Tired of that Hot Wheels track taking up valuable floor space next to the wall. Get it off the floor and on a shelf. Taking up one whole wall with my Hot Wheels track just wasn't going to cut it anymore. We needed that wall space on the floor for other things.
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| My old track on the floor. |
So I decided to put my track on a shelf.
First I picked up some brackets and a 12 foot board at Home Depot.
Next I used a stud finder to mark where the studs were. I wanted to screw the brackets into the studs to help support the weight. I wasn't planning on the track being too heavy, but wanted the option of adding heavier parts in the future if I so desired. They do make some pretty tough anchors that you can just put in the drywall though if you don't want to try to find the studs.
Once I found the studs, I marked out a straight line using a level.
Once that I had the line across the whole wall, I screwed in the brackets. Because of the way that the holes were in the bracket, I chose to match up the bottom hole in the bracket with my line to keep all the brackets level.
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| You can see how we've already begun utilizing the wall space! :) |
Once I got all the brackets up all I had to do was set the board on them and voila! A new shelf.
I hung a different kind of shelf bracket on the start end of the shelf that is adjustable for the ramp or drop part of the track. I decided to do this so that I could easily adjust the height of the start.
I decided to build a drop down start gate for this track. It's a real easy build. Screw a small piece of wood down to the track. Connect another piece with a hinge. In the second piece, drill two holes just big enough for a small piece of dowel stick to fit in. The hardest part is cutting holes for the dowels to stick up through the track, which really isn't too difficult. I use magnets to keep the gate up and a little metal bracket to use as a handle to push it down.
One reason I like the drop down start gate is that you can see the cars well at the starting line.
To make the track look a bit more exciting I printed out some racing "sponsor" stickers and put them on a few long thin pieces of wood. Then I used screws to secure them to the wall side of the track. It turned out pretty cool!
Next I found some cool tape that looked like a roadway and laid it down on the rest of the shelf.
It turned out looking pretty sharp!
The finish gate I'm using for this track is a pretty nice electronic one you can pick up
here.
The last thing I did was pick up a little molding from Home Depot to put on the front of the shelf. It did two things. First it made the shelf look a little nicer by giving it that finished look. Second, it provided a lip to help keep the extra cars on the "road" from falling off the shelf.
Well, that's it. It turned out pretty sweet I think. If you'd like to see it in action, check out our
Hot Wheels Fantasy Pick'em game. I've been racing cars each week on the shelf track for that and it's been awesome!
