Whilst the bridge parts soak in vinegar, the navvies press on with laying track. I find the job painful and exhausting enough, so a cheap mirror from evilbay is a lifesaver for laying track. A great way to find flaws in the alignment as one goes along, that are often otherwise invisible from the usual viewing angles. I can't recommend it enough.
07/08/20
The bridge parts took far longer to stain than expected. The piles and
to a lesser extent, the stringers, were somewhat resistant to the stain.
There's a few virgin-wood-coloured streaks in these components, but they don't look awful and will further fade in time.
When I ripped down cedar boards to make sleepers, I had only an 11" table saw - which was of course too large to safely split the sleepers to a scale-ish depth. So the depth of my sleepers were the full 18mm thickness of the boards I'd used. I can get away with that when ballasting track, but on bridges, I'm replacing the sleepers with spares, that have been split on my new 2" table saw. To maintain the gauge, alternating sleepers had their dogspikes cut away with the dremel. I was surprised at how well the newly distressed and stained sleepers, matched the originals that had been stored outdoors for two years.
Half of the bridge is re-timbered, and guard rails fitted. I'm leaving
the guard rails overhanging this section, as they'll be spiked to the
other half of the bridge, to help rigid-ify the two pieces of track. I
confess to having forgotten to properly research guard rails on curved
bridges, so I'm not sure if the ends are positioned quite properly. Too
late now of course, but it looks good enough for me.
10/08/20
The bents have been assembled, and although I cut sway braces (the
diagonal planks) for all four bents, I realised only one was going to be
standing high enough over the terrain, to warrant the sways being
fitted. After the glue had dried, the spacer blocks on top were drilled
through, and panel nails fitted as reinforcement.
Forgot to consider abutments, but had some spare sleepers. These were epoxied to a piece of aluminium, using the traditional mixing stick/spatula.
knew I had a reason to keep that annoying bundle of short rail offcuts.
11/08/20
Gas man's coming to change the bottles tomorrow, so out came the planter box from it's brick-and-gravel socket.
These bottles only need changing 3-4 times a year - the bloke's doing them as I write this on the 12th, and he doesn't seem to be having any trouble with the setup. I was going to make a nicer-looking portable one-piece ramp with this marine ply, but I might just keep plonking it down like this.
Prototype sway braces are attached with bolts. Before realising I only
need sways on one bent, I'd cobbled together enough dummy nuts/bolts for
all four..
I'm resisting the urge to buy nut/bolt/washer castings here, because if I
start now, I'd have a higher standard to maintain, and never stop using
them - NBWs are great, but in my hands they'd become a real money pit.
Not to mention all the inevitable hold-ups when such popular items are
out of stock.
Mark my words though - I will cave one day.
Using the bents as a guide for the stringers' spacing. Each stringer had
been marked with a letter, to ensure each piece ends up in the right
place. Firebricks weigh the parts down overnight.
These bricks actually came from a Perry 0-6-2T, that had been converted
to diesel-firing, and ran at a theme park. It was donated to the
Woodford Railway where I work, in 2014. It's been converted back to
wood/coal, so with no need for these firebricks, I took some home, where
they see plenty of use.
12/08/20
The bents were also glued to the stringers
yesterday, in addition to epoxy-ing the dummy bolts into the bent at
right, and fitting the abutment.
Not to rely on glue alone, more nails are piloted and hammered just past
flush with the bottom of the stringers, so they won't be seen. The
nails are 1.6mm dia, so I've piloted the holes at 1.4mm. The minimum
size my drill will hold, however, is 1.5mm. So I've just thrown my pin
vice in the drill chuck. Works on the drill press and lathe, too. A bit
"bush mechanic" but it works.
More modified nails for detailing. Not sure if the prototypes are screws, or spikes, but they fasten the stringers to the spacer blocks at each bent.
With the track already fitted, piloting and hammering in these nails was difficult, but well worth the trouble.
Quite pleased with how it's turning out so far. The reason I've only fitted one abutment, is that I had only enough leftover cedar bits to make one. Whilst I do have more cedar I could cut down, distress, stain and assemble, that's a pain in the backside. I'll either make an abutment from hebel, to represent a brick or early concrete abutment, or simply bury the stringers in soil and shrubs at that end of the bridge..
On the last tramway, I used Australian Export gloss Indian Red enamel, sprayed into the can's lid and brushed on. Even without primer, the paint sticks quite well, and fades to a much more appropriate rust colour over a few months. Cheap paint on dirty aluminium and brass, battered by all seasons - It shouldn't work, but somehow does.
