Grub and Growth

As mentioned in my last post adding the grub will finish off the road margins.

Before I started with the road margins and verges, I was not entirely happy with the road surface. There were too many puddles of paint instead of an overall grey.

I went over it all with a damp cloth. I had to rub quite hard but it worked to get the effect I was aiming for. I commented on the technique in my thread on the SlotForum.

I then started with the grub that gets pushed to the sides of the road.

I used MDF sawdust for most of this as I can create more of this than I could ever use. That worked but was a bit too light in colour to go with the concrete causeway. I think sawdust will make a better arid effect or perhaps dry mud.

To get a result that I preferred I added lots of greens from the Woodland Scenics range of grasses and ground cover. I have to say it is much better to apply than the sawdust.

I probably need a bit more practice but I am happy with the end result for my first attempt. Just need to wait for the glue to dry and clean it up a bit.

Weathering the Roadside

I can get some quiet jobs done during the weekday evenings.

This week I got some layers of paint on the raised concrete end of the track and started the weathering.

I don't like dwelling on the intermediate stages of paint, they always look messy.

Perhaps that's just the way I paint :-)

It starts to come together with the weathering.

From what I have seen concrete next to roads invariably gets a layer of black soot washed down by rain.

For that effect I use what looks like dirty water on a torn sponge and drag it up the concrete.

The mixture is less than a pea size drop of mat black paint to half a cup of water.

I add more colour towards the bottom as that is where grub congregates probably as damp rising up from the ground.

A smear of undiluted black paint on the cup of watery paint is handy to dip a corner of the sponge in to add more depth. I keep the sponge wet and drag it about. Mainly pulling the extra paint from the bottom towards the top.

I always use water based paints. Oil based paints always make me bunged up for several days so water based acrylics are my preferred choice.

In this case I'm using water based household paint. I have white and black to make up greys to cover larger areas, mainly for the concrete edges.

Roads are rarely black unlike the Scalextric plastic. I'm matching the plastic with black paint on the borders but then reducing the solid colour of the road surface with a grey wash over all the black.

I was going to mask the conductors but I wanted to fade the colour rather than have a harsh edge. I used a hand held mask to keep the paint off of the contacts and rubbed them down after to clean them.

For the road surface I found it easier to dip the foam in to undiluted paint and then in to the water to to wash off most of the paint and wet the sponge. That was then dragged along the track and the border.

I'm undecided on the look at the moment. It will be the final detailing that will hide the transition from black road to concrete wall with a more natural appearance.

Driving about it is not hard to see how grub gets pushed to the sides of roads blurring the margin. That's the next job to do.

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Update:

The above looks a bit blotchy, see my next post for improvements.

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Land Rover Models

I had nearly given up trying to find any Land Rover Discovery or Defender slot cars or even any 1:32 scale plastic kits.

Someone on a forum spotted a plastic 1:32 model of a Defender on ebay and kindly let me know.

I put a low bid on and much to my surprise I got the model which arrived yesterday.  The postage was more than the final bid.

For some odd reason it has a die-cast metal roof but the rest of the body and chassis are plastic.  I have no idea when I will get time to convert it in to a slot car but for the time being it can adorn the track as decoration along with the die-cast metal Discovery that I already had.

Gmail App Battery Life

I've had problems with the battery life on my Android phone recently.

It's a Google (LG) Nexus 5.  A phone I very much like.

I assumed the battery was getting old as there was no obvious culprit to the battery drain.  It took me a while to realise that Gmail should not be permanently at the top of the power usage graph!

I had a look round at other e-mail apps but none of the ones I tried were able to have different incoming and outgoing mail server settings which I prefer to have as I use my own domain for mails but Outlook.com to store them. Outgoing mails look better without the 'sent on behalf of' message that Outlook.com adds with my type of setup!

As I was sticking with Gmail I made a change to the setup. I set the sync frequency to the maximum hourly.  That did not help.  After a very quick search I found that Gmail is being accused by others of having battery issues. Several suggested clearing the cache. Easy to try just click the button.

There were no apparent changes to Gmail or its setup. I did that yesterday morning.  For the past day Gmail has been well down the list of power using apps so I am hopeful that was the problem.

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Edit: I have also just changed the location services so they do not use the GPS.  The second biggest battery drain after the screen was the GPS.

Filling Time

As I have stopped to wait for the glue and filler to dry I have some time to show some photos of the progress on the track.

I have been working on one end of the layout. I started here because it needs a barrier to stop the cars falling on the floor.

This end is not the most interesting scenery. It is intended to be a concrete supported road, a bit like a bridge section. I decided on this to explain why it overhangs the edge and to make it different to other parts of the track which will mainly be Armco barriers.

Even though it is a concrete wall it still needs some details to make it look realistic. At the first attempt the end of the barrier was too high. It just looked a bit overpowering to me.

I have softened it by stepping it down at the end and finishing it off with some support buttresses.

I finished off by filling all the gaps and using the filler to add texture in a few places.

Up and Running

I've added a little bit each evening and finished enough this weekend for the Scalextric track to be usable.

I also added a simple background before connecting up the track. It's ready to drive and ready to add scenery.

The background is just to give the illusion of sky.  Without the scenery it just looks blue but I have high hopes that it will make the scenery look better, once I add some.

I glued poster paper on to hardboard screens to form the sky.

I have read a lot of concern about electrical connections when Scalextric track is taken apart or even just over time. There have been lots of possible solutions suggested online. Many are too time consuming so I've been on the look out for a relatively simple low cost solution.

My method is to crimp any joint I take apart and add a tiny bit of electrical joint grease. There are lots of expensive products but I managed to find something that sounded like it would do the job and at a low cost.

I can't tell if it works but I connected up the track and it ran on both lanes first time. I did have one corner lane changer not switching but I cleaned up the jack plug connector with some spray contact cleaner and that sorted out that.

The overhanging corner that double back on itself needs to be taken quite slowly otherwise the cars fall off.  It's a big drop so I've put some temporary barriers round there and a couple of other places to save the cars.

Slow Progress

I've had a good amount of time to work on the track but it is taking longer than I expected to get the underlying framework built to my satisfaction.

Probably most of the time was spent adjusting one of the complex slopes.

This is two slopes on straight sections between curves. They are also at a slight bank.

I came up with a simple method to create the slopes. I've used 6mm MDF for most of the slopes that need forming but I have also got shallow curves with 9mm MDF.

I use two parallel straight bits of timber and cross members to form the height.

One end of the board is securely screwed to the flat of the timber and at the other end I just lift the board and push in the cross member. That can be slid along or the thickness changed until I get the angle curve I am after. More complex curves use more cross members.

What took the time was that after assembling it, I ended up with a very steep bank along the back wall under the window.  This is just because of the combined slopes in different directions. I expected a small bank but what I got was so angled I was concerned about the traction of the cars.

I had a rethink, took it apart and rebuilt it several times until I was able to get a gentle slope that curves back to near level.  This solved the banking problem.  At least to an angle I was happy the cars would not suffer from.

When going over the brow of a hill it is necessary to have only a very gentle curve. So many cars, because of the magnets, are very close to the track and make contact very easily. I won't know for sure if I've got it right until it is all back together and the cars are racing round.

I've had help at most stages as you can see by the photos.

One other thing. As this is only a semi-permanent design I have been marking up the best places to take it apart, as I go along. Without this I know I will not remember.

I just have two sections left to join together to complete the framework for the circuit.