Crash Barriers

The Armco style barriers from Scalextric and other manufacturers have always appeared oversize to me.

I assume this is because the extra height is needed to stop the cars careering off the track and over the barriers.

I don't mind this but when put in front of scenery it blocks out the view. I have therefore been thinking for a while that I should cut some of them down and open up the view.

Where I have cut them down I have only done it where there is something else stopping the car crashing to the floor should they go over the lower barrier.

I think the end result looks much better and was very easy to do freehand with a box cutter. (Not often that I prefer the American name for something but Stanley is a brand and we don't appear to have an English generic name for that type of knife!)

I ended up with lots of nice looking Armco style sections with no posts. I didn't want to waste them and I had a few places they would look nice.

I found that a 20mm panel pin pushed through the plastic at the top of what is left of the post and epoxied (5 min Araldite) behind the barriers made an excellent post. I pushed them in to a 1mm hole on the track.

The main place I used this was round the hairpin. Longer cars often come off there and spin out of the corner and cross the other track blocking them . I've put a barrier that will not stop the car coming off but hopefully will stop it blocking other lanes.

The lack of height for the remaining bit of the post I made up with filler as if the earth had piled up round the bottom.