Scale Guardrails on Larry’s San Marino Road circuit
Some track builders have been asking about the guardrails on the San Marino raod course. Dave used the same method of building a stout yet realistic guardrail when he had to create a robust 1/32 scale rail for the top of his high banked Monza turn on his own scale track. See Legends International Raceway in the “Our Tracks” page and refer to pictures of his Monza turn for more examples. He replicated that effort on Larry’s track below.
Scenic Hay Bales
Hay bales were used to protect drivers on road courses from the early days of racing up to the early 70’s. Adding hay bales to your road course can give it a remarkably vintage look. Dave added some to Larry’s layout to transform the streets of San Marino into a temporary street racing circuit. You can see more used on Dave’s own track on the “Our tracks” page. His Legends International Raceway replicates the temporary annual racing held at Lemans in the early 70’s.
Thomas wrote in asking…Â Hello Jimmy, I was wondering how did you make those hay bales on your track?
These 2.5″ x 1.25″ x 1″ wired straw bundles are sold under the brand name of Straw Weavers at arts and craft stores like Micheal’s. They are found in the artificial dry flower area. They come in larger sizes but though the smallest is just a bit oversize for 1/32, it’s close enough to add instant detail to the run off areas of any layout requiring that vintage look.
Scale Racing Scenery- Larry’s Track East side
Track Builders,
Dave sent us progress pictures of his work on the East side of Larry’s track. I thought this would be a good way to illustrate how Dave uses scraps of foam insulating board as the foundation for scenic burms and hillsides adjacent to the track. Yes, it’s the same technique he uses for rock outcrippings but his final colors, and the texture he glues down on to the foam transforms it into a lusher rolling landscape.
As with all model scenic raceways, the final scenery must be coated with drops of a mixture of 50% water, 50% white glue mixed with a drop of dishwashing soap to help the mixture flow out. Large areas can have this mixture sprayed onto it. This coat of clear setting glue is allowed to dry overnight, then repeated two or three times to achieve the surface hardness necessary.
This hard scape technique keeps car crash impacts from breaking scenery or scraping scenic material onto the race track.
Trans-Am on Rick’s Vintage Mid Ohio
Rick sent us these great photos of his AC2Car powered track. They highlight some of his latest scenery up dates.
The cool Trans-Am cars in the foreground are resin body scratch built cars (RMS resins)with decals from(Slotcars4u) .
Rick writes, “Big thanks go to Dave Reinecke (RMS resins) and Tim Millward (Slotcars4u) for the super great service”
Note how the roadway on VMO Raceway “undulates”. (I love that word)
A layout routed of MDF gives a track builder the ability to create exciting changes in elevation.
Though Rick’s track is 1/2″ thick, now we are finding that 3/8″ thick MDF makes adding rises, dips and banking even easier.
Great to race on, and even better for realistic track scenery!