etc. There is also an LED kit that mimics a welder. I want to check this out. I sketched up a welder scene idea using a spark plug and 12v coil on a button but never tried it. If you got fancy you could even create sparks on a grinder by concealing one of those toy sparker wheels somehow.

-Scott

Slow building season for me, but have installed concrete barriers and a chain link fence on two curves. I'm not sure if I should leave the barriers with square ends or trim to fit the curve better. Not much but more to come. Hope everyone is having a good summer.
Ogre

Any chance you have any shots with more real estate in them?... Those are a real teaser lol. I don't think you could go wrong either way with your barriers, I've seen them both ways (cut/fitted and more or less just placed). BTW... what kind of track? Never saw a crisscross on a curve.... very different. :thumbsup::thumbsup: nd

Progress reports are always great!

Fencing looks very realistic. Can ordinary wimpy humans aquire it...or do you have to be an Ogre?

First 241, Check picture.I got the track piece off of e-bay. All pictutes of track are in my photo album.
Bill, This is where I found fence plus they have some other great items for detail.http://www.microstru.com/Security-fence.html

Ogre,
The track looks awesome! Where did you get the Jersey Barriers from that are in front of the security fencing? The inside of the turn you've shown reminds me of Long Beach with the fence and concrete barriers. :thumbsup:
Russ the Hutt

Great link Ogre...book marked!....muchas gracias!

resinmonger,
This is the site and they have some nice outhouses too. I may have to get the cell tower also.
http://www.blmamodels.com/cgi-bin/webstore/shop.cgi?c=search.blue.htm&t=main.blue.htm&categories=01001-00011