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

[Builder 2010]

Setting the Coaling Tower

Thanks Gun... as George Peppard on A-Team used to say, "It's great to see a plan come together."

Question two first: No, I didn't know about this larger scale Missouri. While it's intriguing, I really don't need any more distractions. I don't have anywhere to put a model that large (over 53" long) without it being in the basement and food for spiders. But it would be fun to work on parts that are almost 2X bigger.

Question one: If I had heavier gauge styrene I might have tried that way and at one point I do remember thinking about using the styrene as a direct form. I also was itching to try to do the latex casting since I saw a need for casting later one (rocks, tunnel portals, bridge abutments) so I saw it as a chance to get some more experience. As it stands now, I'm going to get the silicon 2-part molding compound which make a more rigid mold for bigger parts.

Today I started to mount the tower to the platform.

My first attempt at mounting the tower onto the plaster bases involved using Titebond wood glue. It seemed like a good idea at the time. After a drying period, I presented the tower to the layout and marked out its location. The chute end legs sit between the tracks right into the ballast bed. The back end sits alongside the rails. I had to remove just a little bit of ballast to make a good bedding for the tower.
The second theory was to use liquid Hydrostone to bed the tower into the layout so it would absorb any irregularities. I mixed up some plaster to a thicker consistency that was used when casting the footings and laid down a puddle under each leg location and then quickly plopped the tower down into the wet plaster.



It worked! (sort of…). The plaster cured very fast, and putting plaster on top of it, cured it even faster since some of the moisture was absorbed by the footings glued to the tower. As a result the bedding wasn’t as even as needed nor did it completely fill in all the gaps, but it was level. And more importantly, the tower did not adhere to the plaster bedding. I spent some time to trim the plaster that was sticking out and vacuumed up the remains. Some of the footings detached and were stuck to the plaster, in other cases, the bedding stuck to the footings and came off the layout surface, but worst of all some of the legs were now coming loose from the footings. The Titebond was not working.

I added some more liquid plaster to fill in some of the gaps, but then one of the long footings fractured.



This time, I used Titebond to glue the plaster footings to the bedding and medium viscosity CA to hold the legs to the footings. I added some DAP filler to the bottoms of some of the footings where gaps exist. Tomorrow, I'll go back and clean it up some more, and paint the footings since all the various adhesives all over the place have destroyed the concrete effect that I was shooting for.





When the ground cover goes on it will look much, much better. The ballast will be reinstalled, weathering will be added and then generous quantities of coal will be spread about to make it look like a working coaling station. If this installation was truly prototypical, there would be an open pit in the track running under the tower. Hopper cars would unload coal into this pit, which would be guided up to the bunker through a bucket chain hoist running up a track into the tower. These tracks are depicted in the model, but they don't go into the ground where the coal pit would be, and I'm not putting one in. People will have to suspend their expectations a bit.

[Builder 2010]

Setting more buildings

I've started putting some buildings into the layout starting with the engine service area. It includes a Model Tech Sanding Tower, the Gloor Craft Coaling Tower now modified for my track spacing and a (I think) Gloor Craft 50k gallon water tank. The tank was one of the three buildings I purchased from Frank Miller. Since all three were on the elevated foam section, I use three different means to attach them to the layout. The sanding tower was built on foam core that was about an 1/8" lower than the surrounding foam so I spaced it up a bit with some cardboard.

After positioning and marking the location on the foam, I used a utility knife to cut the foam down to the OSB. It meant disturbing some of the ballast, but that's okay since it will be replaced up and over the sanding tower's base. I then used regular hot glue to hold both the cardboard spacer and the model. After gluing the model's base was just a little proud of the surrounding foam so I went back and used some light spackling compound to level the area. When it was dry I lightly sanded the area and then used another light coat to finish the job.

This picture shows the cardboard already in place.








For the Coaling Tower, I described this installation in my last post, but I've since gone back and added more filling plaster. It's now drying waiting for final finishing.



I'm going to go back and paint the footings and then ground cover and coal debris with clean it up. Of course I'll post pictures of the finished product.

For the water tank, I used adhesive caulk to hold the footings to the foam. I went this route since I wanted something that was flexible so if it got bumped it wouldn't break free. I made sure it was paintable before using it.

[Builder 2010]

More Buildings and Bridge Design

With these in place and their plaster drying I added one more building, the Model Tech Inc, signal tower. This fell in an area that was half foam, sculptamold and then OSB. Again, I cleaned the area, marked out the location by tracing, and then start cutting. In this case, I again used hot melt to hold the model to the table, and the Sculptamold to contour the area into the surrounding terrain. I'm going to have a drive leading up to this building as well as some form of roadway/gravel to the yard buildings.

