Going to soon be embarking on a substantial wooden trestle build and I know having a wood cutting tool will be a big help. Which ones that are available out there would any of you recommend?
Thanks,Dan
Hi Dan.
A little more information is needed. Scale? Dimensions of the lumber you need? What are you making the lumber from?
A friend of mine used his industrial sized table saw to make HO scale ties out of pieces of scrap 2x4s. But he's a professional cabinet maker.
Pete.
Probably The Chopper. If I were building wood trestles, that's what I would get.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
wrench567 Hi Dan. A little more information is needed. Scale? Dimensions of the lumber you need? What are you making the lumber from? A friend of mine used his industrial sized table saw to make HO scale ties out of pieces of scrap 2x4s. But he's a professional cabinet maker. Pete.
HO scale and lumber is coming from Mt. Albert company so think it is all basswood. Various dimensions.
I'll second the suggestion of the chopper. Great tool and pretty much a must for cutting lots of duplicate pieces. Just cutting in general is quick and more accurate with this tool.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Unfortunately the chopper does not leave a square end.
For flatter pieces of lumber The Chopper (or Chopper II) is fine. However, for larger dimensional wood - e.g. 8 x 8s and > - I would invest in a miter box and razor saw. For me I get a more accurate & straighter cut with a miter box than I do with The Chopper because the replaceable blades are not always exactly 90o perpendicular to the work piece; leaving a slight inward slant to the cut. For flatter stock this isn't as crucial.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Although there is a variety of sizes involved, 10x10 is the size most prevalent size the plans call for. What type of end cut do you end up with on a Chopper if not square? Does the blade tend to cut on a bit on an angle?
At least on mine there was a slight inward slant to the cut. Again, not crucial for flatter pieces but on a 10 x 10 it will be noticeable.
Yes the chopper does have the problem of unsquare cuts on larger stock due to blade deflection/drift. In HO, the smaller stock doesn't seem to have this problem.
I usually will sand a batch of pieces if they are bigger dimensions to get around the square cut issue. I'll tape the bundle together and hit them with the disc sander. Even with the sanding I find it faster than using a miter box particularly if you are doing large numbers of cuts/pieces.
Many times the unsquare cuts don't matter. Particularly when you are building items like trestle bents where there will some custom fitting anyway at the top of the support posts and the bottom of the bents are going to be either buried in scenery or custom sanded at angles to be flush to the surface they are resting on.
BTW: the makers of the ultimation sander are designing a chopper to solve the unsquare cut issue. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
I make a lot of loads for resale and have used the chopper for cutting Evergreen plastic I-beams and columns to length. I also use it to cut 8 x 8 scale lumber for cribbing. All of the cuts end up with an un-square end.
My thought is that the reason for this is the cutting edge of the blade, which is really a single edge razor blade. The cutting edge is tapered on both sides. If that edge were made like a track cutting plier, I think the problem would be eliminated. But I haven't found a replacement blade of that design (yet).
I recently bought a Proxon chop saw, along with a replacement blade that had more teeth per inch. Other modeller chop saw options are available. This seems to have eliminated most of the un-square end issues.
It’s been 30+ years since I built my 10” high by 36” long trestle using bass wood scale lumber, I used a razor saw and miter block. The razor saw always leaves a clean square end to work with.I also used it for making a 12” long Howe open tress bridge using scale lumber. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, CaliforniaGrowing old is a bummer, aging is definitely not for wimps.
Evening
I think I've told you this before but that's okay as it deserves to be told again. That is one beautiful wooden trestle you built Mel!
I had all the wood ready to build my timber trestle. The prototypical size bent timbers for an N scale trestle was 1/16" dowels and hard to find.
I would have much rather had a wooden trestle than a styrene one. I love how the natural wood ones look. Just before building my bridge I slightly bent one of the 1/16" dowels after them sitting in a cabinet for two years and it snapped way too easily.
This scared me as it takes many hours to build a model like that and I'd hate to have it break so I went with styrene.
HO scale definetly has its advantageous over N sometimes and thicker scale dimensional lumber is one of them. I like the trueness of cuts with a fine toothed razor saw in a miter box as well.
TF
I've used my Chopper tool on thicker woods up to 12x12 in HO Scale by making partial cuts and rotating the wood between partial cuts. Obviously only good for square 90 degree cuts but it can eliminate the angled cut that the blade drift creates. Some sanding touch-up might be needed if a little nub is left in the center but it's less than sanding down the whole angle.
George V.