Saturday Film Club: Design the SPV

How do you turn a classic vehicle from Captain Scarlet, into a slot car? Scalextric's designer explains. 

Saturday Film Club: Matchbox cars to slot racers

  

Here's a neat little conversion - take a couple of battered Matchbox cars. Add a micro Scalextric set and you have diecast slot racers!

Saturday Film Club: Do white slot kits sell?

 There's always a discussion in the model railway world about un-numbered model locos. The prevailing wisdom, based on previous attempts, is that they don't sell. 

It seems the same thinking applies in the slot car world. Dave Kennedy, who has worked in the industry for years, explains.

Saturday Film Club: Making slot cars

Interesting film on making slot cars. A lot of the processes are the same as used to make model railways - including the one that looks a lot like silk screen printing, because it IS silk screen printing!

Oh, and although the commentary says "Scalextric" but the boxes sat Carrera. 

Servicing a Micro Scalextric Alfa 159

A couple of years, I bought a friend a Micro Scalextric Alfa 159 set as a bit of a joke. She liked her Alfas and driving fast, and it was stupidly cheap. There have been very few presents that I've enjoyed handing over more. I didn't care if it never came out of the box, the gifting was the fun. 

But, it turns out that both her young daughter and husband loved it. Lots. Enough that when I mentioned I was at a slot car swapmeet, there was a request for more cars. 

It seems that just like the real thing, one of the Alfas has become temperamental. I offered to take a look. How difficult can it be to service? 

Sticking a 9V battery on the pickup braids, the motor turned over freely. In fact the only potential problem I could see was the state of the braids themselves. They were a bit ragged but I'm not sure if this is the problem. 

Micro Scalextric cars clip together, so I took the body off and blasted the braids and motor with contact cleaning spray. Wiping the excess away, I realsied the braids were clipped in and not soldered to the motor. 

Basically, they are folded in half, one end under the car, the other rubbing on a contact for the motor. So, I simply reversed them so the good end is under the car and hopefully this will have solved the problem. The "fluffy" end is still fine at touching the motor contacts - and the battery test still works. 

A drop of light oil on the motor bearings to replace anything removed by the cleaner, clip the body back on, and the car is ready to return to it's owner. Let's hope I've cured the problem and it's now reached Japanese levels of reliability.

The Italian Job - in Scalextric form

"You're only supposed to blow the..."

A trip back to June where I saw this model at the UK Slot car show. When I was watching they seemed to be having all sorts of technical problems, so it's good to see that these were resolved and the "stunt show" as it was described went off properly.

UK slot car show 2018

How do you encourage youngsters into a hobby?

The answer, according to the slot car world, appears to be to let them have a go at it.

Held at the motor museum, Gaydon, the UK slot car show boasted at least ten different tracks anyone could (under supervision) try out for themselves. And there were children of all ages aplenty doing just that.

Being above all that sort of thing myself, I only drove a drag racing VW bus at a real 35mph, over 1000mph when scaled up!

And tried my hand at the Matchbox race'n'chase set I hankered after as a child. Just like last year, I still couldn't make the cars spin and head off in the opposite direction like the kids in ther advert. Oh, and there was some Wren 152, but if I'm honest, that's not very exciting as the cars seem to corner at full speed.

I really liked the Welsh rally stage model. Only one track, so you raced the clock, but a lovely model to look at and very difficult from what I saw. 

Conventional wisdom on forums is that Scalextric is the problem child in the Hornby empire, but judging from the enthusiasm shown at this even, including on their stand, it has a bright future. 

For a start, the entry level is low. £25 buys you a 1/32nd car, although obviously if your pockets are deeper then you can pay more for some really superb and interesting models. It's exciting too and so stands a chance of rivalling the thrills offered by computer games. 

What is needed is a club network so miniature racers can compete against each other. There are clubs, but mainly in the south of England, home to a serious number to slot car swap meets too.  

Anyway, I enjoyed myself and certainly plan to go again. While not the competitive type, I could see myself enjoying building a car and racing it. The joys a shelf full of cars as a collection can't be argued against either. 