Here it is in place:



Here's the contouring putty in place and drying. Sculptamold takes days to dry enough for painting and recoating with skin coat. It will need another coat to make it more "driveable."



While all this is drying, I was redesigning the truss bridges for the last time before beginning construction. I'm glad I did since my first attempt have way too many errors which would have been disastrous. Since the bridge will be a deck truss instead of through truss, it can be much narrower and have less truss depth since trains don't have to fit inside of it. Here's the design in elevation and plan. There will be two of these bridges at slightly different elevations. One will be on a 2º slope.

The bridges will be 30 long. These were drawn in 1:1 scale in CorelDraw. The bridge will be built directly over the plans, model RC plane style. I find the Plastruct's instructions to be awful since no full-size diagrams are shown in O'Scale and therefore you must use the cutting table to measure and cut all the members. It's much easier to put the parts directly over the plan, mark them, cut them and then hold them to the plan during gluing. Since I can't print a 30+ inch paper on my printer, I print it as "tiles" and then tape them together. Not elegant, but it works. I suppose I could take it to Kinko's and have them print it out on large paper...

Side Elevation



Bottom (top is similar, but has only four bays



End Elevations, True projection. Not, you can use full cross-bracing on a deck truss since nothing must pass inside, unlike a through truss.



Changing the height and width of the truss changed every gusset plate in the model and required the most redesign effort.

I still have to figure out what kind and how I'm going to install a catwalk on the side, but this is not necessarily required.

I'm also starting to think about building a 36", 3-bay engine house. It will be scratchbuilt since nothing like this exists on the market. While I'd love a roundhouse and turntable, the layout (as it stands now) can't handle one, nor can the budget handle the cost of a turntable. I probably can swing a cool engine house.

[Builder 2010]

Engine Service Area Complete & Bridge Construction Underway

I finished up the small engine servicing area and it represents the first actual landscaping on the entire layout. It's quite a milestone and should probably break a bottle of Champagne against it. I used various W-S ground covers, coal, buff-colored fine ballast. This was after putting on another coat of Spackle and a last sanding. I decided that the "concrete" bases of the coal tower didn't need paint since the India Ink/Alcohol/water mixture I'm using for the wetting agent in the yard grunged the bases up enough to be passable. I may go back and do some powder weathering to simulate the coal dust that would be covering everything around the tower.



In the above pictures the W-S Scenic Cement is not yet dry so there's some color variation that is now gone. The engine getting its first coal, water and sand treatment is a 3rd Rail Pennsy T-1 demonstrator version with the full Raymond Lowey streamlining. It is my favorite streamline treatment and I especially like the portholes.

The Sculptamold is finally dry that surrounds the signal tower installation so I can put a skin coat on that prior to painting and landscaping. It took four full days to dry out.

Then I got working on the deck truss bridges. The plans I drew are working well and I made significant progress on the first of the twin bridges. The hardest part so far is the longitudinal I-beams that run directly under the running rails. These have to fit snugly between two slightly larger I-beams that make up the main cross-bracing. It's hard to make a direct measurement since the flanges block access so I scribed the place where the web is on top of each girder and used that distance to scribe on the I-beams. These then have to be coped to nest under and into the web of the cross braces. My first attempts did not fit as I would like and I will reinforce these joints with J-B Weld since these form part of the structure that holds the end beams in place. It is under the corners of the end beams that supports the bridge on the bridge shoes. The weight of many pounds of locomotives will be transferred to those beams and into the abutments. In the next bridge, I think I will install the cross-braces and longitudinal braces at the same time so the cross-braces can be butted up tightly to the longitudinal braces before gluing.

I'm building the bridge model-airplane style directly over the plans which are taped to my work bench with a layer of polyethylene sheeting over them. My work bench surface is Homasote which is a great surface for "T" pins. This is a much better way to build this bridge than the way the instructions shows since there are no full-scale plans with the model and you have to measure all the components and then assemble them. It's much easier to measure parts directly to plans.



I'm also gluing the gusset plate paper templates onto the ABS sheeting and just cutting them out with a scissors. I use 3M #77 spray adhesive.



To remove the paper from the ABS I take some Goo Gone on a rag and saturate the paper. In a few sections it almost falls off by itself. A little more Goo Gone removes the adhesive residue. Isopropyl alcohol removes any residual Goo Gone since all this surface is going to get MicroMark rivet decals. I would someday like to have the NWSL Sensi-press and Riveter embossing system, but until that time, I'm hoping that these decals will make a passable job.

