Best Way To Clean Slot Car Track
Slot cars are made for driving on a track and not for sitting on a shelf, whether you enjoy racing your slot car by yourself or facing other competitors. The quality and speed of a race is determined by a number of factors, including the track conditions, your equipment, and your personal racing style. However, there are several tips and economical solutions that will help you get your slot car racing.
1. Keep your slot car clean and in good working order.
This is one of the most important and most overlooked aspects of slot car racing. Establish a cleaning schedule for your slot car, such as a full cleaning after every five races. Begin your regimen by removing the body of the car to visually inspect and wipe down all aspects of the vehicle. Be sure to carefully examine the chassis of the car for any weaknesses, and check that the pickup shoes are clean. Determine that the wheel hubs are rotating freely without rubbing the chassis, and be sure to rotate the slot car’s tires on a regular basis to prevent wear and tear from too many turns. Check that your wheel axles are not bent, and replace them immediately if they are bent. By cleaning the car and replacing any damaged parts on a regular basis, your car will last longer and perform better.
2. Oil your slot car
While you are carefully cleaning and examining your car, take the opportunity to oil the vehicle’s chassis and motor. You want to be careful that you do not use too much oil, as this will ooze from the slot car’s parts and cause a mess on the track. A small drop is really all you need at each location. Pay attention to each chassis axle bearing, and apply the oil when they are not spinning freely. Check that the armature is also spinning well, and administer a drop on the front and rear motor end bells as necessary. Make this oiling process part of your cleaning routine, but only apply the oil when needed.
Jan 08, 2012 You'd be amazed at what Pleby's solution will lift from plastic track. Many, many years ago I tried Duraglit to clean the rails on a few pieces of track. It didn't work well, and left a load of residue in the texture of the track. A couple of rubs with some Pleby's 20yrs later took all that gunk away. I happen to think it smells quite pleasant. A clean slot car track and slot car tires will improve traction which will improve the performance of your cars. Especially going into and coming out of curves. Cleanliness improves grip between track and tire! Better grip means better control. I started slot car racing in my basement about 6 years ago.
3. Use Jel-Claws tires
When you first purchased your slot car, it most likely came with rubber rear tires. While these are perfectly serviceable for slot car racing, replacing these tires with Jel-Claw ones will greatly improve your speed. Our tires will grip more firmly, allowing you to accelerate your car’s speed while staying on track. In addition, Jel-Claw tires reduce excessive wheel spin, especially during sudden accelerations, so you will experience improved performance during races. This is one of the simplest and least expensive upgrades you can do for your slot car.
4. Watch your pickup shoes
Like replacing the rear tires of your car, swapping the pickup shoes can greatly improve your vehicle’s performance at very little cost to you. Most slot cars begin with copper pickup shoes, but for slightly more money, you can replace those standard shoes with gold-plated ones that will help get more power to the car’s motor. With this slight upgrade, your car will see an increase of power, leading to an improved racing speed.
5. Focus your racing on one or two cars
One of the best ways to improve your slot car racing technique is to choose one car to use and stick to that car exclusively. You want to get to know and understand the handling of that particular car so that you know intuitively how it will handle the track, the turns, and your commands. If you switch back and forth between several cars, you will invariably forget the idiosyncrasies of your favorites, and you will not perform as well during races. You may want to get to know two cars very well, that way you have a back-up in case of a breakdown or a poor performance one day.
6. Practice
Do not forget to practice! The more time you spend practicing with your slot cars on a track, the more familiar you will be with each chassis. You will learn how to accelerate and hug the curves of the track with your individual car. Increased practice will serve you well during races with competitors since you will be able to easily predict how your slot car will respond in every racing scenario. In addition to improving your race technique, frequent practice will help you recognize and address subtle chassis or motor problems before they become an issue on the race track.
Photo Source: Techedive
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| Maintaining Braided Tracks | |
Link to 'Painting and laying Braid / Tape' | |
Here'ssome tips on maintaining a braided track in good condition. As with the pages ontrack building, this is based on my experience and whatother people have told me they do. Do you know a better or easier way of keepinga track in good condition? If you've got any track maintenance tips you'd liketo share, please e mail me on slot_racing@yahoo.co.uk
Chris Frost
Keep it clean!
