For an easier navigation in this thread I add direct links to the beginning of the several steps of building the module. The idea The module skeleton The basic landscape made of styrofoam The first pile bent Scratchbuilding the combined wooden trestle / steel beam bridge PC board ties for fixing the rail ends ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Hallo together, today I´ll start with a thread about building a multi-segment module. Some months ago I planned a module called "Valley Crossing": After all dimensions were fixed, I ordered the parts for the segment skeletons at williwinsen.com aka Harald Brosch. To my delight a UPS parcel arrived yesterday. [FONT="]For a first check I put together the 26 plywood parts: [/FONT] [FONT="]Today I started with the assembling of the segments. The first step was preparing the endplates with holes for screws and the centering units called "Rillendübel". These devices are normally used to center the halves of casting frames. You need not drill exact perpendicular. I used a handdrill to make the holes in pairs of endplates, which I fixed together with C-clamps. I made no holes in two endplates at the end of the module. These holes will be drilled after tracklaying. [/FONT][FONT="] The next step was glueing together the segments: [/FONT][FONT="] The metal angle is for making sure the segment is really perpendicular. The diagonal piece is not for bracing, it´s just another endplate. [/FONT]
Part 2 [FONT="] You may ask why I wrote "MoPac-Bridge" in the thread title, even though the drawing is titled "Valley Crossing". Well, for several reasons I cancelled the theme of a river crossing with a commercial bridge kit. Instead I opted for scratchbuilding another bridge (the first was the [/FONT]Interstate Bridge). This time I like to build a bridge with a real prototype. After some research I found a picture that hooked me: http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=28266&nseq=742 This bridge is on the former Missouri Pacific line from El Dorado, KS to Wichita, KS. You can even stroll under the bridge with Google Earths Streetview. It is a combination of a wooden trestle and a steel beam bridge with concrete piers. With the help of the Railpictures and Streetview images I was able to get details and dimensions to make a scale drawing. This drawing already comprises wood and metal shape dimensions for materials available at architectural model supply shops or similar. ------------------------------------------ The next construction step for the module will be making the landscape base from styrofoam. I will report the progress in time.
Progress report, July 3rd 2010 (part 1) Hallo again, I just made little progress in last weeks. First of all I cutted styrofoam to fit the five segments. Yes, I was able to make one piece too shortmad:. Today I went again to the home improvement store to get some pieces of triangular wood sticks. I cutted them in pieces two inches long (and sanded all edges...) and glued them in the wood frames to support the styrofoam. I did not fix the styrofoam to the supports, so I can still take out the styrofoam inlays from the frames. The first segment (from left) will stay plain. On the second segment the landscape contour and the shape of the frame are already finished. The bridge will be on the third segment. The shape of the left side of the frame is already finished, the contur of the left endplate was traced from the finished right contur of the second segment. The styrofoam inlay has a channel down to the future road level and the excavation of the landscape is on its way. A rather messy job....
Progress report, July 3rd 2010 (part 2) Here is the look down from the second segment. You can clearly see the curve with easements and the alrady finished landscape contour on this segment. The cork roadbed will be glued on the styrofoam. The loco is standing over the "road channel".... ... for checking the clearence. Okay, deep enough...:thumbs_up:. Still remembering the prototype? http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=28266&nseq=742
John, we don´t have any plans for public shows in the next time. The next club internal meeting with participation of the americaN group will be the anniversary meeting of the Dutch FREMO group in October. We just finished the layout planning, without MoPac-Bridge: Our group will have the smallest layout in Zuidbroek/Netherlands with about 2.000 square feet. The layout of the H0 group with European prototypes will cover an area of more than 30.000 square feet..... My plan is to have MoPac finished for our spring gathering next year. I hate working under pressure of time.
Progress report, July gth 2010: first trestle bents Hallo again, on Sunday I found the time to make a jig for those pile bents. First I made a scale drawing (simple rectangles) on the PC with CorelDraw. Then I took a print of the bent and a piece of styrene, covered the styrene with the print and punched the corners of each rectangle into the styrene sheet. I then scribed the contour of the trestle bent with a hobby knife. The next step was bonding the small pieces of styrene (0.06 inches thick) along the outlines. I always checked the distances with precutted wood pieces for the bents. I use basswood, 0.08 inches square for the caps and 0.08 inches rod for the posts. As you can see in the picture below, I stained the first test bents with a color that looks rather dark, at least under the lighting of the workbench. It looks much better under daylight conditions. For the sway bracing I simply used black cardstock. A little bit powdered artist chalk will help to blend it to the wood pieces. For now I´m not sure how to assemble the trestle. I probably make slots in the originally 1.6 in thick styrofoam where the bents and the concrete piers must be placed. Then I glue a sheet of styrene on the bottom side of the styrofoam to have a level and equal base for all bends and piers. This should make it rather easy to build and install bents and piers to the right height. Any other suggestions are welcome.