Once each truss side was complete, I set them up on the plans with angle blocks clamped to the sides to keep them perpendicular to the building plane. I cut the cross braces en-masse once I created one that was the correct length. After cutting I dress the ends with the NWSL True Sander to ensure that the ends are flat and dead square. I used the first one as a master to measure the lengths for the remainder.



Here's the work as it was at the end of today's session. Cross members are mostly in place. I've left some out to grant access to the interior since there's cross-bracing that will go inside. The end beams are fully in place with gusset plates on the outside and bottom. For bridge number 2 I'm going to combine the angular gusset plate and the rectangular one that covers the end beam. It was an after thought in my plans and should have been one piece for a stronger joint. The end beams are the most important member on the bridge.



Because of the redesign, this bridge is almost 3 inches shorter in height than the through truss version and therefore will be a very stout, stiff structure.

[Gun Grape]

Finally, something messy. That workbench looks like its in use by a normal person. Not like all those pics you posted during the building phase where there wasn't even sawdust on the floor.

I'm building the bridge model-airplane style directly over the plans which are taped to my work bench with a layer of polyethylene sheeting over them. My work bench surface is Homasote which is a great surface for "T" pins. This is a much better way to build this bridge than the way the instructions shows since there are no full-scale plans with the model and you have to measure all the components and then assemble them. It's much easier to measure parts directly to plans.

Sometimes there is no better way than "Old School". bridge look good.

[Builder 2010]

Bridge Work

Of course my bench is messy... a clean bench is the sign of a sick mind.

I got back to building yesterday and almost finished the first deck truss bridge. It's quite strong and all the structural members are in place. I'm now applying the rivet decals on the gusset plates that will be exposed to viewers. Since this is an inverted truss bridge, all the rivets on the bottoms of the trusses will be not visible so I'm not going to waste materials on them.

While I was doing all this, my #1 grandson was putting on some more ground cover on the layout and another coat of patching spackle on the ground around the signal tower.

While away, I awoke at 4 in the morning and was thinking about streamlining the bridge building since I have another complete one to build. I was having trouble making identical length cuts on the small razor-saw miter boxes I have. I came up with an idea to build a movable stop that could help replicate identical pieces. It would consist of two brass bushings, a piece of drill rod with a flat blade perpendicular to one end, and a locking screw. I didn't draw it out. Yesterday I just started machining the brass and went to install it and realized that it wouldn't work... at least it wouldn't on the non-Xacto box. I was going to adhere the brass to the box using J-B Weld. When I went to install it, I immediately realized that it would be in the way of the saw as it cut something in the miter box.



In the above picture, I can actually glue the brass below the saw cuts because the flange is deep enough so the rod would clear the slots, but on the other box, the flange is short and the rod would be right in the path of the saw. I knew I should have drawn it on the computer first. I think I'm going to finish this project and see if it works. I will drill and tap for the set screw after gluing the bushings to the box.

So I went to the more simple solutions... Achem's Razor anyone... by drilling the box for some flathead screws, fastening it to the bench (which makes good sense anyhow since the darn thing tends to move about) and clamp a block on the bench as a stop for the pieces I want to cut. Solved!



Since I changed the dimensions of the bridge so dramatically, I ended up with a lot of extra H beams, T-beams, and a little bit of channel, but the main longerons that support the track, the biggest I-beams, are the same length as the original kit's so it was just enough. And then I cut one way too short... like 1/2". It didn't seem like a crises at the time since I thought that I'd have extra. But I was one length short when I got to the last piece so I had to splice an I-beam back together. I made careful square cuts, use the True Sander to refine the edge and then butt glued them together. I use gusset plate material to make splice plates on both sides of the joint. After drying overnight, it was very strong and won't cause a problem. Moral... there's always a way.



When all the parts were glued, it was time to start putting on rivets. I can't swing the cost of an NWSL Sensi-press with the Riveter attachment, so I bought the rivet decal sheets sold by MicroMark. This was the first time I would be using this method and hoped it would work since I can see many uses for it going forward. These are actual bumps that are O'scale. Quite neat!



It took some time to get used to using this product. The decal film is very fragile. If I started moving the film off the carrier while off the work, the end would invariably curl under itself and it was the beginning of a mess. It worked best when I brought the carrier to the work before attempting to move the film. Even then it was touch and go a few times. I also realized rather late that some of the decals were already at the correct row spacing for the T-bar rivets and made it much easier to get them spaced correctly. I finished on side, let it dry and then coated it with Krylon Low Odor Clear Flat. I dried it with the hot air gun, but won't start working on side two until tomorrow when it's cured. I may even coat it again before laying the bridge on that side.

