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. |
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:
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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. |
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:
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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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