Hand Laying Track
As part of the next stage of my testing before the big layout build, I want to lay a bunch of track by hand to see how much work it entails, and evaluate it from cost, performance, and appearance standards.
First up though, is a small mini-test section. Here's what I've gotten done so far.
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Materials/Tools in this picture
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Ties go in the jig. |
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and a piece of painters blue tape is applied, than the whole thing gets pulled carefully out. |
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just a little (as you can see) yellow carpenter's glue is applied |
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And then the ties go down. After the glue had set for an hour, I carefully pulled the tape off. |
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Ok, this is looking pretty good so far. |
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Some people recommend dipping the ties in advance, others say to do so after they are glued down. I thought I would try the latter. This picture shows some of the ties after just one coat of the Minwax stain. Materials added:
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So I'm not satisfied with the tie color, I think it's too black.
I removed one tie to show myself where the "break" is - the first set I'm leaving untouched, the second set I want to drybrush brown over.
The next set of ties will be stained with a black/brown mix. I want a bunch of sections to determine what looks best.
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Hand Laying Track
Joe;
I know you stay busy with MRH but have you considered making a how to on track & turnouts. I've seen your work in one of the blogs on this subject. It would be nice to have one of your video's on this.
Thanks
Ed
Ed
Powders?
I took the weathering powders I had made from Joe's videos, and I thought this might be a good application on these fresh ties.
Not much of a difference, or at least not enough to make me think this is headed in the right direction.
CLUB PICTURES
Your Club layout looks great. I see people are have fun with the B & O F unit between the U boat and SD. I am a lone range right now where I have moved too. Building a three level layout in a 850 squre foot building by my self. I am 64 and if I am going to get this thing were we can have operating secessions on it in the near futhur, hand laying track is out. I use Atlas code 83 and 562 & 563 atlas switches when they are painted and ballested correctly they look great. I will admitt not as good as yours but one does have to make some compromizes.
Good Luck
Art
I see people are have fun
Actually, the B&O F-unit is quite prototypical. CP leased many foreign units during the layout's era, and we have photos of a B&O F like that in the Soo, so we know this happened. We keep a small fleet of leaser units around just for that purpose. We plan to weather it to match the photo soon.
In case anyone's wondering, this is the photo he's refering to:
Jurgen
HO Deutsche Bundesbahn circa 1970
Visit the HO Sudbury Division at http://sudburydivision.ca/
The preceding message may not conform to NMRA recommended practices.
U-boats and Big Alcos
Art - just one minor note; that's not a U-boat in the photo, it's an M636 built by Montreal Locomotive Works, ALCO's Canadian Subsidiary (which actually survived longer than its parent and was building locomotives long after ALCO shut down).
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Modelling Blog
Canadian Freight Car Gallery
CPR Sudbury Division (Waterloo Region Model Railway Club)
B&O F7A's were indeed leased by CP Rail
Well, we might as well have a little WRMRC gathering here on this thread. Here is a shot of B&O 4487, beat-up but still in passenger colours, resting with a CP MLW RS-18 at Quebec St yard in London ON in April 1972.
Proof that at least one B&O F7A (out of 15 leased in the early 70's) was in the passenger colours. Also I've found 2 on the CP that were in the sunburst scheme. Furthur, unlike CP Rails cab-units, these F's had front mu capability so they could be buried in the middle of a consist like the model photo above.
Getting back to the original post, put me down as one who admits ME has the best detailed NA track around. But handlaid turnouts are the most reliable. Full stop.
Roadbed Failure
Well, back to the topic at hand -
and my road bed failed.
I went ahead and ballested this section, and than tried to lay rail. It (the mdf roadbed) is a complete failure.
Not only did the spikes not take, they split the ties and wouldnt't go into the MDF, but as you can see the water and glue mixture for the ballast warped the MDF.
So that rules out the MDF - I wanted a stable base I could spike into, this is clearly not it.
I am pleased with the ballast mix.
Items added - Ballast mixture
MDF Roadbed
Yeah, MDF is great for some uses but it is not suited to nailing at all IMO. Any moisture or humidity will have an effect on the product. I guess that's about what we should expect from a panel that's pretty well just sawdust and glue.
I would'nt think the MDF would be a good choice for making things quieter either.
I guess I missed where you mentioned you intended to use MDF for roadbed. If I had seen that I would have thrown up some red flags and tried to talk you out of it.
Sorry it went so wrong for you.
I'm not sorry
I'm actually not sorry about it failing, that's exactly why I'm testing things! back to the drawing board!
MDF
Living here in South Florida and using MDF since 2000 for modeling and using homasote for I can't remember how long and never sealing it, I've never had any issues with the humidity and the temperatures. For 13 years I had a layout on a shed that I built and during the day it was closed and at night I would crank the A/C so it would be nice and cold and when I was done working in there I would shut the A/C down till next time. Never had any issues.
Now this is the first time that I have a climate control train room and this time I am using both the MDF and the Homasote for the layout. This time I am hand-laying my track and the MDF is not good to push spike into it so I installed the homasote on top of the MDF. Here is a photo with the MDF as the ttable top and the homasote on top of it. This portion of my small layout will be a wharf. The back track is O scale standard gauge and the front is the On30 track.
Nick Biangel
USMC