245 replies to this topic

[Half Fast]

Mike,
 
I hope you have a long term lease considering all the work you are putting into someone else's building!
 
Cheers,

[MSwiss]

We will be assembling the King on Sunday at noon.

PM or call if you can make it.

[MSwiss]

Big thanks goes out to Marlon Reed for coming out yesterday afternoon, and bringing his friend Stan, a racer from the '60s, to help Larry and me get the King track sections in place and move a few other heavy things so I can finish up my floor scraping and painting.

Also thanks to Chuck Gambo for coming by on Saturday for some of the tough braid work on the flat track.

[mcrracer]

You're welcome Mike. We were happy to help out. You have a beautiful facility and we both look forward to coming back to run a few laps. Plus the floor looks great!!!

[MSwiss]

Larry Kelley and I almost finished bolting the King together on Sunday.

We stopped with 1 section left because I wanted to do a bit of a tune-up on the Deadman supports.

With the King in place, I can see what I have to work with for future tracks other than the 1/4 mile drag strip.

As expected, the space left is narrow where the finger juts out.

While I could do a 100 ft.+ kidney shaped "oval", probably doing 50-60 ft. track(s),possibly with one on each side of the Finger, makes more sense.

I have a tiny bit of scraping left, and a little more floor painting to do, then I can concentrate 100% on the tracks.

[SlotStox#53]

Great progress Mike Bet it feels good with the King almost completely back up

[MSwiss]

Yes. Seeing 95% together put a little hop in my step. Lol

[Dennis David]

Well then hop to it and get this thing done. ;-)

[MSwiss]

Finished the painting on Friday.





Below is what I used to scrape approximately 4000 sq. ft. of the floor.

Two single edge razor blades clamped into a pair of wide jaw Vise-Grips.

I used approximately 165 blades, and shockingly, didn't cut myself once.

[Michael Rigsby]

I used approximately 165 blades, and shockingly, didn't cut myself once.]

 
LOL, then you weren't trying hard enough, Mike.
 
Seriously though, the place looks great.

[Mr. HP]

Coming along nicely...

[havlicek]

Below is what I used to scrape approximately 4000 sq. ft. of the floor.

Two single edge razor blades clamped into a pair of wide jaw Vise-Grips.

I used approximately 165 blades, and shockingly, didn't cut myself once.

Yikes, Mike!... there are purpose-built tools for this with carbide blades that can be had in short or long (standing) handle lengths. Wish I'd have seen this thread earlier, but the place looks great!
 
-john

[MSwiss]

Among the slew of visitors yesterday checking on my progress, locals should be pleased to hear Basil stopped by with Alex.

Basil looked well and Alex is now 15 and looks like he could play linebacker.

He's been keeping up with things on the 'blogs and I think we'll be seeing him around in the future.

[Howie Ursaner]

Great job. It's gonna be great.

[MSwiss]

Latest info.

I finished regluing the braid on the flat track last week.

A much bigger job than braiding a new track.

Especially if you clean out the recess the correct way vs. Rich Knox'ing it (a Chicagoism for doing it with a router and ruining the track.

Wiyh the King, Larry Kelley has most of the braid and recesses prepped for regluing and some replacing.

The last 3 days I've been working on raising the King and some other upgrades.

After a rough first day, things have gone well and I'm pretty confident it will turn out well.

It's another big job, but this is the only realistic chance for me to do it, and I'm glad I am.

Last, but not least, Chuck Gambo brought me a new braid roller about 10 days ago.

Chuck has made some real nice all steel ones for the various area racways, but this one is his finest work.

A 2 pc. aluminum handle with a perfectly sized for the braid recesses on my 2 tracks, delrin wheel.

It works so well it's scary.

[kvanpelt]

That's our guy Chuck, he always does things 1st class!

 

Getting real itchy Mike, it's been since March for some serious trigger pulling!

 

Elevating the king will be really interesting. We'll need a step ladder to marshal the lead on.    

[MSwiss]

The lead-on (at it's highest point) is the only spot not being raised.

[kvanpelt]

Oh. That makes the job A LOT tougher than what was talked about earlier. Sounds great!

[MSwiss]

A Honda full of lights for the raceway.

[MSwiss]

Well, it's been a real tedious job, but raising the track has gone well.

It's been made a bit more tolerable by being able to remove the walls.
 

 

I have about two-thirds done, and hopefully the hardest/most needed part, the deadman and finger.

 

 

The raised finger. The top of the soft wall, at the exit, is now above the middle of my thigh.

 

 

Before, the top of the wall was where the bottom is now, at 27".

 

 

In the midst of doing it, the finger with one leg up in the air, the rest of the finger held up by cement blocks, spreader clamps, 2 x 4s, etc.

 

 

The dimensions I took in the deadman were with the walls on, but it's now up about 4.5"- 5.5".

 

That's a 12" ruler leaning up in the inside. As a reference, before, guys would regularly catch the tip of their shoe on the bottom of the soft wall, which hangs about an inch below the bottom of the MDF supports, making a snapping sound.

 

The deadman is all now semi-free floating. The inside and middle are supported, but not attached, to about 250-300 lbs. of cement blocks. The outer perimeter now has seven 2 x 6s, 9" long, glued on edge, with vertical 2 x 4s bolted into them. The old horizontal leg supports, stapled and glued to the track, and the vertical pieces, stapled and glued into those supports, had all peeled away at the ends in the last nine years, from the stress of the banking, so I got rid of them.

 

 

Now I have the job of raising (going backwards) the middle and beginning of the lead-on, donut, 90 and back straight and meet back up here at the same height. And without reducing the room under the bridge too much, which by current King standards, was quite roomy.

 

 

This is how much you can make 9' of 1/2" MDF twist with some work and if you're careful. The bottom surface is relieved, between the slots, with a 1" diameter bull nose router bit. Back in the '90s, track builders would tell customers they couldn't have a King track with both a dished deadman and finger, because you can't make MDF do this.

 

 

While they don't make transporting a track easier, other than being lighter, one of the advantages of the soft walls, along with being able to remove them, is you can change the track footprint slightly. The bank is now slightly more "open" leaving the deadman further away from the inside of the straighatway. IIRC, they were virtually even before, with the different elevations the only reason they weren't touching. They are now about 2" apart, which in turn will pinch and add banking to the deadman-finger combo, with most of it added to the finger, as far as I can tell.

[redbackspyder]

Looks like you have a great handle on it Mike, and the track will be beautiful once done...

[kvanpelt]

It'll be like learning the nuances of a new King all over again!  Can't wait to try it out!

 

From the picture, the deadman looks flatter. Is that the case?

[MSwiss]

From the picture, the deadman looks flatter. Is that the case?

 

That top pic is how it always looks at that angle with the wall off.

The seventh pic down shows it better.

[MSwiss]

Once I started raising the back half of the track today, the straight attached to the 90 started creeping towards the infield, leaving the slots about a half a lane  misaligned.

I threw some cement blocks against it to impede its progress and as soon I got the height raised up to match the raised portion, my friend Mark came in to do braid work.

With a little effort, but no drama, we got both ends reconnected nicely. (Normally the final connection gets done on the straight between the bank and the deadman.)

To answer the question "Why was the track built so low to begin with?"

It was for visibility. It was to keep the wing guys off of the milk crates across all eight lanes.

 

[Pappy]

Mike,

 

Why all the blocks instead of just cutting new longer legs? Seems like that would be easier.