This time, I was more sensible, and looked for the 125ml tin version - which as it turns out, isn't available in that colour. So I bought Mission Brown and mixed it with some red, for a close enough match to the sprayed-into-the-lid Indian Red I'd previously used on the points before installing them.
As the track behind the caravan gets no direct sun at all, I figured it prudent to try flattening the paint's finish. An old signwriters' trick is to mix talc into enamel paint to flatten it. I couldn't find unadulterated talc anywhere, so opted to try cornstarch-based baby powder. Again, we'll see how it comes out, when the paint dries. Another (expensive) option would be to brush Tamiya's flat clear over the gloss paint. It holds up surprisingly well in outdoor QLD.
Three weeks since laying the first track, the circuit of "Phase One"
is now serviceable - though detailing and ballasting are yet to follow. Because of the inevitable oily residue, I certainly can't run anything live steam until the rails are painted..
14/08/20
The gully needed a few more bucket-fulls of dirt removed to better
accommodate the bridge. Pieces of a spare besser cap were placed under
the piles as support, and packed around with gravel, before covering
with soil. The track beyond both ends of the bridge were screwed down to
bricks, as previously described.
I ended up using a slice of Hebel for the abutment at the North end, but
forgot to fit some support blocks under the stringers, where they meet
the abutment. Will be trickier, but I'll have to clamp them into place
whilst the glue dries..
The remaining yard of track was fitted in place, and the Stainz, running
light, made a few laps in both directions around the tramway. Only a
few very minor faults detected, I'll get to those in a moment.
15/08/20
The biggest issue (though quite minor) was tackled first. Re-spiking a
guard rail on the curved point, that I'd mistakenly fitted too close to
the running rail, when I re-timbered the point two years ago. The
Stainz' "pizza cutter" wheels were a bit tight through here. Note the
high-tech basalt flangeway spacer.
Using an eclectic mix of Accucraft, Micro Engineering, Sunset Valley and Peco rail, meant the width of railhead often differed at the joints. I doubt it would cause derailments, but don't see any harm in smoothing these joints out a bit. The dremel and sanding drums were put to work, smoothing out around a dozen of these joints. Apologies for the poor focus of this "before" shot, a storm was approaching and my camera doesn't focus well in remotely-dim conditions.
Before the storm set in however, I was able to get the last of "Phase One" laid - the general store's siding. To help support the track, handfulls of coarse sand were sprinkled over the track and spread with a brush. The idea being that the rain would wash it into the gravel. Predictably, here on the Sunshine Coast, the storm blew over and out to sea in about five minutes. I'll have to wash this in with the hose, as I did with the rest of the track.
16/08/20
The mirror was again very helpful, in the agonising job of painting the
rails. Whilst it would be far nicer to paint them prior to laying, one
can never know quite how much track will be needed. Chances are I'll
have painted too much or worse, too little track, before laying. And of
course, half of the track is flexible; a coat of paint would make
bending the track far more difficult - to say nothing of the paint being
scraped off, as the chairs slide along the rails' feet.
Interested to hear your thoughts on painting rails, and other detailing of such ilk..
After three days on-and-off, that painful job is done. It's hell on
brushes, killed two of 'em. Thankfully, one coat was enough in most
places.
To flatten, about two tablespoons of baby powder were added to the
paint, along with a few brass screws in the tin, to help it mix.
How the baby powder affects the life of the paint remains to be seen..
After three days on-and-off, that painful job is done. It's hell on
brushes, killed two of 'em. Thankfully, one coat was enough in most
places.
To flatten, about two tablespoons of baby powder were added to the
paint, along with a few brass screws in the tin, to help it mix.
How the baby powder affects the life of the paint remains to be seen..
Months back, during a hold-up on repairing the caravan, I took the opportunity to make a few timber crossing signs and fences from cedar scrap. A piece of coat-hanger wire was epoxied into a hole, drilled in the bottom of each post. Parts were aged in rust/vinegar, assembled, then sprayed with Metalshield flat white, which seems to hold up on timber at the Woodford Railway. The idea behind aging the timber first, is that if the paint ever starts peeling, the exposed wood would look better if it were aged, rather than new and orange. This worked quite well on the crossing signs of my first tramway, many years ago.
20/08/20
It didn't take long to realise lacquer thinners on a rag wasn't up to
the job of cleaning the railheads, this long after painting. I
acknowledge that track-power modellers may be offended by my solution -
certainly isn't something I'd use on powered track. A light hand and a
fine grit was of course, used.
Very effective though, I wouldn't do it any other way, now.
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