Holding it all together

27 April, 2009

I have struggled on how I'm going to attach the units to each other. I'm used to wood, which is a lot tougher than foamboard. One idea I'm exploring is the use of plastic tubes which will telescope inside each other and a threaded rod with nut holding it together.

It took a lot of searching around until I found a company in Sussex which supplies all kinds of plactic bits to manufacturers. They sent me a sample which is going to do the trick. Problem is the expense. Even with discounts I'm looking at nearly 60 UKP. Maybe they will sell me just one threaded nylon rod and 20 nuts. That's got to work out less than what it is now.

The alternative is to buy the stuff wholesale, cut it up into usable bits and sell it off (not really what I had in mind to do).

How will it work?

I found some electrical PVC conduit, not too far from where I live, quite cheaply. Two 110 inch tubes (one 25mm the other 20mm) cost a couple of UK Pounds. The 20mm fits inside the 25mm with a little bit of slop that can be taken up with PVC tape. They telescope togeher easily with a bit of graphite on the tape. The 20mm will have a short length of 16mm threaded rod (fits perfectly inside the tube) set into one end and a nut will hold it together. I'll set the rod in with pins and epoxy. I'll have to figure out some way of fixing the tubes to the foamboard.

I'm going to have to redo my top units with better vertical support and bracing, as the first attempt is a bit too messy for my liking.

posted on 22:54   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

Getting the stuff

19 April, 2009

Sourcing items needed for various parts of a model railroad has never been easy here. Especially when what I'm doing is a bit out of the ordinary. Holding foamboard modules together is not the same as if I was using wood. I want to keep the weight down and at the same time, minimize any possible damage points.

I had considered using rare earth magnets to keep the units together, but it was the thought of, "how on earth will I take it apart without breaking anything?" - that turned me off these. So the next idea was to use telescoping plastic tubing. It took a week to find plastic tubing that will telescope, even then I'm going to have to line the inner one about a mil, so I have a perfect fit. Next I wanted to find nylon bolts or threaded rods with nuts to hold it tight.

For those who live outside England, consider yourselves fortunate. You can get the items needed with relative ease (I know, I've done it). In the UK the exact opposite applies. You have to spend hours, days or weeks (in most cases) trying to find what you want and also have to maneuver the usual barrage of lies told to you by British businesses - how pathetically sad these people have become since the 1960's. Whatever happened to the truth.

I gave up phoning these morons and some hours later found some on the web. Samples are being sent to me. I'll check these out to make sure everything is okay and let you know how to get them. If this supplier can be trusted, then I'll put up a link to them. If not - maybe I need a rogues gallery on the site......

Even though this is major hassle, I am saving myself a lot of weight. I reckon the base unit and track/scenery supports in wood would probably be over 30lbs in weight - so far it's 6lb 4ozs.

Also I have begun collecting my scenic material. I've got a lot of different colored dirts to add to my collection of ground foams (Woodland Scenics and Carr's). Next will be an expedition to get roots, especially tree roots - if I can find an uprooted tree anywhere. Most of my old stock of stuff is long gone. Track ballast will be to a minimum as the Peco track is going to have those awful ties hidden - I just want to get this up and running soon (next time I build my own trackwork).

Next time you say Ted? Yes. The whole thing is convertible. Sort of Bauhaus* effect. 3 units make the base with another three units for the track/scenery. The top parts will be detachable with the insides of scenery (like hills) being coated with fiberglass resin to make them less breakable. All I do is swap the tops and I have a different layout.

* Bauhaus was a community of artists, architects and engineers in pre-Hitler Germany. They came up with the concept of modularization. Hitler started killing them, the rest escaped to the States and other countries.

posted on 11:04   link | comments (0)   . . . . .  

The track and scenery base

13 April, 2009

After quite a bit of consideration I decided to not have a turntable for the layout. The trackplan is based on the waterfront at Wiscasset and what I've done here is to add a run around and two short tracks that on the prototype would be the beginning of the yard. Then rotate and flip the whole thing so entry is from the left instead of the right. It represents a short branch off of a larger set of tracks 2-3 miles away. Location is not a waterfront, but somewhere in the "hills".

Operation wise I get a lot to do here. Trains would arrive with passengers and freight, then return to the main yard area, somewhere "over that a way". The track will sit about 2 inches above my base to allow a bit of scenery. The layout is planned so it can be viewed from either side. There will be no backdrop on this.

It's Easter weekend in England, which means Monday is a holiday, so today I've cut out the track/scenery base and the supports. They will need gluing together and re-inforcing over the next few days. I'm still at odds about the Peco turnouts. I really don't like Peco track for American narrow gauge - it's totally out of scale and appearance (okay for English tracks, but other than that....). If I do use this, I could (as said before), just bury the ties in dirt.

I still need to find some telescopng plastic tubing, that's strong enough, to hold the base units etc. together. 'Twould be nice it I could find some threaded stuff and then just screw it all together. The fiberglass resin will need to be applied to the main base units before that.

posted on 12:59   link | comments (0)   . . . . .