What's the plan?
And you thought I forgot or was full of it...

Warning!!! You accept totally responsibility for your actions and I will assume no responsibility for anything you may try to recreate from this website. It is published here simply for educational and informational purposes. The use of power tools is dangerous and should only be used by a professional wood worker. If you don't have experience using these types of tools, please do not perform the work yourself, find someone that can assist you such as a local high school wood shop or cabinet maker etc.

Keep this in mind, I am going to extend the track by eight foot sections that will click together using the actual track. Why? Because it is impossible to create the jumper wire, clips and so on. My way gives me all of the straight track I could ever want for the cost of a pack of track and some plywood. I can get 42 feet of track from each sheet of plywood for $20.00! I would have to buy ;a pack of track for the ends. I can mate the plywood pieces easily as long as I have the two connector ends.

I started work on the track mating. This is what happened so far:

I cut a piece of standard vinyl (plastic) straight track in half so both ends are usable. I tried several methods and believe it or not, the best way was to use a steel ruler and a razor knife. I cut the metal tracks with a hacksaw (fine tooth). If you try to use tin snips, it will crush the track. I choose to leave a little metal so I can alligator clip the metal track to my foil tape track temporarily until I solder everything.





I turned the piece over and cut away material so the only routing I will have to do is for the slot and support channel of the plastic track. The plastic track will sit down inside the slots in the wood and extend about two inches beyond the wood so it will clip and lock to other standard track like normal.

Here you can see where I cut away the triangle supports








Third discovery: I cut away plastic so I have access to the black accessory wire.

WARNING!

The black wire inside the track will pull out easily and make the track worthless! Use wire strippers to strip the insulation away and don't tug or pull the wire at all. It came out extremely easy when I was trying to strip the insulation.









When you cut your wood, make sure that you use a table saw. I found that I was off a tiny bit (1/8") and it caused the mated pieces to not line up. The wood and the vinyl track have to be exactly the same width or they won't line up when mated.

The router will cut from the edge in. If the width is 6 1/4" and your wood track is 6 3/8", the slots when measured from the center (between) the slots will be off by 1/8" so one side will line up but not the other. I chiseled the plywood away so the vinyl track sat level with the surface.





I didn't use the piece of wood with the knot in it and you should avoid using any wood where the knots will intersect your slots. Knots will fall out and or ooze sap on your new track. Cut pieces so they don't have knots in them if possible.



I'll epoxy or screw the plastic down with countersunk flat-top No. 4 screws when all is completed. All that is missing here is the wood routered out and the track attached and then connecting the wires.  As I had to stop, you'll have to go it alone but the three final steps are very straight forward: Cut the wood, cut the slots, paint the wood, put on the copper foil tape, attach the plastic track, turn over and connect wires and last, check electrical connections. Make sure the wires continue on each side in the same circuit or you will fry your electrical control track

I had to stop because I cut my finger half way through chiseling. Blood was spurting like a fountain! Very cool as now I'm a part of the work. It was video recorded which is why I have to edit the video and pictures later this week. Seven stitches... There was a lot of cussing so I'm sure you can understand why it isn't on here. It hurt and was messy! I needed a break anyways. The Superbowl came on and my team won the championship. WHO DAT? The Saints, Dat Who..! The pictures are all here edited and you get the idea.

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The plan changed! I decided against using MDF because of its weight and that the thickness is 3/4" and that it is not really as water / weather resistant as I wanted. My basement is damp so moisture is a BIG concern.

I wanted something closer to 1/2" thickness to match up with my SCX track. This is close enough and it is flexible without a lot of cutting and trimming. The finish isn't the greatest and you'll have to look through sheets until you find fairly clear (as knot free as possible) sheets. You'll see on the sheets that the manufacturer fills in many of the knots and sands one side down smooth.

I am using a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood 1/2" thick and will router out the slots. I have to decide on the width of the pieces.

 For each cut I get an 8' piece of track. That works out to about 42' of straight track at 6.25" width!

Here's the best part, it cost $20.00 for that much wood! That's 0.50 cents a foot! Track is $19.95 for two pieces 14" in length. That's $8.59 a foot! That doesn't even include the cost of shipping!

The slot is an 1/8" wide by a 1/4" deep. This will work perfect. For the surface, I decided to use a dark grey paint color with anti-slip (anti-slip is the sand like material they paint on stairs) material mixed in.

The slots will be cut to meet up with existing track on the ends. The underside of the plywood will house the wiring which will be glued in with a glue gun.

The slot metal will be created from a roll of metal tape used for stained glass. The downside? Always there is a downside, right? Well, you have to have a circular saw and a router table and router. My combo table and router from Sears (Craftsman - of course) cost me $141.04. That's the full price as I didn't get any discount on my Craftsman Club card. A circular saw costs about $30.00 and then you have to buy the router tip ($15.00) and a blade for the saw. ($10.00 to 30.00 a piece) I suggest you get a plywood blade if you cut plywood. If you want to be cheap about it, you can also use masking tape instead and draw your line on it then cut with a regular blade. The tape keeps the wood from splintering.

I will be applying the KISS rule -( Keeping It Simple Stupid) in the track creation. Update 02/04/10