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Slot surface improvements

On the proof of concept oval, I just used flat latex in the slot. This worked fine, and made it easy to judge if any wear was happening, but the roughness of it that is good for tire grip isn’t good for low resistance on the guidepin or flag. If you just pushed the car around the track with your finger you could feel the drag that just isn’t there in a plastic track.

So, I devised the following solution.

  1. go ahead and paint the slot and road area grey.
First coat of grey

This is necessary to blend the slot in with the road color.

2) Coat the slot and area where the car will run with Smooth-On Epsilon Pro Epoxy.

A quick snap in the middle of the process.

Repaint just the area where tires will touch, not down in the slot.

Now you have high hardness and some strength only exactly where you need it. And you have traction where you need it.

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Clean Up

The burning process will leave very long “hairs” of melted foam down in the slot. will be on the walls and some will be on the bottom. I used drill bits to break them out. They may or may not have actually caused a problem, but I didn’t want them coming loose in later steps.