21 replies to this topic

[KirbyCoast]

I know that it's pretty early to start a Halloween coaster, but I only have a few more days until school and this year I will have a lot less free time. So I'm starting early because I don't want to be rushed. The idea for this Eurofighter has been something that I've wanted to do for a few months now, and I'm finally starting it. The layout was going to be completely original, but then I remembered the ride "Abyss". I watched the POV over again and I thought the layout was really interesting, so I decided to go with something more like that.

This isn't a recreation, the main differences are going to be:

- The layout will be mirrored

- The prelift section, station, and brake run will be in a different place

- I want to start it off with an immelmann like the one on Saw the Ride, there is also a similar immelmann on Krake (not a Eurofighter, but it still has the same element)

- There will be some other minor changes due to speed loss

- The theming will be different (still a horror theme, just not in the same way).

Time For pictures:

Station

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Pre-Lift

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The car can't make it from the station to the drop into the lift hill, so I will need to do some tweaking.

 

Lift Hill and Drop

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Pullout

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Since I'm only using one car I would like to weight and customize it. I've never done anything like that before, I'm guessing that you would just unscrew the back. I tried doing that and they were way too hard to unscrew. 

 

Comments and suggestions are appreciated!

 

 

 

 

Edited by KirbyCoast, 12 August 2016 - 04:11 PM.

[Spaghetti]

Looks very nice. I like the shaping and the prelift. Good luck on this project!

[rgarner42]

Looking good. Nice start. Maybe a tiny bump at the top of the pullout, might just be the angle of the photo, even so I can let that slide cause the rest of the shaping is very smooth. 

[CW5X]

The drop and lift are looking pretty good to me. The pullout looks to be in just about the right place for a coaster like this. I guess a common mistake is to make it too small but you've avoided that here however I would quite like to see a full overview to make sure. Still, nice start and good luck,

[KirbyCoast]

Looks very nice. I like the shaping and the prelift. Good luck on this project!

Thanks! Hopefully I can finish by Halloween...

 

Looking good. Nice start. Maybe a tiny bump at the top of the pullout, might just be the angle of the photo, even so I can let that slide cause the rest of the shaping is very smooth. 

This ride has changed so much since than that I almost forgot what you meant by this... I think the pullout is pretty good now though.

 

The drop and lift are looking pretty good to me. The pullout looks to be in just about the right place for a coaster like this. I guess a common mistake is to make it too small but you've avoided that here however I would quite like to see a full overview to make sure. Still, nice start and good luck,

I usually make the pullout too big, I think this one is a good size though.

 

WOOOOWWWW.... It's been a while.

 

Over the past month I've been trying to get working on this ride, and I've been super lazy about it. Luckily these past few weeks I've been getting a little less homework, so I've been able to get some building in. Most of the progress you see on this ride was done just yesterday, but the immelman has been up for around 3 weeks. Anyways the layout has changed quite a lot, originally I was trying to make it like Abyss, but I'm going for a completely custom layout instead. The order of the elements is: Immelman, turnaround, double-down/bunny hill, turnaround, heartline roll, brake run. As of now I've completed 3 of those elements, however the next two elements are smaller so they should be easier to build.

 

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Once again, if anyone knows how to customize and weight cars, please let me know! The weighting is more important, but customized cars could be cool.

Edited by KirbyCoast, 14 October 2016 - 11:41 PM.

[WSWAoasters]

This looks really, really nice! Now, I don't use micro pieces very often, so I'm sorry but I can't help with the weighting/ customizing, but I can say that I can already tell this is going to be another fantastic build!

Edited by WSWAoasters, 14 October 2016 - 11:47 PM.

[Batwing]

Nice work on this!

 

Customised cars would be admittedly be cool, but could compromise your ability to weight the cars (and it's very fiddly)! I think there was a sit-down made a few years ago made with inverted inverted cars which looked pretty impressive, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was called - I'll check on the database at some point.

 

As far as weighting cars goes, I've done it extensively on my coasters and so far, it's been very successful, with big performance gains - but you need to make sure your track is strong enough, otherwise it'll deform and won't work.  You can sellotape on coins, but I've had the best results with plasticine.  

 

To weight with plasticine, you'll need to use a reasonably small screwdriver (I'm not sure how big the tip on the one I use is, but it's shorter in length than my pinky finger if that helps) to undo all the screws on the bottom of the car.  This bit is very fiddly and you'll need to make sure you don't lose the screws!  Then turn the car upside down and separate the two coloured parts.  Try to bundle in as much as you can into both of them, making sure you don't get any into the cylindrical tubes connecting them to the chassis (where the screws go).  Then push them back into the slots on the chassis and screw the screws back in.

 

Disclaimer: This might not work for all of your cars if the screws are too tight and unless you've got some serious skill, can only be done a certain number of times.  It's very normal to shave parts the top of the head off, but if you do it too many times, the head will become completely ground down and the grooves will disappear so it can't be screwed in.  This is probably because the screws are cheap and nasty , but if it goes wrong, I'm sure you'll be able to buy more online.

 

Good luck with the rest of the coaster! I want some theming pls....

Edited by Batwing, 17 October 2016 - 06:05 PM.

[KirbyCoast]

Nice work on this!

 

Customised cars would be admittedly be cool, but could compromise your ability to weight the cars (and it's very fiddly)! I think there was a sit-down made a few years ago made with inverted inverted cars which looked pretty impressive, but I can't remember for the life of me what it was called - I'll check on the database at some point.

