is plywood a good track surface? if not, what is? and barriers,. whats good???
 

Moose and i have 4.2 motors in a booster, and we need a good track surface. We were using his low carpet with brio track as barriers, and it worked ok, but not the best.
we were hoping to have a more permanent track, because right now the barriers move.
So we need a good track surface, and good barriers.
Please reply, thanks!!!

I made a track out of a very smooth 4x8 particle board and added a 1"x4" border to keep the cars from driving off the edge.I primed then painted the surface with a dark charcoal colored paint (looks like asphalt) and mixed in grit for traction.The border board is painted dark green with the top edge painted yellow to help see the edge.I just have it sitting up on a folding table so it is easy to move if I want to.
It works very good, great traction, enough traction to flip a car if it can turn the wheels sharp.
I use three sets of ZipZap track barriers and I seem to have more pieces than I can use.

I just run stock cars right now so the extreme traction is not a problem but if I need it to give a little I could just paint a section with no grit mixed in and it should allow a bit more slippage.

It is a decent size but I'd like a track the size of a pingpong ball table anything bigger and it might be hard to reach the center.

Plywood works great for a base, great traction and it takes paint well. The only thing I don't like is that you can see the grain of the wood.

Personnally I like running on 1/4" drywall. It's smoother, looks better when ya paint it, plus the grip is just as good if not better than that of plywood.

Good luck with your project.

oops, forgot to to talk about barriers.

I've seen a bunch of tracks using garden hose. It's tall enough to where the cars won't hop over it and soft enough to where it won't scratch up your paint job. And it's heavy so that you won't have to glue it down to your base. This is a huge bonus because it makes storing your track alot easier.

Plus it's flexible enough to where you can make some really interesting courses with it.

Go out and grab a 50' hose and chop it up!

Again best of luck, and let's see some photos when it's completed.

I was thinking of using foam pipe tubing cut in half as barriers. What do you guys think of that idea?

Actually I really like that idea.

plaster board
 

i found that plywood left grain marks in the track and didnt give it a realistic look:(
then i found some plaster board in my garage(hard wall, i think)
i then screwed this to the ply wood so it would'nt crack and break.the paint adheares really well to the surface as its like card:D
sa for barriers i havn't got that far yet. but on my previous track i used garden hose. it servrd it pupose but it looked really poor quality and rushed:( :p i think now im going to use cardboard very thick cardboard.:D