...than individual tie replacement? I know most would say "ballasting", but I kind of enjoy that (and it doesn't take that long). But before you can ballast, you have to paint the track. Before you can paint the track, you have to place all these individual ties under the rails: (And wait for the LHS to get more 1/32"x3/64" basswood). Takes a bunch o' time to cut each one so it doesn't look like some backwoods branch line built by monkeys. So maybe it's just me (and the fact that I have a lot to do under 15 handlaid turnouts plus some other sections), but individual tie replacement wins as the most tedious aspect of the hobby. Unless someone has a better (worse?) one that'll make me feel better
Hmmmmmmmmm...I thought places like fastracks (sp) sold precut wooden ties by the bagfull.... :tb-nerd: .
Oh, they do. But the PC board ties are 1/32" (.03125) tall. The pre-cut wood ties are .04" tall. So if you lay the wood ties first, and then install the turnout on top, the PC board ties "float". But if you install the turnouts by gorillagluing the pcboard ties to the board first, then the FT ties get crushed squeezing them under. (and put funny bumps in your rail ) 1/32"x3/64" basswood is perfect for replacement ties. And either way, you're still inserting each individual tie under the rails. Looks good when all done but dang it's tedious.
My hats off to you, because its way too much work for me. I almost tried it a few times when nothing else worked, but opted to redesign the layout.
I have two gold standards in N: 1) Gluing painted tufts of painted goldenrod to tree armatures for Ponderosa pines. Repeat about 30 tufts per tree x ____ hundred; 2) New champion: Gluing prepainted plastic telephone pole insulators onto wooden crossarms. May have you beat on that one...
1) Making and installing grab irons for 200 passenger cars (until you break the last #80 drill bit) 2) Applying a zillion scale 1 inch decal stripes Randy
I hear you on the trees: even my "easy" drill-twirled floral-wire & twine pines involve a lot time (about 12-15 an hour), so I do only one "hour batch" at a time. The thing with trees is that each one is still more a mini-art project than mind-numbing repetition, at least to me. The telephone pole insulators sounds darn-tootin' small, frustrating & a lot! I guess part of the "tedious"ness of the original post included the frustration of knowing that you can't run trains until ballast is dry, which can't until track is ballasted, which depends upon track getting painted, which has to wait for all the ties to be in place. Trees, telephone pole insulators, grab irons, etc. are all very tedious, but you can still run trains while you're doing those projects! (Well, I wouldn't suggest running the cars you're trying to put grab irons or decals on... )
I've got one - decalling an Alan Curtis 5 car platform set, with all of the individual warning labels and numbers.
My most tedious project was assembling 75 (or so) Intermountain N scale reefers and boxcars. All that cutting out of microscopic detail parts, then trying to assemble them. Arrrrr... gives me the willies just thinking about it now.
The most tedious thing for me has been the complete wiring upgrade of my club layout when we switched over to DCC. The wiring was barely adequate in DC mode (it was mostly the short-cut versions of earlier N-Trak standards, with small wire sizes) and so we essentially switched it all over to thicker gauge wire and put in all new drops. The layout is semi-permanently coupled, so popping the modules out and working on them was not a viable option, and besides that we had to be up and functional June-September of each year, three weekends in December, Easter weekend, and for a couple of other events, so everything we did had to result in an operable layout within a few months. It's pretty much done, now, and the most valuable thing I have learned, perhaps, is that one SHOULD NOT take short-cuts with the wiring because it will come back to haunt you later.
I'd say ballasting, but only because I'm Not going to handlay am apprehensive at best on painting the darned things, suck at shaping ballast. Although, to be honest, weighting cars, couplerizing them, etc can be a niisance too. So is building the Sergent couplers
But you do still get the kits at a good price !! I think I've built 200 IM kits, reefers and 40' boxcars for a fraction of the price for RTR cars. I wish IM made more kits , I would much rather build my own cars for 8-10 dollars each than pay $20.00 + per car ! I usually built the cars in Batches, I'd take 10 or so at a time and build them in a couple days then move on to the next 10. There was a time on E Bay when sellers were literally dumping these kits. Those days are nearly over, I did just buy 10 URTX Oscar Mayer reefers for $7.95 each so there are still some rare deals out there. Randy
Sratchbuilding Brass Platforms for Refinery For the ties under hand laid turnouts, I used the fasttracks tie sets and used .010 strip styrene under the pc ties for shims. Paint the shims black and you will never see them after ballasting. The three dozen IM boxcars and dozen IM reefers I built went OK, but I have to be in a particular kind of mindset to do them. I get an assembly line deal going with 6 at a time. Goes quicker for me this way. My sanity and I would have parted ways doing 75 LOL! Ballasting is a giant PITA for me, particularly when I ballast turnouts. They look good and work great, but very, very time consuming. BUT! So far the most tedious for me has been building these platforms for my refinery. 3 down and 17 to go. Take about 1 to 1-1/2 hour each, but I am kind of slow at this thing..... NCDaveD
Well I guess I misunderstood the topic of this in the beginning, but for me it was adding servos and wiring for 46 turnouts on a 3x8 layout. What started out as a new and exciting challenge, became a tedious, long frustrating hard job with no immediate results. I used to be a house framer many years ago and I loved walking up to a bare foundation in the morning and walking away from a structure at the end of the day. I felt like I accomplished something truly great, but this took so long that I felt like I wasn’t getting anything done for weeks. I don’t think I will ever do this again. cool:
Johnny B, when I look at the wiring that one must do for electrically controlled switches:no6qp: I am so glad that I could use Caboose ground throws. NCDaveD, I have also thought about doing new platforms and ladders for my refinery. But since I have three of these Walthers kits plus many scratch built towers and tanks I have decided to do many of the easier projects. Such as ballasting, which I find enjoyable, and making loads.:tb-biggrin: View attachment 38825 View attachment 38827 View attachment 38826
Just about everyone here has mentioned ballasting one way or the other and I got to say after 3 layouts I still haven’t tried it even after buying all the neat little ballasting tools. I’ve watched so many videos on the subject that I should be able to say I’m a pro, but I guess I need to make some time to see exactly how enjoyable it is. biggrin:
