Scratch build a Turntable and Round house

[Anonymous]

Charlie,

Thanks for taking the time to post so much detail on the construction of the turntable. Very interesting reading and I will definitely be utilizing your ideas in constructing my table. Following your guidelines for construction I can see a lot of enjoyable time putting this table together.

[FJ and G]

Charlie,

This is most useful info. I plan to download your writeup.

Daan,

Thanks for posting picture of it.

I don't have room for turntable on my layout so I plan to make a detachable one based on these instructions.

[cnw1995]

Thanks, Daan. It looks magnificent, Charlie - the other items - your dad's station and the gantry crane are great.

[daan]

@ charlie, nice turntable.. I linked it from the other forum[angel]. A picture says more than a 1000 words, and besides that, we all love to see the picture. Hope you don't mind..

[daan]

This is the turntable mentionned above..

[Anonymous]

Yes you can do it. I did over twenty years ago in Jamaica of all places and it is still operating great. I used a Lazy susan bearing and made realistic turntable as outlined below.

Thanks to Daan for adding the picture on following and second post.

Here is a link to another picture that shows the turntable crank knob (the red round bead)..

http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/47b4cf22b3127cce999992e4e52700000026108IYsmrRoyb6

First it pays to do some planning and layout of where to put it and how to layout your track. Pick your turntable length. I had to go with two sections of 027 track due to space but wish it was at least 2 inches longer as my 671 turbine and long tender will not fit. If you have room make it 2" longer than you longest loco and tender or the longest you plan to buy, ever.

Pick your location which should be near the layout edge, and near your control panel if you have one. An edge location is desirable if you are going use my belt drive rotating system. If you are going to power the turntable this may not be that necessary. But I will recommend an accessible location as derailments and hand assistance may be desirable at times. All accessories are best located where help is available!

I cut a 18 inch circle in my train board and use the cutout as a pulley by adding heavy cardboard as flanges. Install a donut ring around the hole to say 1 1/2 inch deep (this will be the pit wall) and add a 1/2" plywood bottom. Screw as 6 or 8" LAZY SUSAN bearing (Ace or Home Depot for $4)on underside of well bottom. Install the 18" pulley on the lazy susan. Center a 3/8" hole in both bottom and pulley and install 3/8"threaded hollow lamp rod thru the pulley and pin the rod to the pulley with a nail and 2" x 2" block glue and screwed to the pulley. Make a turntable bridge out of wood and pin the bridge to the lamp rod. Add some type of wheels on ends of turntable bridge (I used some small spare ball bearings I had for wheels)

Run a pair of wires up thru the lamp rod and solder to the outside and middle rail of the track you put on the bridge.
Leave some slack in the wire and install some type of disconnect like plug or spring clips to allow removal of wire to un-wind the wire if it gets twisted too much (also try not to keep going is one direction too much!)

Add tracks to store trains being careful of your spacing between tracks. Wire the tracks to a Radio Shack rotary 10 position switch to select the track to be powered. Install a momentary contact push button switch in series to allow the selected track and turntable bridge track to only be powered when this switch is held down.

I used a spare electric clothes dryer belt that is about 3/8" wide and 1/8"thick and about 8 to 10 feet in total length. It is super strong. I made a hand crank out of a 6" long 1/4" carriage bolt as the driving pulley with disk and knob held on to the disk with a Tee nut as the crank. I made a 2" take up pulley and used a threaded rod to move it to make tension in the dryer belt. I installed another 2" pulley to make an S in the belt routing to allow belt tensioning.

Make an index system by using your God given eye to line up the turntable with the track!

Paint it all up and make a little operators shack (I put a wheat bulb in mine wired to the turntable track to let me know when the track is powered).

Have fun. A turntable is the Ultimate in layout interest and operating fun. And my total cost was $10 bucks for the lazy susan bearing and rotary switch. I had the belt and it was $8 years ago (more now but a used one off a junked dryer is free). Sure beat $300 for turntable kits and lots more fun to build!!

MORE Details below


As I said I built my main board with turntable in 1978 while living in Kingston, Jamaica. The board is baggas board (a local particle board made in Jamaica from sugar cane pulp). I do not remember if I built it in weekend and probably did not. I built the whole layout at the same time and it took 2-3 months of spare time. Had a baby and a tottler around and most building was catch as catch can, like an hour or so some evenings. But the actual time is not very long and depends on how much detail you add. But the basic turntable surely can be built in a long weekend using only an electric drill and a saber saw, my main tools at the time!