More photos on Flickr.

UK Slot car festival 2017

After all the lifeboat fun, Saturday afternoon was given over to the UK Slot Car festival at Gaydon transport museum. Last year's swapmeet whetted our appetite so my dad and I were keen to see the main event.

The show is pretty much split into two. As you get up the stairs you're thrust into the trade area with stands selling everything from the market leader Scalextric to esoteric resin kits, spare parts (new and second hand) and loads of scenic materials to make your track look realistic.

Beside this is the main hall of working tracks. The centrepiece is an 8 lane track of very substantial construction. When we arrived, there were time trials going on with what appeared to be 1:32nd projectiles. OK, they were sort of car shaped but also sort of concave wedge shaped. 6.5 seconds for a lap seemed to be the best time, certainly impressive but to me only a single step away from a video game. 

The controllers were impressive though, knocking the multi-button DCC train versions into a cocked hat. Several looked distinctly home brewed but there were more professional versions for sale. Chatting to one owner, the knobs etc are used for tuning the cars response, acceleration, braking etc. It all looked horribly complicated to me but I expect this is what you need to compete at the highest level.

We did have the chance to get hands-on with some simpler setups. I say simpler, but the Luton clubs single lane time trial track had a particularly tricky corner which caught me out a few times sending the car spinning off the track. I'm sure with many hours of practise I could pick up my lap times, although I was just as interested in how the lovely buildings were made.

One of the most impressive things about the show was the efforts made to get people to have a go, especially children, or maybe they were just less bashful than the adults. Several tracks were open including a couple of drag strip versions.

I managed to have a go with some Wren Formula 152 models which really appealed to me. Sadly, horribly rare nowadays, there is an excellent website covering all the products in the range.

The real treat thought, was the Matchbox slot car range. I remember coveting the "Race & Chase" set when I was a kid. I mean who wouldn't want one after adverts like this?

Anyway, I would look through my mum's mail order catalogue and wishing I could have one. It wasn't really the racing that appealed, although the weekly Saturday fix of The Dukes of Hazard certainly made this appealing, I wanted to know how the cars spun around. Well, after explaining this to the owner, I got to try the police car.

But I couldn't make it spin! 

It seems that the Race & Chase controllers had an extra button on the top. When pressed this reversed the polarity of the power initially making the car shoot backward. On reaching the corner with extended edges, it carried on straight until momentum caused it to whip around and point the right way. Very ingenious - knowing how it works you can see what's happening in the video.

In more conventional models, the huge variety of cars on sale, and the level of detail now on RTR models impresses me. I think these Carrrera cars are 1:24th rather than 1:32nd but the (slightly) smaller scale versions look just as good.

Or if you prefer hand-built, then one guy was merrily making all sorts of things run on slots, including these rather nice scratchbuilt models.

If all this wasn't enough, entry includes access to both the Leyland museum and new (to me) Jaguar collection. 

Loads of photos over on Flickr.

Scalextric "Supersound"

The companion unit to the Hornby Supersound unit I looked at a couple of years ago, if anything it's worse than the railway version. 

I don't understand why you'd want this thing any where near your slot racing set. If traffic noise is your bag, just open a window.

Playing with it under DCC equiped model diesel depots could be fun though (evil laugh).

Slot car "shelfie"?

I always like to have a "Layout I'd like to build" winner at every model railway show, well this is the one from the Slot Car Swapmeet described yesterday. 

A time trial rather than racing circuit, I recon there's a lot of fun in a small space here - a lot like Paul Marsall-Potter's "Shelfie" layout ideas. 

In use, you'll be looking to improve your lap times. At first, just keeping the car on the track will do it. Then you'll have to get better at putting the power on for the straights and getting it off again for those tight bends. Reaction times are all. 

Construction (of course I asked) involved routing the slot and then sticking copper tape around it. This stuff is flexible but achieving a smooth finish must still take a lot of work.

The board folds in the centre for carriage and storage, making this a handy home circuit that most people could own. Very clever indeed. 

And yes, I had a go. I kept the wheels on the ground but can't claim to produced a great time.