Progress report, July 9th 2010: on the legs for the first time Hallo, first of all I´d like to show you the tools I use to form the landscape out of styrofoam: a hot wire cutter: if you want to limit the mess, use a hot wire cutter. As you can see from the shape of the wire and the traces on the styrofoam, I just cut stripes of a little over an inch wide. With this tool I do the "rough forming". a wire brush: My newest addition in the tool collection. Very effective! a sanding block and rough sand paper: works especially well to form the embankment. a Stanley surform tool: the blades are expensive, so I use it only if I need a good control, for example the street surface. not shown: household knife and utilitiy knife for precutting and for ditches etc. Today on the way home from work I visited two home improvement stores to get the thumb screws for fixing the already existing legs to the segments. So for the first time the module is on the regular height of 1300mm (51 inches): Some "finetuning" on the side profiles and the surface is still nesessary, but the first impression is: looks as imagined :thumbs_up:.
Bernd, Thanks for showing your progress and construction methods and tools. I'm really interested in the centering "Rillendübel". Any idea what the english name for these would be? I am working on a set of three FreeMoN modules that will function as a set so I'd like to get some sets of these.
They are grooved dowels. I have seen them in the states but cannot remember where. I would think a furniture repair or cabinet shop may have them. A big box store may have them depending on the needs in thier area.
John, Are they really dowels? They look almost like a metal bullet with a complimentary female piece. I can see how these would make for quick work during setup. They look to be self-centering...just put it close and clamp it.
Ryan, maybe this link will help: RG Faserverbundwerkstoffe | Alignment dowels 10 pair bag | online kaufen But I don´t know if "Alignment dowel" is the correct technical term. But only between segments, not between modules!
Here's a US-based site with the same sort of device: Steel Table Pins Sockets-Pkg 10, Table Hardware, Tables, Furniture at Van Dykes Restorers Steel Table Pins Socket-Pkg 100, Table Hardware, Tables, Furniture at Van Dykes Restorers They call them "steel table pins and sockets." Apparently what you call them depends on what you're using them for... When I did my own homemade version a while back (using brass rod and tubing), I referred to them as "alignment pins and sleeves."
Rob, Not bad, but when you compare their shape with the dowels I use, you see that mine have a very short cylindrical segment. This shape is critical, because with a long cylindrical segment, you have to make sure the holes through both parts are perpendicular. The shape of my dowels is very forgiving in terms of perpendicularity.
The mess is over.... ...because I finished the shaping of the landscape. Two new "control shots" of the future bridge: I still have to "carve" the drainage ditches on both sides of the road.
Test for superelevation As I mentioned in the first post, I´d like to superelevate the both curves on the module. Since I have no experience about it, I did some testing on this issue, also I had not laid the cork raoadbed. I started with an 0.03 inch strip under the outer edge of the ties, but the visual impact wasn´t good. For the accompaining photos I used a 0.04 inch strip. I think this looks really good: Recalculated to the prototype the 0.04 inches strip under the outer edge equals an unbalanced superelevation of 3.75 inches. A look at Wikipedia reveals that this amount of superelevation is okay, at least by waiver. Again a bit wiser (about a construction detail of the module).
Color of trestle bents This weekend I continued with the trestle bents, especially with staining and weathering. While browsing through the Google Streetview images of the prototype bridge I noticed that on most pictures (as well as on the Railpictures.net pic) the bents seem to be dark grey. In one Streetview pic, where the bent is sunlit, it looks more like a bleached brown with some dark grey areas. Because the lighting for the module is not predictable and varies from gathering location to gathering location, I think a brighter color will be better, especially in badly lit locations. On the picture above you see the first bent I made some weeks ago to the right. I stained it with slate grey and added some powdered grey chalk. The result was not very satisfying, so I finally drybrushed the bent with Tamiya XF-57 Buff. The parts for the left bent were stained with dark walnut and drybrushed with the same Tamiya color before I glued the parts together. The three caps to the left are: dark walnut without further weathering, drybrushed with Tamiya XF-19 Sky Grey and the third drybrushed with XF-57 Buff. So now I´m ready to tackle the next parts of the bridge...
I cutted all wood and brass parts for the bridge... ...and could not resist to build a little test "diorama": For comparison: the prototype picture And a shot from another angle: A close look at the Google Streetview pictures shows that the cross beams of the beam bridge section have welded gussets to reinforcing the W-beams. I made my gussets from .02'' thick styrene sheet and glue them in with CA. And I added those T-beam pieces under the "north" side of the cross beams. I have no idea about the function of those Ts.