Here's the rivet detail:



I have some more stuff so I'll add another post.

[Builder 2010]

More

While we were away, my Ross Bridge track with the guardrails arrived. Here's the track laying on the bridge.



These rails will be painted and weathered. I am also going to construct a catwalk on the inside curve side of the bridge. I'm going to order the stanchions from Bowser and use extra Ross cross ties as the support with stripwood walkways.

Here's the landscaping done by my grandson. It's just the beginning and there's lots, lots more to come.





Tomorrow I'll finish basic construction of bridge #1 and start on #2. I think I'll paint the bridges before installing the catwalks. I'm thinking of spraying them with rattle can Krylon Red primer, or flat black. I'll then weather them a bit with paint and powders.

[Builder 2010]

More Bridges and Bridge Design

Bridge number one is just about finished (except for the catwalk) with addition of a pair of Keil Line bridge shoes. They add a nice prototypical touch to this project. I've decided to mount the bridges on a blocks dropped from the subroadbed itself and then build a false work below that would simulate the abutments on each end. This way I don't have to be too concerned about getting the abutments an exact height. By using the subroadbed itself, the slope of the outer loop bridge would automatically be set and exact.



To add the catwalk, I cut relief into a dozen of Ross cross ties so they would slip under the Ross bridge track to clear the longitudinal stringer that Ross installs to stabilize the track. In this picture, they're not glued in yet.



I've started bridge number two and practice makes perfect since I have it almost complete in one long work session. My bench stop has made the cutting of multiple exact-length pieces a snap.

With the dramatic reduction in both height and width, I have enough Plastruct structural shapes left to construct the deck plate bridge that will go under the O-88 curve under the 3rd gap in the layout. I've chosen the deck plate design since it will consist of two 12" segments bent in the middle. Again, as before, I'm designing it on CorelDraw in full-size and will build the bridge over the plans.



While I could have used a concrete pier for the center support, I have enough "H" beams to build the lattice tower and I think it's much more interesting. The above view shows how the bridge will be supported directly from the sub-roadbed and not by the simulated concrete abutments. The only piece that needs to be exact is the spacing block (light yellow)

This view shows how the width was determined to enable the curve to be supported by the bridge beneath.



I was originally going to use the cross-bracing for the inner structure as shown above, but then I realized that no one will ever see this work and I will have a lot of the larger I-beams left over from the truss project so I'm going to use solid girders inside instead. It will greatly simplify construction and be very strong.

While I was building bridges, the grandsons were doing landscaping. Older grandson was finishing the ground work around the signal tower, and younger was up on the layout vacuuming the loose ballast in preparations for laying down various colors of earth and grass. The kids really like landscaping since they can let their "artistic" impulses loose.



Older grandson commented, "That's one down and 80,000 to go!", lamenting the reality of the size of the layout and how much has to be covered. Little grandson loves being able to climb on top and really get into the action.

[Builder 2010]

Bridge 2 Almost Done

Here's today's work. Bridge two is almost complete except for the thin cross bracing and rivet decals. I've ordered the railing stanchions. When bridge 2 is finished I'll paint both of them and then install the track, walkway and railing.



As I moved up the learning curve, I was able to fit the main rail supports between the cross beams much more precisely. I only needed to use CA on two of them. By cutting them just a tad long and using the True Sander to bring them to exact length, they all nested in nicely and were welded with plastic solvent.

[Builder 2010]

deck Plate Bridge

Both truss bridges are finished and I moved onto the deck plate bridge. I'm using mostly material left over from the truss bridges plus some added angle, T, and strip stock purchased at the hobby shop. Even so, it still cost me almost 50 bucks more for those materials since they're so expensive.

The Bowser handrail stanchions came yesterday, so once I'm finished building the deck bridge, I'll return to the truss bridges, finish the catwalks and paint all of them.



The first of the two deck bridges is now complete and I've started on the second one. These get mounted at a modest angle to each other so the O-88 curve track catches all parts of the bridge structure for good support.

Rather than spend the time and aggravation of building the inner cross-bracing structure, I realized that I had enough Plastruct 1-1/8" big I-beam to use that as the spacer and as a major structural member inside the bridge. How and where this bridge will be installed, no one will ever see the insides, and the I-beams are very strong. I glued two, flange-to-flange, to make an inner piece that is almost exactly the right size to sit inside the girders. This was just dumb luck since the depth of the girders (2.4") was more based on aesthetics than anything else.

