Now, code 83 rail is .083”

Now, code 83 rail is .083” tall and that 85lb rail is 5” tall so that should work out to code 5,000. The head on the rail is about 2” wide and an HO tie is about 1 3/16” long let’s lay some rail on the rail! Now the first rule of model railroading is have fun, check, got that covered. The second rule, and if it isn’t it ought to be, is things should be interesting. 4 or 5 foot of straight track sitting on a rail is sort of boring. But wait! Somewhere around here I have a Central Valley 150’ Punchplate Truss bridge kit and a Micro Engineering 30’ Deck Girder bridge. Let’s cut out the head and web of the rail in the center so the bridges have a reason for being there and maybe put a little river running across the foot of the rail. At 85 pounds a yard this layout is getting a little heavy so while it’s on the milling machine cutting the center down for the bridges, lets machine out the foot, web and as far up as we can reach into the head to hollow it out and save some weight. A hollow rail, great, now I have somewhere to hide one of Geoff Bunza DCC Function Generators from SMA 22,  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/sma22-%E2%80%93-low-cost-dcc-controllerfunction-generator-for-animation-test-tracks-absolute-stopping-blocks-for-12202555, and a couple of absolute position detectors from SMA 23,  https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/sma23-%E2%80%93-a-new-dcc-dc-car-loco-detector-%E2%80%93-differential-absolute-position-detector-dapd-12203476, to automate a train shuttling back and forth.

I’ve never done a blog before, and truth be told, I don’t even like writing but stick with me, comment away and don’t be afraid to steer me if I start to go off course. I’ll post some machining pictures and video if I can figure out how, modify and combine some electronics to do what I want and even build a bridge. Rule #1 is in effect at all times, lets have fun.

Bob

Deck Girder Bridge

I got started on the Micro Engineering Deck Girder Bridge today. The detail on the kit is good but not great and the warpage on the horizontal braces, as you can see in the picture, was severe. I cleaned up what little flash there was and sanded the edges of the girders to remove a step from slight misalignment of the molds.  A sanding board with 180 and 320 grit sandpaper glued to a flat board as shown in this video,

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Real steel framework

And people are always complaining about how much L-girder framework weighs.

LOL

I want to see this when you are finished.

Code 3,625 rail

It's catching, here's a 44 tonner(PQE's) on some 1876 Troy Steel rail....DaveB 

Deck Girder continued

Dave, that's funny.  I was going to go upstairs and grab my 45 tonner but was too lazy. Well, I didn’t need the heat. I was able to block everything in place with steel weights and sneak in enough glue to hit all the joints. Everything is drying now then then we’ll see what we have. 

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Everything worked out fine

Everything worked out fine and it almost looks like a bridge.  One thing bothering me is bridges built in the early to mid 1900s were made up from flat plate, angle and channel sections. The sides and top cap would be flat stock attached at 90 degrees to each other with angle and fastened with hot rivets. The top cap doesn’t have any rivets. Now I’ve never been accused of being a rivet counter but I’ve worked on enough real bridges to notice something missing altogether. Not to worry, Archer makes 3d rivet decals so off goes an order to them. 

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Central Valley truss bridge start

Work has begun on the Central Valley 150’ truss bridge. The bottom floor assembly is up first. Lots of pieces to clean up and sand some edges to take care of the parting lines. I’m impressed with the kit so far, there’s even a real steel spline that goes down inside the center of floor assembly. They say it will support 18lbs. when done but I hope it doesn’t get tested. I decided to try the Flex-I-File Touch-N-Flow glue applicator that’s been kicking around here for a while. Basically it’s a thin glass tube with a piece of TINY stainless steel tubing in the end to apply solvent cement. It’s going to take some time to get the hang of it but the control is unbeatable. Lay it flat on the bench and nothing come out. Hold it flat against your joint and glue comes out by capillary action. Tip it up and you can get as much to run out as you want, all at a tiny point. The thing is so thin you can sneak it into unbelievably tight places too.

Bob

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So was this a serious project

So was this a serious project or just april fools? I am kinda curious to see where this goes.....

Dead serious

I've never posted pictures or video before so this is a learning experience. 

Truss continues

This thing is big! Lots of pieces and not too much flash, a nice combination. I’ve got the bottom floor together and now is a good time to say the video series that Central Valley has on their web site is a must watch when building these bridges. The instructions are good but some fine details have been overlooked and the videos will fill in the blanks. A little detail like the lower cross braces attach to the cross bearers by about 2 rivets worth and the rest hang off into space you’ll have to learn from the video. 

