Tuesday, 18 May 2010

How the idea finally dawned . . .

I had a number of circa-1990 scalextric cars, some accessories and quite a selection of spares left over from my shop amongst the boxes in the loft. Quite a few packs of spares for Tamiya R/C buggies, too. That sounded like a great way to bring in some much-needed revenue, so I joined eBay and started punting them out, two or three at a time, thinking "this is great". I now realise that I let a lot of my stock go much too cheap but I'm philosophical about that. Mistakes are made to be learned from.

What I did particularly notice was that I was getting a lot of orders for my little packs of the old 20mm pick-up braids, even though they carried a p&p cost which virtually doubled their price. Curious, I started asking customers why they didn't just pop into their local model shop for them and found out that the days I remembered from my years as a service agent were long gone and they no longer stocked spares for virtually everything they had ever made! Hence 20mm braids were a thing of the past . . . that set me thinking.

I was quickly running out of these braids, how do I replace them? I still have quite a few pre-1990 cars that use them and their sales show they're a popular item still. What suitable braids were on the market? How could I cut them fast enough to make production cost-effective without buying a costly machine that would make their price prohibitive?

As well as being a designer, I'd also doubled as production manager for the first six of my years at my last job. Let's just say I found the answer to that last problem (I'm keeping my secret)!

As for the braid, I searched the net and found several companies who were prepared to send me samples of copper braid between 3 and 4mm wide and ended up with no less than 14 different samples to test (steel braid is a non-starter as it's carbon content is drawn out by direct current every time you get an arc, getting deposited on the track).

The samples I received included both tinned (as most official Scalextric ones have been) and un-tinned braid, though right from my very first MRRC 'Airfix Clubman Specials' cars I had decided I preferred nice pure copper braids and have never had any cause to change my mind - it's not a lot of effort to keep them clean, espescially since I developed my range of track-cleaners. Just two strokes and they're clean! More about those in a future article.

I drew on my (far too many) years experience to set my parameters that would define how I wanted my braids to perform:
  1. They should conduct sufficiently well to carry the power picked up from the rails to the motor with no discernible voltage drop (I used 200mm lengths of braid to exaggerate any problem but, as I had reasonably expected, all 14 passed with flying colours and a considerable degree of 'overkill' at that)!
  2. They should put as much braid in contact with the rail as possible, under all conditions, to optimise the current flow to the motor (all braids using thicker strands went out on this one - the first strand that touched the track didn't bend and the rest were just passengers - the extra resistance was measurable on a multimeter).
  3. They should flex under light pressure sufficiently, even on the lightest-nosed cars, to allow the slot-guide maximum penetration into the slot when approaching a corner, but still keep full contact with the rail when the nose lifts under acceleration. They should also be sufficiently well damped for their weight to minimise bounce on uneven surfaces (dents or crossing track-joints).
  4. The finshed braid should be of reasonable cost (all were OK on this one) and have a working lifespan at least as good as the standard braid.

After test 3, I was left with my two thinnest braids, one tinned, the other un-tinned. Both were actually less than my minimum specified 3mm width. The untinned braid had come out slightly better than the tinned one (less tension in copper without its' tin-coating) but would it wear as well? The duration testing was carried out on my pair of long-suffering Mini 1275GT 'Clubman' cars (no magnets, skittish handling and loads of fun) and, after just a few hours, I knew I had my answer.

The tinned copper, which does have some advantages like not oxidising in air, tends to 'frizz' owing to the differing co-efficients of expansion of the two metals and, before long, it was not allowing the slot guide its' full required depth for best cornering abilities. It was much, much longer before the softer-surfaced copper began to wear.

Nearly three years later, I'm still not completely sure why the softer copper doesn't wear quickly (I suspect it is something to do with co-efficient of friction between dissimilar metals, but I'm not a metallurgist)! Customers, however did, and do, agree.

I bought the minimum quantity of braid they would sell me (they generally have to produce it specially for me) and tentatively offered them for sale in packs of four or ten braids. After a hesitant start in September/early October, they picked up during the course of the month and soon customers were asking if I did them for the more recent cars as well. Again, I was forced to ask "why?" The official ones certainly were available in the shops. The answers fell into three categories:
  1. "Our local model shop has stopped selling Scalextric in protest against them supplying TOYS'R'US cheaper (I don't know whether that actually is the case) and they don't stock the small spares like braids."
  2. "Our local model shop has shut down."
  3. "Yes, we can get them from the shop, but yours are better!"
As you might possibly guess, I really liked that answer and my Ferrari and Benetton, which both used the early 'shoe' type of Easy-Fit guide, were put to work testing a longer 27mm braid, which is still our best seller to date as it's perfect for the current 'Disc' guide too.

By December, I knew that I was no longer just selling off what I had in my loft and registered Classic Toys & Models as a business with the Revenue and Customs people. It has grown consistently each year, which suggests to me that Scalextric and other slot-car racing is truly 'recession-proof' - it's just as cheap (or expensive) as you want to make it! It is also highly recommended by several digital owners who tell me that it has cured their cars' ID-loss problems they had been suffering (presumably interference caused by excessive arcing).

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