I worked hard to ensure that all these parts where the exact same length and square in both directions. I used a v-block clamped to the I-beam to support the part during gluing. All gluing is done with Plastruct Bondene plastic weld solvent.



I wasn't sure how to handle the bearing surface where the track actually contacts the bridge structure. I first tried to use 5, H-beams laid cross-wise across the girders, but didn't like how it was supporting the track, so I went to Plan B which was to make a level bearing surface across the bridge to ensure that the track touched everywhere. The structure is extremely rigid and has no flexing in any direction. It's a solid plastic brick that will easily support any locomotive I own.



In the above picture, you can see the filler pieces that support the rails even when the ties are not touching the outer edge of the girders. With a deck plate bridge under straight track, you don't have this complication.

Here's some track laid across the bridge and you can see it is contacting all surfaces and looks exactly like the original design.



I still have to design the angle connection between the two bridge halves. The bridge shoes will go under this mid section. I'm leaning towards a solid square plate of ABS plastic that will span both bridges, and then some inner structure that will fill in the gap. I've got some .080" material left over from the truss bridges that will work perfectly when combined into a .160 sandwich.

[Builder 2010]

Deck Plate Bridge Part 2

Completed and joined the two deck plate bridge sections and am ready to start working on the center support tower. Building the second bridge was clearly easier than the first and finished in a little better shape. That being said, the novice probably can't tell which one was finished first.



I thought about how to join the two halves and settled on using three angled plates of .080" ABS which is very stiff. I made a cardboard template first and actually tried out the angle on the railroad itself before cutting plastic. But even then, the angle was two sharp and I had to adjust the first piece so it matched the angle on my plan.



These plates were glued to the flanges on the inner I-beams that hold the bridge together. I glued them on one side and then when it was "sort-of" set, brought the other piece into contact. I then applied more Bondene liberally to ensure a good bond. The end result was a very strong junction that just needed some trim pieces to hide the insides.



When fit over the tracks it fit exactly as planned. I used some more styrene, and ABS sheet and angles to fill the gap.



For the center mounting plate, I shaped and then glued on a piece of .080" ABS upon which the bridge shoes will be fixed. For the outside ends, rather than stacking up some more ABS, "H" beams glued crossways serves as a strong support.



The center places also increased the strength of the joint significantly. The entire assembly is solid and feels like one piece. When set on the end beams, it's very stiff and self-supporting.

Now it's onto the tower that will support the middle.

[Builder 2010]

Deck Bridge Tower Part 1

Started building tower. I've got the plans laid on top of a MicroMark magnetic steel building jig, but the width of the tower's base on the tapered side is just a little wider than the steel plate. The results were the magnets not having a good enough surface to really hold on the wide end. It did the job, but for the rest of this job I'm going back to pinning the parts directly to my Homasoted work bench top.

One side of the tower has a 5º taper and the other is straight. I adjusted the True Sander's fence to match the taper so the columns and horizontal members can be sanded to that specific value and fit nice and tightly. The ruler is providing more surface for the fence clamp.



The next shot shows the cross braces fitted into position.



I then added the gusset plates which really tightens the whole thing up. I only had a short time to work today and was able to build one tower side and add the cross-bracing in the top bay. In looking at this picture I see that one of the gusset plates is actually glued on upside down... oh well...



Tomorrow, I build the other tapered tower and then assemble them with equal-length spacers. Before cutting the H-beams I took the completed bridge and the tower plans to the spot on the layout and reconfirmed the height and how I was going to remove the temporary plank that now serves as a bridge in that area. I didn't want to waste the precious H-beams. I'm going to use the rivet decals on this project also. I've decided on not putting them on the bridge itself since the webs are awfully narrow and don't lend themselves to these kinds of decals.

The tower's going to be embedded in a wood block which will then be surrounded with cast Hydrostone which will simulate a concrete foundation. I'm going to cast in the debris taper on the upstream side of the base as part of the molding.

I also added the bridge shoes to the center section of the deck bridge. There are two ways to put on bridge shoes. The right way and the wrong way. It's clearly a 50/50 proposition. So I cleaned up the castings and put a drop of medium viscosity CA onto the mounting plate, and some accelerator on the bridge shoe and set it in very carefully. It set very quickly.

And then I realized I didn't check which direction the pin was facing. It's supposed to be cross-wise to the bridge axis and of course I just CA'd it with the pin in line with the bridge and WRONG. I had to use some force to pry it off, clean up the now cured CA and remount it correctly. I was rushing. Never fails. Don't Rush!

[zraver]

Dude, I am in awe.......

[Doktor]

We all are.

[Builder 2010]

Thanks to all of you. I'm glad someone is still reading...