Builder's Railroad Project: in the Beginning...

[Gun Grape]

I ran out of the Loctite hi-strength adhesive from The Home Depot, so I went to the local ACE Hardware to buy some more. They didn't have any low VOC Loctite products so I got some DAP. It didn't have the tack like the Loctite, and it seems to be less able to bond to the foam roadbed quickly, so today I went back and got some more Loctite.

Loctite Power Grab. One of my favorite things


I cannot imagine gluing all that track together. A piece or two that is less snug that the others or just a hair cockeyed can really mess your day up when it ties into other sections further on down the track.

Doesn't take long for that minuscule widening of a single joint to become a 1/8" major problem that's running off the plywood base.

Great job. Keep posting. I'm starting to like this train stuff

[Builder 2010]

Glue Beauty Shots

I'm very pleased that it's getting you interested!

I put all the stuff away, found the bag of extra ties that I was unable to find for weeks, and took some final pictures of the track laying. I also stopped by the tracks of the Norfolk-Southern RR to take a picture of rail to get the right color for the rail painting, and picked up a few pieces of real railroad ballast to measure it and then scale it down to 1:48. I want to know just how big (or little) the ballast particle size should be to look right. A little obsessive you say? Yes!

I inserted some of the extra ties in gaps between cut rails. Sometimes the cut rails came out leaving a tie missing. Inserting them in afterwards closed up the gaps.

I got a suggestion to create the graphics for the control panel by having my drawing printed full size and then gluing it to the back of the acrylic panel. I could have it done at a place that prints banners since the finished size will be 24" X 32". I would have it printed on paper in reverse so I could stick it on the back and drill all the holes. Then remove this and, using spray glue, mount the correctly-oriented version for the graphic. It would be much easier, more accurate, and possibly something that could be modified in the future.

While this looks very similar to the last status portrait, everything is tied down and ship shape. Everything is as straight as I could get it. No perfect, but close enough for O'gauge. There's one track right in the center that's just touching the one opening in the platform, but instead of using more OSB I'm just going to fill it with Styrofoam since it's not going to be load bearing. I'm just tired of screwing in OSB, and having the screw points protrude through the top, and then have to grind them off with the Dremel. That phase of this project is over.



Here's a close up of hinge-side track joint for the swing-gate. The trains roll over the gap without a whimper.


The yard tracks came out nice and straight, but if you look closely, there seems to be a hump in the middle of the runs. It's a panel joint that didn't come out dead flat. It's only in the yard, is very slight and shouldn't cause any operational problems.


Here's the back side track. It came out nicely.


And here's another view of the yard from the left end. Can't wait to get this thing wired up and have some trains running.

[USSWisconsin]

It's a panel joint that didn't come out dead flat.

;)

In this post, the center picture, the answer might be found - the death ray, right aft, on the MSS Sparko-Gavin.

http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/bat...tml#post902125

After you've taken command of MSS Sparko-Gavin and stood out from the secret base. You'll need all 24 double ended large tube coal boilers on line - hundreds of soot encrusted stokers working at a fever pitch - thick black smoke bellowing from her four funnels. As you appoach the targeted yard, sharply bring her about and slew her over to bring the “Mighty Annihilating Death Beam Of Might” to bear “over the shoulder” - setting the power profile for a narrow shallow beam – aim using the special Black Opps grade GPS, throw open the big capacitor dumps for the full 500 milliwatts (its a very lossy system). Taking two passes, a rough cut and a finish atomic monolayer cut, your foundation should now hold the specified 0.0001 in tolerances, the proton hardening will make a difference!

[Builder 2010]

now you're sure that the weapon can work while the track is still glued down, because there's no way in hell I'm going to take up that track to try out some new fangled weapon our military has cooked up. And it may not work!

[Builder 2010]

Control Panel Redesign

Taking a blog reader's advice, I redesigned the graphic for the control panel specifically so it can be printed commercially. Since I wouldn't be using masking tape to lay it out, I didn't have to worry about having curves; therefore, I changed the display on RRTrack to a single line, made a screen capture of it, and then traced over the image in CorelDraw with a 4mm line. I thought about using a white background, but felt that the spray adhesive may leave a tint that would be objectionable. So I'm using a light yellow which would neutralize the tint (I hope).

I then changed the scheme to place the switch controllers somewhat near the switch images on the track plan. Here's what that now looks like. The dotted line is a future expansion leading to the coal mine tipple. There should be room on the panel for more stuff too.