A handy tip I also picked up from their construction video is using a toothbrush sized wire brush to de-glaze the joints after gluing. They use stainless steel but I found brass worked just as well and is kinder on the rivet detail. The Touch-N-Flow is a pain to fill but I find it to be worth the trouble. Bob

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On to the girders

The bottom floor assembly is done. The best tips I’ve got for that job is build on a dead flat surface, use a long straight edge, lots of weights and let the glue harden well before moving. It’s a real flexible flyer until its done but then becomes amazingly rigid. Any twist or curve built in there is there to stay. The girder beams are a bit fiddly to assemble but I sanded down a stick of wood to fit inside the two halves. Then they could be clamped in place before gluing and the stick slid out the end. I don’t care how many clamps you have you don’t have enough! Harbor Freight has a tube full of small spring clamps, I think about 25, for around $4. Too bad I didn’t buy 2 tubes. Bob

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Truss continues

Included with the truss bridge it is a template for the beam cutting and layout that shows one half of one side. I didn’t want to build the bridge a quarter at a time so I scanned the pages, mirrored a copy and printed out two sets of each. I fastened them to a pine board with a straight edge along the bottom to keep everything true. Think model airplane builders. A miter box and a fine tooth razor saw made cutting the girders easy and touching up the ends with a tru-sander and 600 grit made the butt joints near perfect. A tip for cutting is most cuts are on the center of a hole or the center between the holes. The paper may swell or shrink but it shows a shadow of the holes so you know where to cut. Bob

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Truss continues some more

Included with the truss bridge it is a template for the beam cutting and layout that shows one half of one side. I didn’t want to build the bridge a quarter at a time so I scanned the page, mirrored a copy and printed out two sets of each. I fastened them to a pine board with a straight edge along the bottom to keep everything true. Think model airplane builders.  

A miter box and a fine tooth razor saw made cutting the girders easy and touching up the ends with a tru-sander and 600 grit made the butt joints neat perfect. A tip for cutting is most cuts are on the center of a hole or the center between the holes. The paper may swell or shrink but it shows a shadow of the holes so you know where to cut. Got the top and bottom beams glued together, mitered and the various openings and gussets applied. Had to cut all 10 of the upright beams to length and they better be the same length so I rigged a quick stop on my NWSL chopper. Jigs and stops are the key to repeatable, consistent results and more hair left on your head. 

I used a scrap of the large beam to mark and check where the ends of the small beams had to be reduced. For a bit of foreword planning I’ve ordered Central Valley ties to put all the way across from end to end for a consistent look. There's a lot of fitting and trimming on this kit. Nothing wrong with it, just the way it was designed. It builds more like a wood kit than any plastic one I've encountered. Definitely not something you throw together over the weekend!  Bob.

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Bridges built

Guess I’ve fallen a little behind on posting here. The Archer rivet decals came in and worked very well. I ordered the HO bridge rivets and they were spaced a little to far apart for me but I went with them anyway. I think enough of the product to order a few sets in different sizes just to have in the arsenal of tricks. The bridges are built but not painted yet. I’m going to use a Vallejo red primer with various rust colors as an undercoat, AK Interactive “worn effects” chipping fluid and a Tamiya aluminum top coat. The military modelers like the Vallejo, AK, Tamiya combination so we’ll see how it works out on the smaller scale. I’m going for a bridge in need of a paint job but not a total rust bucket. On to the machine work. Bob 

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Off the rails

Still here plugging away. I haven’t painted the bridges yet but decided to displace some metal. The goal here is to hollow out the rail to lighten it and have somewhere to put the electronics and wiring. That said, I don’t want to disturb the natural aged finish except where the ball and web is cut away to form the valley. The order of operations will be first, machine the top of the rail flat so when I flip it over it will sit evenly on the mill table. The first picture is indicating the rail square on the mill table. This mill is a Cincinnati 205-12 universal horizontal with a powered overarm. The cutter in this case is a 3” face mill with carbide inserts.

Next is cutting the bottom flat and then machining a relief in the bottom of the foot of the rail. I’ll make a slight step near the edge so I can fabricate a flush sheet metal cover attached with 4-40 truss head screws. I won’t cut to the edge on the relief so nothing will show when right side up.

With 5 horsepower on the spindle and carbide cutters you can remove some serious metal in a hurry. Here I’m running about 300 surface feet per minute and a feed of 8 inches per minute. 

Chips ahoy! 

Almost had to move the wall. 

Next stop is the CNC mill to hollow out the web and mill away part of the ball and web where the bridges go.  Bob

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Still here and still plugging away.

I finally finished carving on the rail. I’ll weigh it so we have a before and after weight and get a picture of the chip bin. Suffice it to say I filled a 5 gallon bucket before I got off the horizontal mill and headed to the CNC mill for the real metal removal. The metal cut beautifully with no hard spots, not even where the ball was rolled over from passing wheels. No problems unless you miss a decimal point and program the mill to plunge down 5” in the Z instead of 1/2", kind of tough on drill bits. Between munching metal I’ve built one of Geoff Bunza DCC function generators and have been modifying the code to do what I want. We have had some notes going back and forth near the end of his thread that might be worth a look. https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/sma22-%E2%80%93-low-cost-dcc-controllerfunction-generator-for-animation-test-tracks-absolute-stopping-blocks-for-12202555 I‘ve also washed the bridge parts in dish soap tonight so there ready to spray the Vallejo primer.

 Chain drilling the waste out of the web.

 Cutting the web with a ¾” end mill.

 Slotting the foot with a ¼” end mill. Till next time, Bob

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End of the machine work

A few more pictures of the machine work I forgot to upload. I just shot the Valejo primer on the bridges and wanted to give you the final count on the weight reduction. The rail started out at 137.5 lbs and ended up at 73.3 for a 64.2 lb reduction. Now if I could only loose weight like that! Bob

That’s what 64 pounds of steel chips looks like.

 Hollowing out the ball.

 Cutting the seat for the bridge to sit on.

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Progress slows

My double vision problem has been kicking my rear area lately but I'm still doing what I can. Ive got Geoff Bunza DCC Function Generator  and his absolute position detectors built and most of the sketch done. Not one to leave well enough alone, I've written in braking, bells that go on for a few seconds when motion starts and horn or whistle signals for forward and reverse. Ive also written signal control into his original program. The circuit board and Arduino stack wound up being a little too big to fit in the hollow space of the rail so I'm going to hide it in the bottom of an Atlas signal tower. The tower will be dressed to the nines with a Vector Cut upgrade, spiral stairs and mounted on a platform cantilevered off the rail on a steel and brass platform. Any body got an old school way to make rivit impressions in brass? Pictures when I can and the final sketch when the final version is done. Bob

Loving this...

I can't wait to see this finished! I'm invested now!

Signal tower begins

I've milled a slight recess into the top of the rail and attached a piece of 18 gauge steel with 4-40 screws for the tower to sit on. Right now it's hanging out in space but it will have support columns and braces made of soldiered brass going down to the rail. Work on the tower has begun and I cant say enough about the Vector Cut upgrade kit. The roof is on and I just started the windows and doors. The fit is really quite amazing when you think about it. The two kits were made by two different manufactures, decades apart and the plastic shot from who knows how many different moulds. The laser work is the best I've seen. I wish my midnight photography was up to the task but here is a quick shot of the start. Bob

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Flaky paint.

Still plugging along on the signal tower and integrating the different electronic circuits but I needed a change. Back in the planning stage I wanted to try Vallejo red primer with various rust colors as an undercoat, AK Interactive “worn effects” chipping fluid and a Tamiya aluminum top coat. No time like the present to try it out. I've never used this before so I'll start with the smaller span. The primer and rust colors went on a few weeks ago so they were good and dry. The worn effects chipping fluid is water clear and as thin as water making it easy to spray but hard to see the coverage. Where I got so much it pooled, a touch with a paper towel soaked it up fine and a second coat was added about a half hour later. I used a Badger Krome throughout and sprayed at about 20psi. An hour later out came the aluminum Tamiya for a light but thorough coat sprayed unthinned. An hour after that, out came a shot glass full of water and let the chipping begin. I had an assortment of brushes but found a #3 round the most useful along with the point of a pin. The bridge was done one panel at a time by applying water and letting it stand for about 30 seconds, then lightly scrubbing with the brush as the paint started to loosen. The amount removed was very controllable and scratches could be added with needle without removing big sheets of paint. The "worn effects" gives a finer chip than the "chipping fluid" and is more suited for the smaller scales I think. There was no effect on the base coat and by the next day the top coat was as hard as if nothing special was done. 

  I remember thinking, now that the paint chipping is done it's time to add some rust streaks when it hit me. Weathering is not just adding some dirt, streaks and smudges, its modeling each thing an object has gone through in its life. That wear on the floor is from where people walked, that rust spot is where something scraped by and so on. Enough philosophy, time to get back to soldering brass. Bob

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Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone! I'm still here plugging along but my double vision has gotten worse so it’s slowing me down some. I have the base that holds up the signal tower done and primed. The base is all steel or brass welded or soldered together. Luckily I got the TIG welding done before my vision went really south.

The bridge is now all painted and chipped but still needs some rust streaks and general weathering. I like it the effect I got with the chipping fluid.

The column is a resin casting, the first for me, and I’m happy with how it came out too.

The electronics all work on the bench, now to stuff them in. This is starting to make putting a sound decoder in an N scale engine look like a breeze! Press on regardless and have a great new year. Bob

Awesome job on this project

Your work looks great, and the whole concept of the project is clever!  I'm in love with the way the paint job on the bridge came out. You could just add a couple of figures on a scaffolding with a little patch of zinc chromate as if they were starting the repainting process and call it done. 

I can sympathize trying to deal with the double vision.  I had a bout of that about 20 years ago, lasted about 4 months.  While it was great that the 4 lane highway suddenly was 8 lanes wide, there were also twice as many cars on it.  Wound up driving with one eye closed.  Eye doctors wanted to put in these weird wedges on my glasses, but that wouldn't have worked.  When I started getting migraines as well, I started reviewing all the things that were going on.  Long story short, I changed the company I worked at and everything returned to normal.  It was just job-related stress. 

Good luck, and have a great new year!

Janet N.

Beautiful models Bob. I

Beautiful models Bob. I really like how you have incorporated an older classic kit into your model and the beautiful job you did on construction. I hope your vision is able to be corrected soon and that you have no more issues with it. Thanks for sharing such beautiful work with us.