Question about Walthers 'Modern' Roundhouse kit + Additional stall Add-on Kits

[gmpullman]

Hi, Doug

I'm in the middle of this very project myself. I'm replacing the twenty-year-old existing Heljan roundhouse. I haven't begun the walls yet but I don't see any problem with ganging the three (I'm doing nine stalls total) long stalls together. As mentioned above I may find a need for extra support. I'll have one spare timber assembly I may look at using parts of that.

I found that the pit slots only have to be just a bit over 3/8 of an inch deep and 11/16" wide. I used my old Sears router with a guide strip temporarily screwed to the roadbed/benchtop.

RH_pits2 by Edmund, on Flickr

RH_pits1 by Edmund, on Flickr

I'm only using six of the nine pits. Two of them will be difficult to see anyway so I blanked them off with some .040" black styrene. When I was done with the routing the floor dropped right in without any further fussing.

RH_Floor1 by Edmund, on Flickr

Tonight I'm ready to look at the wall assembly and the best sequence to use for the painting and window placement.

Hope that helps, Ed

[rrebell]

Use a multi-tool for cutting the top layer, would not bother with the lower. Real pits for steam were not that deep, some being as shallow as 3' but 3 1/2' being closer to the norm. Yes there were deeper ones but you did not want to go too deep as the water table could come into play, plus you also get the height of the floor plus rail, rail can add 6". So you are well over 4' at this point. You also get the clearance up to the first obstrution which would depend on the wheels of the engine and other on a big boy they might need a ladder to get to what they wanted to work on at times.

[Pruitt]

Regarding your second question, I used a Roto-Zip tool to cut my inspection pit clearances in the base. Edges weren't overly straight (looked like a drunken sailor's path back to the ship), but not a problem since they're covered by the floor anyway.

I just adjusted the depth of the cutter to barely clear the bottom of the base. Left shallow grooves in the 1X4 cross-bracing, but not more than about .1 inches deep.

[DigitalGriffin]

Question 1: Yes you can do it.  However the extended stalls are built with idea the adjoining brick wall will support them.  You will need to do a little minor kit bashing.  I would put a small brick column between the extended sections back wall, and support the ceiling with an i-beam + post.

Question 2: I used a pluge router with adjustable guide depths.  I laid the floors out exactly where I wanted them before being built, then traced the outlines using a sharpie.  I then used a plunge router adjusted to 1" deep.  Take it in multiple passes.  1/4" then 1/2" then 3/4" then 1".  Take your time. 

I would imagine you could use a dremel with the routing attachment, but it would take considerably more time.  I cut through 1/2" at a time on soft pine with my dremel workstation.

I then did a test fit on the floor with the inspection pits installed before assembly of the kits. 

[Deane Johnson]

I just build the same roundhouse with 24 stalls on half inch Homasote over OSB board.  I placed 5 of the long stalls together in one spot with no issues.  As I remember, there's one styrene piece that needs a small amount of filing so it fits right when you do the long stalls.  I believe they point this out in the instructions.

I also installed all of the pits.  The only thing I might wonder about is the depth of the pits.  I only cut them through the Homasote, not the OSB board below and I didn't have any fitting issues that I know of.  The floors sit flat on the Homasote.  How did you measure your pit depth?

What are you going to use as a turntable?  With Big Boys (I have them also), you need the 130' model.  Walthers has discovered a glitch in that particular model wherein the programming, which is in the bridge, is defaulting to a smaller turntable.  You can't select the correct programming.  They have referred it to the developer to figure out a solution.  No word yet.

The Advanced Control Module also has a glitch in it and they are recalling all of them.  They told me they have that solved and mine's on it's way back to me.

I chose to light mine with Evan Designs LED bulbs.  The attached wiring is so small I was able to hide it by CA gluing it to the back of the pillars.  60 bulbs to light the 24 stalls.  Every other row of pillars got 3 bulbs, and the in between section got one bulb.

Biggest challenge in building it is to get the feel for mounting the doors.  Tricky until you master it, then it goes good.

I love the Cornerstone buildings, but I choose to always paint all surfaces to get rid of the plastic look.  For the brick walls, it used white liquid shoe polish to fill in the morter cracks, then weathered them with some super thinned grimy black paint.

It's a model worth spending some time on, it looks great when finished.  

 

[doctorwayne]

I'm not at all familiar with that kit, but it seems to me that it would make sense to have the four longer stalls all together.  Otherwise, you'd need to have more lengthened walls, especially if you were to space the longer ones singly, within the shorter ones.  The prototype wouldn't spend the time or money to do so unless there were a good reason for it.

Onewolf

It looks like if I want to install the optional service 'pits' they need about 7/8" below the surface so I would have to cut out 'slots' for them through both the homasote and 5/8" plywood. Has anyone done this? Recommended tool(s)?

If I were doing this, I'd use a router, but you'd still need to finish the corners with a rasp or file. 
However, I can't see any reason why you'd make them that deep, especially in consideration of possibly affecting the underlying framework of the layout.  Unless you plan on doing very close-up interior photography, it would be impossible for an observer to know if the pit were fully-modelled or simply an area between the rails painted black.  I do get the idea of doing stuff like this "because you can" or "because you'll know that it's there", but is it the best use of your time, considering the apparent scope of your layout?

Wayne

 

 

[Onewolf]

I'm getting ready to start building the roundhouse for my locomotive service terminal.

#1) I plan to build 12 stalls (base kit + 3 add-on kits) and I would like to have 4 of the 'extra' long stalls adjacent to each other (I currently have 3 Big Boy locos which require the longer stalls).  Looking at the kit pieces/parts it seems like there should not be any issues with building all four extra long stalls adjacent to each other?  Good assumption or bad assumption?

#2) The roundhouse will be located on top of benchwork composed of 1/2" Homasote on top of 5/8" plywood (with 1x4s underneath).  It looks like if I want to install the optional service 'pits' they need about 7/8" below the surface so I would have to cut out 'slots' for them through both the homasote and 5/8" plywood.  Has anyone done this?  Recommended tool(s)?  Depending on the tool used (jig saw) the 1x4s beneath the plywood come into play.

Thanks for any advice/comments.

Doug