I think using the exact track design will make it easier to visualize what's going on. There's some pretty complex switch alignments to move a train from the outer track to the inner

The image I give to Kinkos (or whomever) will not contain the images of the switch controllers, but the small black circles are going to stay. The larger, middle circle is the hole location and size for the DPDT switches for cab control, and the smaller flanking circles are for the lights that indicate which transformer throttle has the track. If I go digital, I will not need all these block switches since DCS doesn't like passing a signal through this many switches, but I will still need them for the yard tracks which need to be de-energized most of the time.

I've also been thinking about another way to get power to the swing gate without running leads all the way around the layout after crossing the middle bridge. I was thinking about getting a set of locomotive pickup rollers with the springs and all. Then mounting the roller on the door side and brass contact plates on the jamb side. When the gate rolls closed, the rollers will glide into position and make contact with the two brass power connectors. The microswitch which controls the power relay would also be in this area and would shut power off to the bridge and approaches to both sides far enough away so any train highballing to dead-man's gulch would be de-energized in time to stop the train. Using rollers would give a sliding contact that would be spring-loaded to maintain contact. Should work... right?

[Doktor]

I always thought black control panels are kind of cool.

[Builder 2010]

I could probably go with black again. I just don't know what the spray adhesive interface will look like underneath the black. I suppose I could do a test. I have some left over plexi from building the battleship showcase. I could see what it looks like with different colors attached from the underneath. In fact, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I will make up a test piece with different color backgrounds and see which one produces the best results. Thanks for the input!

[Builder 2010]

Graphics Test

Here's my graphics test piece. I see what looks best when glue to the back of the plexi and make the decision based on practicality.

[Builder 2010]

Graphics Test Complete

I printed out the test graphic, sprayed it with 3M 77 and stuck it to a piece of scrap plexi. Clearly, the black background...which—according to Gun Grape—is much cooler... looks the worse since the spray glue shows up. The lighter backgrounds look better and the tan with the blue is the best. I'm going to change the background color for the text because the spray glue discolor the white areas.



Now all I have to is change the scheme and send it off to Kinkos. I hope the adhesive doesn't let go with age... it probably will. Replacing it would be ridiculous since all the switches and lights would be wired ON TOP of the graphic...oh well.

[Builder 2010]

Panel Graphic Complete

Here's the re-colored control panel design. Since I'm doing all the graphics on the computer I embellished it a bit like drop shadows under block numbers.



Notice that the pictorials of the switch controllers are gone. Only the crosshairs for the drill operation is on the graphics. The diameters are equal to the drill diameter so any evidence of the black circle should be covered by the lights or switches. This is the image that will be printed full-size.

[Doktor]

Show this to your wife, if she is mum, you are OK, if she yells "You are crazy, who is gonna understand this?", you are still doing OK. But if she tries to "improve" the design... It means she thinks she got it and you are doing it wrong

[USSWisconsin]

now you're sure that the weapon can work while the track is still glued down, because there's no way in hell I'm going to take up that track to try out some new fangled weapon our military has cooked up. And it may not work!

We have it on the authority of Lt. Admiral/Captain-General/Latrine master Mike "Sparkie" Sparks - it will defeat the Soviets! :Dancing-Banana:

And it will ion mill the foundation without tearing up the tracks too!

[Builder 2010]

I don't know... it's sounds a little suspect to me...

I looked into buying drills that can drill acrylic without causing it to fracture. When I made the original panel in Germany, I drilled all the holes with a standard tip-angle and the drill grabs like crazy on exiting, often causing potential fractures. To drill plastic, the drill angle needs to be much sharper at 60º vs. 118º. The electrical components I'm using are European left over from the original build and are metric sized threads. To buy the three drills I needed would have cost almost $35. Since I'm an old ex-metal shop teacher, I can hand grind drills effectively so I took a 5mm drill and went at it. I tried it on my scrap acrylic and it worked perfectly, so I did the 6mm drill also. I now have the drill, the acrylic and the layout. It's time to make a control panel.

[Builder 2010]

I did some checking and to have the poster-sized graphics printed by Kinkos would cost upwards of a hundred bucks, so Plan B is now in effect. I printed the whole thing tiled over multiple pieces of paper which I will carefully cut and put together and then adhere the whole thing to the back of the acrylic. If I do this carefully, the seams should be unobtrusive (not invisible, just not to noticeable). All of the electrical hardware fastened through the panel will keep most of the sheets from delaminating. Tomorrow I'll give it a try. This way it cost the price of the ink in my printer.

[Gun Grape]

Clearly, the black background...which—according to Gun Grape—is much cooler... looks the worse since the spray glue shows up.

Gun Grape would never think black was the coolest.

Red background with Yellow layout.

What any self respecting Artilleryman would use