The twisting of wires is not a problem but I do untwist them each year before putting the layout up. It goes up on the family room floor at Thanksgiving and is down by Easter. I do not have access to the bottom of the layout as it is on the floor. If you have access, twisting is no problem. I have only had about 8 -10 twists to undo but I do vary the direction of rotation when I think of it. Not too bad for 25 years of operation so I have no plans to change anything!


The bottom of the pit has a ring of 1/8 masonite about 1 1/4" wide, around the outside for the wheels (ball bearing wheels) to run on. I put coarse sand in the middle with thinned white glue. I used a Marks-alot to mark a track where the bearing wheels track. The top deck of the turntable has a 1/8 masonite deck, scribed to look like boards and paint buff like lumber. I put extra ties under the tracks (2 sections of 027) and added some timber ends to stick out like they were holding the deck up.

The pit wall is just painted black but I may paint it dark gray sometime and use a Sharpie pen to make it look like stone blocks. I made a wooden bridge above the TT from wood and use a the plastic tie part of a N gage track section as a ladder up the bridge and to the center top. The spacing of these ties is 1/4 or scale 1 foot so they make good ladders. I added a balsa wood deck for the maintenance men to stand on but have two white pigeons there and the deck has white droppings below!!

Care must be taken to make sure the track is layed on the centerline of the circle based on where the center of the pivot of the TT. In other words, the track that is the feeder line must line up with both ends of the track on the TT when turned 180 degrees. I made the the ball bearing wheels carry a little load and used slots on the bolts holding them to adjust each up and down to level the TT. Care must be taken in laying each track also. I was limited in space but room must be left between to allow locos miss each other. One track is in line with the feeder track that allows the crane car and work caboose to back all the way in without moving the TT. It can be seen outside the RH.


A TT is really not that much trouble to make and I built mine in from the start. When I got 4 cheap 246, 242 Lionel locos for $6 each at a garage sale, I decided to make a TT to keep up the interest. My original kid layout was a 4 switch layout on 9'x5' with oval and figure 8. That is a great starter plan but that even got old fast as a kid. I used it for my layout too but put the TT in one loop of the 8. Added all the track I could and 27 remote but not auto derailing switches and you have action.



Scratch build a Round House next

I would not go crazy building a big RH as the engines in there only show mostly the ends. That’s the reason I back them in, Who wants to see bunch of coal tender rear ends which would be more realist? I have 4 stalls and three open tracks outside, the most for my space. My layout is mostly track with 27 Marx switches as you see several of them (the grey painted solenoid boxes). It is an L with big Leg 12'x7' and little leg 6'x5'with 3 LW's and capable of 5 train operation with two loops relayed for 2 train operation. It is on the floor of the family room for 3 months over the Holidays with a Christmas tree on the Little L a few weeks too.

I have recessed hidden lites in the RH about 8, 12v mini Christmas lites in the original holders glued to the roof. They operate on 12v off a Radio Shack transformer. As you can see, after 25 years I still have not built stacks for the roof which is ruff side up 1/8 masonite painted flat medium gray.

The scratch built roundhouse is made from 1/8" masonite and covered with brick paper. Widows are from plastic sheet from overhead projection and 1/16" black auto pin stripping. The building behind the RH a industrial building hiding a hole in the background for the train track behind the background to exit. It goes in a mountian 12ft to the right. The track in front of the background goes thru the building too. A signal on right top corner of building shows train position behind the background. Sure beats the hole in the wall I had for several years.

The Little station in left corner is paste board and brickpaper building my Dad built in 1950 for our Christmas layout. Coaling tower is kitbashed Plastiville coaling tower with added elevated top from, you guessed it, masonite, scribbed to look like siding.
Gantry crane is from a junk Lionel crane car cab on 1/4" plywood and cardboard base, an exact copy of Lionels that was made from its measurements. Red and white switcher is junk box Marx switch engine with cut down Lionel SW-1 body painted for Bauxite and Northern Railroad, an ALCOA owned rail road in Bauxite, Arkansas.

Sorry it rambles on as above was cut and pasted.

Charlie