A quad of quad bikes

I'd been searching for ages for a quad bike to race against the one Andy picked up the Slot Car Festival last year.  I bought the little quad bikes a week or so ago because I'd pretty much given up hope of finding a bigger one at a sensible price.  Inevitably, the very next day, someone put one up for auction on eBay and I managed to win the item a week later.

The little quad bikes are 1:32 scale so look right on the track but they don't have the detail and race-ability of the ones from Avant Slot.  These are said to be 1:24 but the riders look even bigger than those on the Scalextric motorcycles and Ninco go-karts (both 1:18 scale) so I think it's more like 1:16.

I also found this short National Geographic clip about how slot cars and track are manufactured.  The narrator talks about Scalextric which I doubt would please Carrera whose cars and track are featured in the video, but in the UK at least, Scalextric means slot car in the same way as Hoover means vacuum cleaner.

Staying Alive

Whilst the layout has had emergency vehicles and a helicopter on standby for urgent medical evacuations for a few years, it didn't have anywhere for first aid treatment on site.  At last year's Swindon Swapmeet I bought a First Aid Hut but somehow it never made it home (accidentally left by the car in the car park remains our best guess since Andy and I can't find it with the rest of our slot car stuff).

Anyway, at last weekend's Swindon Swapmeet I found a vintage First Aid Hut in perfect condition, with the original box.  There was just enough space for it next to the helipad.

I've wired it up with lights, along with the timekeeper's hut at the start finish line.  Between them, the two buildings have far fewer bulbs than some of the other installations (like the tunnel or helipad) so I had to wire up a simple voltage divider which halves the operating voltage and ensures the bulbs don't blow.

In the background of the hut photo you can make out a few new trees installed on the layout (about time too since it's called Highwood!).  These are in a few other locations as well but notably around the Big Screen installation.

Swindon Scalextric Swapmeet 2013

Andy manfully struggled from his sick bed to join me at the annual Swapmeet in Swindon yesterday.

Andy managed to find probably the only remaining Ninco Go-Karts still available anywhere to add to his already large collection.  I bought a couple of small quad bikes made by Powerslot.

These are tiny but whizz around quite quickly although the nobbly tyres don't provide much grip, particularly since the bikes are so light, but they're a new novelty!

I bought some lead figures - First Aiders and TV Crew - which I'll post about when I've painted them.  I also managed to find some surprisingly well painted pit crew and driver figures.  I'd painted my first pit crew figures with blue overalls, so I bought some more in white and red.

This really fills up the pit lane well and means I have a different coloured crew for each of the three cars:

Event Board

I recently bought a couple of unopened Airfix kits from the 1960s of a Time Keeper's Hut and an Event Board (original price 2/- and 3/- respectively).

I constructed and painted up the hut, and took the option of mounting the event board on the roof.  The board comes with a set of cards with car manufacturers and numbers on them.

I've installed this next to the Start-Finish point where the 1960s control tower once stood:

...and included a time-keeper / commentator figure:

...and also installed some lights:

The control tower was moved to replace the cardboard Scalextric control tower (always too modern for the track and the style didn't match):

...and installed lights in that too:

The Big Screen

I didn't plan to have a Christmas project (like last year's Top Gear track) but ended up with one anyway.  There's always been a bit of unfinished scenery in the far corner between two curves of track.  The gap was cunningly covered by a roll of grass paper:

This looked ok but the cats had a habit of walking on it and falling through to the table-top below.  But I needed an excuse to put the effort into creating a proper piece of scenery.  Inspiration finally came from the old digital photo frame gathering dust in the corner of the bedroom.  Could it be rewired to create a big screen for the track...?

Of course it could!  I removed the LCD screen and wired in an extension lead (two lengths of phone cable proving perfect for the twelve wires needed).  A slight error led to my blowing the power supply (lesson: always double check your connections!) but I managed to rewire the power into the input used by the internal battery, now disconnected.

Then I started on the scenery with the trusty MDF, cardboard and offcuts left over from when I made the layout table back in 2009.

Add Plaster of Paris and last week's Guardian:

Spray on some paint, glue on some grass and install the big screen:

In place on the circuit, with some added people, barriers and the time-keeper's hut:

It's not completely finished - I have some 1/32 scale trees and more spectators on the way from China - so I'll add them later to fill up the open space a bit.

I've wired the power for the screen through the switchboard and the memory card has been loaded up with all the images of my slot cars, with the addition of this welcome screen:

Here's some video of the screen in action:

One more Christmas car

And from Louise's parents, a fantastic new model from Team Slot of the Renault Alpine A310 Gitanes from the 1976 Rallye Du Var.

Christmas cars

At last May's Slot Car Festival, Andy bought a couple of Metros from Model Sport Competicion (MSC), a Spanish company that make highly detailed models with lightweight chassis and top quality components.  They ran so well, I put a couple straight on my Christmas list from Louise.

The first is an MG Metro 6R4 from the 1985 RAC Rally:

And the second is a Ford RS 200 from the 1986 Rally Principe de Asturias:

The ban on tobacco advertising appears to extend to cars, so the RS 200 comes with the Marlboro transfers in a little packet labelled "Only for +18 years".

The real car: