Turntable build part 5

I used balsa wood to make the wooden decking for the turntable. The method I find successful is to scribe the balsa with a clutch or mechanical pencil. The lead carves a groove in the balsa and also darkens the groove with the graphite tip. To weather the wood I mix a little Indian ink with water and brush it on as a wash. 

The decking also has cross beams underneath. These don't go all the way through, as you'll see from previous blog posts. However, you can't tell by looking at the turntable from the trackside, as it's impossible to see under the decking. 

I added two pushing poles. I'd contemplated making a planked pathway around the top of the turntable pit and glueing a couple of figures in a pushing stance to the pushing poles, but I think I may just add them for photos instead. 

The turntable is now pretty much complete. The pit rails need to be painted, and the pit needs some scenery, but I will do this when I add the scenery to the rest of the module. 

There's a video of the turntable in action on my YouTube channel, which is embedded below.

If you've been following along with this build, thanks for your interest and comments. 

The decking sides in place before weathering. 

Weathering the deck with Indian ink. 

The completed turntable with pushing bars

Turntable build part 4

The more I've been using my new modules the more I felt I wanted to be able to move the turntable without reaching into the scene. I didn't want a motorised solution. I like turning things by hand, which really is in keeping with the time period I model. I hadn't been able to find a hand crank system for a turntable so in the end I plucked the courage to build my own. 

I found some plastic gears on Aliexpress and picked up some brass rods from my local hardware store. I ordered two sizes of gears and the slightly smaller one looked like it would do the trick. However, I needed a solution for attaching the gear to the rod, which would be the turntable spindle. I had some Meccano that my kids don't really play with. So I used one of the collars and used small bolts to attach the gear to the collar, which is attached to the brass rod (see photo).

I made up a plywood box to house the gearing from scrap ply. The brass inserts from electrical connectors held the wormgears in place on the rod. For the crank wheel, I used my largest hole saw to cut a hole in the edge of the layout, I used the cutout as the crank wheel, which is attached to the rod with grub screws. A scrap piece of metal was spruced up for the handle. 

Overall, I'm pleased with the performance. The turntable moves nicely and slowly. I may have to refine a few things as the crank wheel is a little snug in the hole in the layout edge. But, for now, it is working and looks pretty good. 

The next thing for the turntable will be to work on the decking and details, followed by some scenery in the pit. 

Doesn't look like much but its the beginnings of a hand crank system. 

The large gear is on the turntable spindle. The worm is on the hand crank. I added a bottom plate to prevent the turntable spindle from flexing when turning. 

The completed hand crank at the layout's edge. The crank can be removed for transport. 

Turntable build part 3

Next, I laid seven roundhouse tracks. I've only got six locomotives, but you never know. While I don't have the appetite or the budget at the moment for another locomotive, perhaps one day someone will release a really nice turn-of-the-century locomotive (I wouldn't mind an 1870-80s wagon top boiler ten-wheeler with a balloon stack). Truth be told there will be my two-stall enginehouse at the other end of the layout, so in fact there will be storage space for three extra locomotives, but that's academic right now. There's an overhead photo below showing the outline of where the roundhouse walls will go when I get around to building those (planning for a stone roundhouse). 

I've put in an overshoot track so all tracks coming from the yard have something on the other side of the turntable. Since the photos below were taken I've trimmed the overshoot track a little. The overshoot track is also wired with power in case locomotive pickups are on the overshoot.

As the track work was coming together I made a few compromises and changes from the original plan. The photos show the coaling tower closest to the turntable with the MoW track extending behind. In theory, I could spot a coal gondola there to service the tower. However, I've since trimmed the MoW track and placed the water tower closest to the turntable. It feels a little less cluttered and while that means I can't spot a coal gondola behind the tower, I think that will be secondary overall to the general feel of the scene. 

The second compromise was the caboose track. I really didn't want anything in front of the turntable to block the view. But in the end, this was the only space/most logical space I could think of for the cabeese. In reality, there should only be a few cabeese on this track at a time, which shouldn't block the view too much, and may add some foreground interest once the roundhouse is built. I've placed the track heading off the edge of the layout, hopefully giving the impression there is more to the track than is shown on the scene. In theory, it could serve as an attachment point in the future if I ever needed to attach a module there.

Coming up next I'm looking to build my own hand crank mechanism for rotating the turntable without reaching into the scene.

 

The caboose track has a pin to prevent cars from rolling off the layout. But I liked the idea of a track disappearing 'off layout'. 

The red line roughly marks the walls for the roundhouse that will need to be scratchbuilt.

A general view of the yard.

Turntable build part 2

I wasn't sure about the best way to model the edge of the turntable pit wall and had thought about printing out a stone or brick pattern and lining the edge with it. But I decided I wanted something with more texture so I tried carving stone work into DAS air dry modelling clay. The results were lacking, but perhaps with some practice, I could make it work. But I tried carving, or rather scoring, some extruded foam. I was quite happy with the look. To paint it, I started by painting individual bricks either grey, raw or burnt sienna or raw number, which looked awful at first. I then dry-brushed white over all the stones, which tied everything together a bit more. But the final black wash toned everything down and gave a cohesive look to the masonry, as well as providing shadows in the mortar lines. 

To make the pit rail I began by measuring the length of rail I'd need and cut a piece of flex track half that length, then cut the ties in half, so I had two halves of the pit rail. I slowly bent these to shape by hand and used a steel weight as a jig. I kept checking the curve against a circle drawn with a compass to make sure I had the right profile. Once it was close enough, I glued the rail and ties down and ran wires to the main layout bus. 

Then it was a battle of slowly aligning the approach tracks. I worked with one track at a time, leaving a little extra length, that I trimmed once the glue had set. Before I begin the scenery at large, I will paint all the rails and ties. 

The turntable is reasonably short for my biggest locomotives like the 4-6-0. Overshoot tracks will be needed opposite all approach tracks and a real-life crew may have fun trying to balance the table with a larger engine. However, I was aiming to depict a turntable that was possibly struggling to keep up with the development in locomotive technology. With new locomotives getting bigger rapidly railroads were constantly having to update infrastructure to cope. 

The painted foam stonework glued in place. 

The bridge in place. The girders are glued in place. Decking and details to come.

An overall view of the turntable and the approach tracks glued down. The two tracks at the left have screws temporarily keeping the track in place while the glue sets. 

Turntable build part 1

I've been slowly chipping away at my turntable build. I had two turntables on my previous layout. One was a wooden gallows turntable, which I'm keeping for the town that will feature at the other end of the new modular railroad. However, I wasn't happy with the turntable that used to be placed at Erewhon on the old layout, mainly because it was mainly a freelance design as I hadn't seen any photos from the turn of the 19th century with anything that looked close. 

Earlier this year we visited the Pleasant Point Railway, which is not far from Timaru and one of the attractions was helping turn a rail-motor car on the turntable, which had a pit, with the turntable bridge being the more conventional design with the girders underneath the track. I decided to model something similar and found some prototype pictures of turntables from the period to give me something to base it on loosely. 

Northern Pacific Railroad roundhouse at Lester, circa 1910

‘Colorado Midland Engine 20 on turntable’

My turntable bridge was made from a piece of 20mm plywood. I carefully measured, cut and centred a bit of straight set-track. I reused the girders from the previous turntable. I will glue them on later, presently they are just resting in place for the photo. I've had a go at carving masonry blocks into insulation foam for the turntable pit wall. I'm pleased with how it turned out. The next step will be to paint the stonework and then glue it into place. Then I can lay the pit rails to power the turntable. The last thing will be to add decking, made from strip wood and balsa to the turntable bridge. 

I am considering adding a hand crank to rotate the turntable. My main concern will be to ensure it is geared low enough to be easy to turn and accurate enough to align manually. I may just settle on turning the bridge by hand. But I would like to watch the table turn around, seemingly by itself.