Tracks do need cleaning from time to time -so how do you cleanthem. The first thing to be aware of is the adhesive holding thebraid in place will loose it's grip if it has too much exposure to solvents.Tracks do have to be cleaned from time to time, so some use of solvents and alittle degradation of the adhesive bond is inevitable. The trick is to minimizethe exposure to solvents-
1 Do not use more solvent on the braid than absolutelynecessary. Always avoid putting solvent direct on the braid, use a solventdampened rag on the braid. A little liquid solvent on the painted track surfacewill do noharm provided it is rubbed off before running onto the braid.
Best Way To Clean Ho Slot Car Track
2 Use a solvent that evaporates quickly - lighter fluid isgood. White spirit should be avoided, it evaporates slowly so it hangsaround softening the glue for too long.
Obviously it's important to follow the safety precautions onthe solvent tin. Generous ventilation and no smoking (or other sources ofignition) are important.
Minor braid repairs
Braid does sometimes come unstuck. Short lengths can bestuck down again, and providing the top surface of the braid isn't substantially damaged, aperfectly acceptable repair results. The technique is to scrape the oldglue off the surface of the board with a small screwdriver (or similar). This isright underneath the braid, don't stretch the braid more than necessary. Squeeze someEvo-stick (or similar contact adhesive) into the gap and spread it as evenly aspossible on the underside of the braid, and the upper surface of the braidrecess. Hold the braid clear of the track surface till the adhesive dries(placing the small screwdriver under the braid works fine). Once the adhesive isdry, press the braid down firmly in place, taking care to compress it evenly andto get the top surface flat.
Major Braid Repair
Firstly inspect the braid and see what needs replacing. Frequently some braids (particularly inside ones) are almost perfect,while the outside braid on the outside lanes are very much the worse for ware. The braid on straightsis often unscathed. There is no point replacing braid that's in acceptablecondition - spend your time on the bits that need doing. A small bit of frayedbraid can be glued with Evo-stick or even super glue - as long as it goes downflat there is no need to replace it.
Don't try and join lengths of braid on the track surface- I've tried lots of ways of doing it and none are satisfactory. My firmrecommendation is to replace acomplete length of braid and join them under the track (seeTrack building Part 3). If the track comes apart in sections replacethe braid along the complete length of the section.
When the old braid comes up it usually leaves a gluedeposit on the board. This needs removing - the new braid won't stick tothe slimy remains of the old glue, and the build up of old glue can mean yournew braid sits too high. It is possible to do this by hand scraping, butthat's neither outstandingly accurate nor is it quick. If you have arouter, the answer is to rout out the braid recess. The amount of material that should be removed will be very small - you are aiming to just clean up the surface sotypically you cut deep enough to remove just the glue, perhaps going slightly deeperbut certainly taking no more than a paper thin cut off the underlying material.
If you have the tools that were used to cut the braid recessin the first place use them again (see TrackBuilding Part 2). If not there's a need to build a new jig(doing it freehand inevitably leads to slips and damage to thetrack.) This is one simple jig which works:-
The guide peg (shown in black) runs in the slot. Ideally thepeg should be the same diameter as the slot (Typically 4mm) but a smallerpeg will work. This peg is firmly fixed to the base of the router. I useda straight 6mm diameter router cutter (shown in blue in the diagram), this isslightly narrower than a normal braid recess, which means there is a bit ofclearance between the peg and the cutter.
The jig needs to attach the guide peg to the router base.Here's details of the one I built (there are lots of possible variations thatwill work as well - perhaps better!).
As can be seen from the photo (above left) the base plate of the router hastwo fixing holes. Make a plate to fit the base of the router as shown on theright. A pair of countersunk screws are used to fix it to the router base plate using the arrowed holes. these screws need to be the right size to fit the holesin router bed. Take care to mark which way round the plate fits - theycertainly were not symmetrical on my (rather cheap) router. I used 3mmthick aluminum for the plate, but the thickness and type of material are notimportant.
On top of the aluminum plate (shown as gray) I screwed a smallpiece of brass plate (shown in yellow), and soldered a 'L shapedpiece of brass wire to this to act as the guide peg. (I used 1.2mm thick brassand M3 screws, but the sizes are not important). The diagram at the top of thepage shows where the L shaped guide peg fits. A bit of trial and erroradjustment was needed to get the position of the peg right. Having got itright, it's important to do the screws up tight and use some loctite to keep themtight.
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Once you've established a clean surface, laying the braid isjust like laying braid on a new track as described inTrack Building Part 3 (click here for link).
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