February 27, 2019 - Finishing Rebuilding Old Track

This week's meeting was mostly devoted to rebuilding prior year's track as it had to be disassembled for the move. However, we seemed to have lost a good portion of the materials originally in place during the move. This includes curves, switch sections, wedges and the entrance rail for the bogey. In consequence of this, we were unable to fully rebuild the track.

While putting the track back together, we realized how poorly bent the aluminum rails were to begin with. This further emphasize the need of an accurate rail bender. This meant that not everything fit together as modular parts, which was promised in the previous iteration of the track. Besides the inconsistent bending, sometimes two brackets would not fit together with every metal bracket set. Another issue we came across with is how everything was fastened together. The screw heads were placed on the inside of the rails so that meant to unscrew everything, we had to go in from an angle with a 90 degree bent screwdriver.

With all the materials needed to build the track bender at the shop, we will begin the assembly of the bender within the next two weeks as well as prepare for the first presentation.

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