Last evening I finished off the construction of the largest section of trackwork, the 4 #3 3 way curved turnouts that wrap around the outside of the freight house.
I did the basic construction of these two years back, and over the last couple weeks finished off adding the remaining ties and hinging all 8 sets of switch points.
Still a few more smaller sections of track to complete, but getting this one out of the way is a bit of a milestone!
-T.
About the Author:
I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!
Yesterday I finished off the addition of the waterboard for the layout. Overall I am happy with how it turned out, I managed to blend in the new fake rusted metal riveted strip with original fake rusted metal riveted fascia.
I took lots of pictures of the progress, along with some video.
Carrying on from where I left off in the last post of this project, I gave the surface I had skimmed with Durobond 90 a good sanding to ensure a nice smooth base.
Of course, this created a massive amount of dust, but working slowly when sanding keeps it from getting everywhere. A quick pass with a vacuum removed the dust.
Everything is sealed up with a coat of primer. This eliminates the rest of the dust.
Vita insisted I include this picture.
The front corner of the new waterboard is a bit weak and could use some support. I am a bit concerned that if it gets flexed the water (Envirotex) might crack, so I decided to add a reinforcing bracket.
I made this up from some 1/2″ MDF.
I will install it where the waterboard is the most weak.
Since this will be fastened to the original rust fascia, I will also have to apply the effect to it. Here I have given it and the “rivets” a coat of a orange base coat. This is the first step in creating fake rust.
While that dries, I can begin to install the pre-cut Masonite strips that will be used to represent a metal band wrapped around the water.
Like I did on the rest of the layout’s fascia, I will use wooden plugs to represent rivets. A 2″ spacing looks about right.
The strips are glued and nailed in place with some 1″ finishing nails and construction adhesive.
Rivets added. They were hammered into a 3/8″ hole, which created a press fit, no adhesive required.
I masked off the areas of the layout I did not want to repaint and sprayed the new edge with a coat of a reddish-orange flat paint, this will provide the base colour for the rust effect.
The first sponge coat of the brown rust colour has been applied to the support bracket. Once the band along the front is dry, I will also apply this coat.
The rough surface of the Masonite will actually benefit the finished work. It creates a very believable texture to the rust.
The rust effect takes two or three applications of top coat, brushed on then dabbed off with a sponge. The sponge will create a mottled effect on the surface that looks surprisingly like old rust. This is how all the rusting effects were applied to the layout.
The final finish took three applications of the top coat to create the same colour and look as the original fascia. Here, I have installed the bracket in place, which went a long way to strengthening the waterboard.
Looks great from underneath. Standing and looking at the layout it isn’t possible to see this bracket. The finish work is for the benefit of the kids, short adults and modelers who have fallen over.
The surface of the waterboard was given a coat of a dark, muddy brown colour. It took a few coats to get this to cover the light gray primer I used.
After the first coat was brushed on, I noticed that some of the holes left from screwing the board in place were still visible, so I re-filled them before adding the next coat of paint using some wood filler.
The final coats of paint (there are 4 in total) was applied with a roller as I wanted to create a bit of a texture instead of brush marks. I don’t know how visible the surface will be once the Envirotex is poured.
Lite stipple texture to the painted surface.
Old and new fit together well.
Overall I am quite happy with the result. I had debated on simply painting the edge the same colour as the water, but I think the thin riveted band of old metal adds more visual interest. Sort of a cool rustbelt steampunk look.
Since I now have this nifty new high definition video camera, I created a short video documenting this project.
As if stopping to take pictures every five minutes isn’t time consuming enough….
If you have a good connection, watch it in HD. If it is stalling, simply pause the video and wait for a couple minutes for it to buffer in.
I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!
This week we launched a new series of videos called the After Hours Video Series. This series will feature a collection of videos shot in an informal relaxed manner highlighting various modeling projects that I am working on. Since producing fully edited video is a time consuming process, these videos are only lightly edited, and not narrated, simply watch the video and take from them what you will. I think these will be self explanatory, informative and should provide some helpful tips, especially those covering track building with Fast Tracks tools.
Nn3 Code 55 #6 turnout built in this video series
First up in the series is construction on an Nn3 #6 code 55 turnout. I decided to tackle this as we have not yet created any videos dealing with building trackwork in the smaller scales. The process is pretty much the same as HO scale and larger, but a bit more care and patience is needed to work with smaller parts.
I shot this last Saturday evening while listening to the St. Patrick’s day edition of Randy’s Vinyl Tap, so lots of catchy Irish music playing in the background. Beer was consumed.
The build is in 5 parts, all included below. Watch them in order, and in HD if you can. They are all shot with a HD camera and now that YouTube can stream HD video, the quality is far better then what could previously be shown. If the video stalls, simply pause the video for a few minutes, this will allow it to buffer ahead a bit and will play smoothly after that. Full screen is even better.
Part 1
Prepping and inserting PC board ties
Forming guard rails
Filing frog points using the PointForm tool
Pre-building frog points (to be installed later)
Part 2
Forming stock rails using the StockAid tool
Soldering both stock rails in place
Forming switch point using a PointForm tool
Soldering curved switch point/closure rail in place
Part 3
Preparing and installing straight switch point/closure rail
Soldering guard rails in place
Soldering frog point in place
Tweaking frog point
Filing and sanding top of frog points
Part 4
Removing turnout from fixture
Final soldering of switch points to throwbar
Filing and fitting switch points
Cleaning turnout with wire brush to remove traces of flux residue
Gluing completed turnout to laser cut QuickSticks
Breaking away QuickSticks
Dressing ends of wood ties to remove QuickSticks tabs
Part 5
Clamping completed turnout in vise
Cutting electrical isolation gaps in rail with jewelers saw
Deburring rail gaps with sharp edge file
Drilling throwbar for switch machine wire
Testing completed turnout with Nn3 boxcar
Feel free to embed or distribute these videos.
Feedback always welcome.
-T.
About the Author:
I'm your host, Tim Warris, a product developer in Port Dover, Ontario. Since March of 2007 I have been documenting the construction of the former CNJ Bronx Terminal in HO scale. For my day job, I design track building tools for Fast Tracks, a small company I own and operate. Fast Tracks makes it fast and easy to hand lay your own trackwork. Stop by our website to learn more!
