Here's some tips on maintaining a braided track in good condition. As with the pages on track building, this is based on my experience and what other people have told me they do. Do you know a better or easier way of keeping a track in good condition? If you've got any track maintenance tips you'd like to share, please e mail me on slot_racing@yahoo.co.uk

Chris Frost

Keep it clean!

Tracks do need cleaning from time to time -so how do you clean them. The first thing to be aware of is the adhesive holding the braid in place will loose it's grip if it has too much exposure to solvents. Tracks do have to be cleaned from time to time, so some use of solvents and a little degradation of the adhesive bond is inevitable.  The trick is to minimize the exposure to solvents- 

1  Do not use more solvent on the braid than absolutely necessary. Always avoid putting solvent direct on the braid, use a solvent dampened rag on the braid. A  little liquid solvent on the painted track surface will do no harm provided it is rubbed off before running onto the braid.

2 Use a solvent that evaporates quickly - lighter fluid is good.  White spirit should be avoided, it evaporates slowly so it hangs around softening the glue for too long.

Obviously it's important to follow the safety precautions on the solvent tin. Generous ventilation and no smoking (or other sources of ignition) are important.

Minor braid repairs

Braid does sometimes come unstuck.  Short lengths can be stuck down again, and providing the top surface of the braid isn't substantially damaged, a perfectly acceptable repair results.  The technique is to scrape the old glue off the surface of the board with a small screwdriver (or similar). This is right underneath the braid, don't stretch the braid more than necessary. Squeeze some Evo-stick (or similar contact adhesive) into the gap and spread it as evenly as possible on the underside of the braid, and the upper surface of the braid recess. Hold the braid clear of the track surface till the adhesive dries (placing the small screwdriver under the braid works fine). Once the adhesive is dry, press the braid down firmly in place, taking care to compress it evenly and to get the top surface flat.

Major Braid Repair

Firstly inspect the braid and see what needs replacing.  Frequently some braids  (particularly inside ones) are almost perfect, while the outside braid on the outside lanes are very much the worse for ware. The braid on straights is often unscathed. There is no point replacing braid that's in acceptable condition - spend your time on the bits that need doing. A small bit of frayed braid can be glued with Evo-stick or even super glue - as long as it goes down flat there is no need to replace it.

Don't try and join  lengths of braid on the track surface - I've tried lots of ways of doing it and none are satisfactory.  My firm recommendation is to replace a complete length of braid and join them under the track (see Track building Part 3).  If the track comes apart in sections replace the braid  along the complete length of the section. 

When the old braid comes up it usually leaves a  glue deposit on the board.  This needs removing - the new braid won't stick to the slimy remains of the old glue, and the build up of old glue can mean your new braid sits too high. It is possible to do this by hand scraping, but that's neither outstandingly accurate nor is it quick.  If you have a router, the answer is to rout out the braid recess. The amount of material that should  be removed will be very small - you are aiming to just clean up the surface so typically you cut deep enough to remove just the glue, perhaps going slightly deeper but certainly taking no more than a paper thin cut off the underlying material. 

If you have the tools that were used to cut the braid recess in the first place use them again (see Track Building Part 2). If not there's a need to build a new jig (doing it freehand inevitably leads to slips and  damage to the track.)  This is one simple jig which works:-

The guide peg (shown in black) runs in the slot. Ideally the peg should be the same diameter as the slot (Typically 4mm) but a  smaller peg will work. This peg is firmly fixed to the base of the router. I  used a straight 6mm diameter router cutter (shown in blue in the diagram), this is slightly narrower than a normal braid recess, which means there is a bit of clearance between the peg and the cutter.

The jig needs to attach the guide peg to the router base. Here's details of the one I built (there are lots of possible variations that will work as well - perhaps better!). 

As can be seen from the photo (above left) the base plate of the router has two fixing holes. Make a plate to fit the base of the router as shown on the right. A pair of countersunk screws are used to fix it to the router base plate  using the arrowed holes. these screws need to be the right size to fit the holes in router bed.  Take care to mark which way round the plate fits - they certainly were not symmetrical on my (rather cheap) router.  I used 3mm thick aluminum for the plate, but the thickness and type of material are not important.

On top of the aluminum plate (shown as gray) I screwed a small piece of  brass plate (shown in yellow), and soldered a "L shaped piece of brass wire to this to act as the guide peg. (I used 1.2mm thick brass and M3 screws, but the sizes are not important). The diagram at the top of the page shows where the L shaped guide peg fits. A bit of trial and error adjustment was needed to get the position of the peg right.  Having got it right, it's important to do the screws up tight and use some loctite to keep them tight.

Once you've established a clean surface, laying the braid is just like laying braid on a new track as described in Track Building Part 3 (click here for link).