 

As far as weighting cars goes, I've done it extensively on my coasters and so far, it's been very successful, with big performance gains - but you need to make sure your track is strong enough, otherwise it'll deform and won't work.  You can sellotape on coins, but I've had the best results with plasticine.  

 

To weight with plasticine, you'll need to use a reasonably small screwdriver (I'm not sure how big the tip on the one I use is, but it's shorter in length than my pinky finger if that helps) to undo all the screws on the bottom of the car.  This bit is very fiddly and you'll need to make sure you don't lose the screws!  Then turn the car upside down and separate the two coloured parts.  Try to bundle in as much as you can into both of them, making sure you don't get any into the cylindrical tubes connecting them to the chassis (where the screws go).  Then push them back into the slots on the chassis and screw the screws back in.

 

Disclaimer: This might not work for all of your cars if the screws are too tight and unless you've got some serious skill, can only be done a certain number of times.  It's very normal to shave parts the top of the head off, but if you do it too many times, the head will become completely ground down and the grooves will disappear so it can't be screwed in.  This is probably because the screws are cheap and nasty , but if it goes wrong, I'm sure you'll be able to buy more online.

 

Good luck with the rest of the coaster! I want some theming pls....

 

Pretty sure that ride was Fenkis. I would do something like that, but I don't have any inverted cars :/

 

Thanks for the little tutorial! I'll try it out next time I get back to building. One of the problems I had was that I tried unscrewing the screws but they seemed like they were glued in or something. I could also try just putting a little weight in by turning around the car (I have pretty small hands so I could probably tape a weight in there).

 

Also yes, there will be theming.

[KirbyCoast]

Just a little question, does anyone have any experience with modifying track? I was trying to turn my 180 track piece into a 90 degree turn piece, but it isn't working all that well. Does anyone have any tips for putting together the track? Thanks.

[rgarner42]

Impressive. Your choice of elements for the rest of the coaster sounds good too.

Can't give you any advice for weighting and customising trains though, I have pretty much zero experience with VV. 

[CW5X]

This looks nice and funky. Your speed loss is pretty good for a micro I have to say.

[Ghostbuster]

I like how it turned out so far !
Sam made a tutorial on how to weight VV cars:

http://www.sscoaster...weight-vv-cars/

Edited by Ghostbuster, 24 October 2016 - 09:37 AM.

[KirbyCoast]

Impressive. Your choice of elements for the rest of the coaster sounds good too.

Can't give you any advice for weighting and customising trains though, I have pretty much zero experience with VV. 

Thanks! I ended up figuring it out.

 

This looks nice and funky. Your speed loss is pretty good for a micro I have to say.

I'm actually surprised by the amount of speed I got, and weighting the cars helped it even more!

 

 

I like how it turned out so far !
Sam made a tutorial on how to weight VV cars:

http://www.sscoaster...weight-vv-cars/

Thanks for sending this, I had tried something similar to that earlier but I couldn't take off the screws. This time I used a slightly bigger screwdriver and it seemed to work.

 

I think this might end up being the last update, I'm done with the layout, and I pretty much just need to finish the pre-lift hill and the turn from the brake run.

I hope to have the theming finished by Friday so that I can have enough time to film and edit the video.

 

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I already know what song I'm using for this ride, but are there any suggestions for names? I had a good name at one point but I sort of forgot it, anyway suggestions are appreciated!

 

Test Video: https://www.youtube....eature=youtu.be

[Ghostbuster]

I really like your layout.

[CW5X]

Really cool compact layout you have there. It'll be nice to see this thing done well with the scenery and all. The pacing is perfect.

[KirbyCoast]

I finished the video just in time! 

 

https://www.youtube....eature=youtu.be

 

There's also a model database which you can check out.

Thanks for all the helpful comments!

[CW5X]

I really love what you did with the video. The attention to detail was excellent even up to the focus of the camera. The theming was also really neat. Great little ride.

[dgohstand]

Wow, I love what you did with the video... it must of taken a while to put that together. Great job on the coaster too. Do you build ss coasters to? 

[IOAgeek]

Awesome final video the shaping is pretty decent but you lose some speed in the barrel roll but whatever lol. Do you have like a name for this coaster btw?

Edited by IOAgeek, 01 November 2016 - 03:33 PM.

[KirbyCoast]

I really love what you did with the video. The attention to detail was excellent even up to the focus of the camera. The theming was also really neat. Great little ride.

Thanks! My favorite part of Halloween has always been decorating, but since I moved to my new house no one comes up for trick or treating so we can't really do that. It was a ton of fun to decorate this though.

 

 

Wow, I love what you did with the video... it must of taken a while to put that together. Great job on the coaster too. Do you build ss coasters to? 

The ride itself took a long time but it actually only took 2 1/2 days to theme, film, and edit the ride. I was working for a lot of the day on it though. Also no, I don't build SS.

 

 

Awesome final video the shaping is pretty decent but you lose some speed in the barrel roll but whatever lol. Do you have like a name for this coaster btw?

The name is "VOID" because it's supposed to look like it's in a completely empty and dark place.

 

 

Thanks for all of the comments!  Was I the only person on SSC to build a Halloween coaster this year? I didn't see any others lol.

 

I might be taking a little break from K'nex until Christmas. Building this ride with all of the homework I've been getting has been pretty stressful. I'm definitely going to keep this one up for a while though.