I used levelers on my last layout, which was in a fully finished bedroom. Some ended up screwed tight in as far as they would go and others were almost out as far as they would go without falling out.
What's not attached to the wall on my new layout will be L girder so I can keep the legs to a minium. As such, the leg always extends well above the joist so I can level the whole thing up without any adjusters on the bottom. However, I will still put something on the bottom of the legs so the wood doesn't directly contact the cement floor, even though I intend to epoxy coat the floor (and use carpet tiles, but only in the aisles where people stand).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker Floors are often not level, espcially in a basement where they may slope down to a floor drain, which is why measuring up from the floor isn't a great way to get a level benchwork. Doesn't matter for open grid or L girder with risers, you can compensate by adjusting the risers, but for flat top areas you could end up with a tilted flat surface where everythign rolls off one end.
Floors are often not level, espcially in a basement where they may slope down to a floor drain, which is why measuring up from the floor isn't a great way to get a level benchwork. Doesn't matter for open grid or L girder with risers, you can compensate by adjusting the risers, but for flat top areas you could end up with a tilted flat surface where everythign rolls off one end.
That's where I went wrong on my first layout, cutting 36" legs only to result in uneven framework where the legs sat in the dips in the floor. On my new layout. I am using leg levelers.
Rich
Alton Junction
Randy:
You make a good point about the white paper possibly showing through the ballast. What we could do is use the template as a guide for drilling the holes for the Tortii levers and the frog feeds. Once the holes are in place it will be easy to position the turnouts.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
It probably will disappear, but white will show through any slight gaps in the ballast. The other thing you can do is just assemble the turnouts on the template and then move the whole works onto the cork. Or slide the paper out ala pulling the tablecloth off while leaving the dishes intact. Tape the paper down just a little, and cut some slots across it in places where you can put some track nails in the turnouts without going through the paper - then you can pull the paper out from underneath without disturbing the position of the turnouts. The gaps in the printout won't prevent you from lining the turnouts up properly, there will be plenty of track and tie line on either side of the gap.
Coorked wavy walls are all too common - I remember heling my neighbor turn part of his garage into an office, he wanted to put a chair rail around to make it look nice instead of just big slabs of plain drywall. Over a 10 foot sectioon, if the piece oof chair rail was held tight against the wall at one end, it was a good 6 inches out at the other end. Luckily thin molding is flexible so it was just a matter of attaching it to the wall from end to end but the curvature of the wall was amazing. Floors are often not level, espcially in a basement where they may slope down to a floor drain, which is why measuring up from the floor isn't a great way to get a level benchwork. Doesn't matter for open grid or L girder with risers, you can compensate by adjusting the risers, but for flat top areas you could end up with a tilted flat surface where everythign rolls off one end. Plus I'm fussy enough to want the base reasonably level as well even if there will be risers to set the actual level of the track. Thank goodness for the laser levels that project a level line around the entire room, no more water levels and long straightedges to get a level line marked on the wall at the desired height.
Figured out the cork for the south end of the main yard on Monday night. We were prepared to do a lot of cutting but things didn't work out that way at all. The main yard has five tracks plus the arrival/departure track, all on 2" centers (in the straight parts). We looked at the Midwest cork sheets that we had, and they were too narrow to fit under all the tracks. However, a wee light went on in my head. I put a strip of Midwest cork regular roadbed on either side of the big sheet and voila! Perfect fit (+- 1/8"). That was too easy!
Henk and I did have a heck of a time trying to position the cork sheets. The wall that the yard section is up against was apparently installed by a drunken sailor and it wobbles a lot! Finally we just drew a line with a long straightedge that was close to being equidistant from the back wall.
I have to put in yet another plug for 3rd PlanIt. I printed the south end of the yard at 1:1 and it made it so much easier to plot the positions of the turnouts. I tried to convince Henk that we could just glue the 1:1 track plan right on top of the cork. It would disappear once the ballast is laid. He said he would think about it. He is going to be away for a month so I may just make an executive decision in his absence and glue the paper plan down whether he agrees or not!
Cheers guys!!
rrinkerNow, as far as railroads and clubs go - better safe than sorry, and if all the bases of that boring, mundane nature are covered, the REAL reason for having the club can take center stage and everyone can have fun. --Randy
Well said! I think that we are fortunate in that all of the BARM club members agree.
rrinker Maybe, but with as polite as Canadians are, there's really only 3 things worthy of suing over - taking someone's beer, taking someone's back bacon, or blocking someone's view of a great hockey play.
Thanks for the laugh Randy!
rrebell And here I thought Canada was less lawsuit happy than the US, boy was I wrong.
And here I thought Canada was less lawsuit happy than the US, boy was I wrong.
Maybe, but with as polite as Canadians are, there's really only 3 things worthy of suing over - taking someone's beer, taking someone's back bacon, or blocking someone's view of a great hockey play.
(you know we love our Northern neighbors - no offense intended)
(lawyers, on the other hand..... j/k - I have lawyers as friends, just not the type that advertise on late night TV and give the whole profession a bad name)
Now, as far as railroads and clubs go - better safe than sorry, and if all the bases of that boring, mundane nature are covered, the REAL reason for having the club can take center stage and everyone can have fun.
hon30critter rrebell I don't know Canadian law but asume it is similar to US in that if you incorperate as a non profit, directors are safe. Not so in Canada. Virtually every non-profit organization in Canada carries insurance against lawsuits aimed at the Officers and/or Directors. The primary reason for the D&O insurance is to cover your legal fees if somebody does sue. There are other coverages included of course, but that is the main reason. Getting sued doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to lose the lawsuit, but it does mean that you are going to have to spend a wack of money defending yourself no matter how frivolous the lawsuit is. It also protects you and your spouse's assets in the event that the case goes against you. Dave
rrebell I don't know Canadian law but asume it is similar to US in that if you incorperate as a non profit, directors are safe.
Not so in Canada. Virtually every non-profit organization in Canada carries insurance against lawsuits aimed at the Officers and/or Directors. The primary reason for the D&O insurance is to cover your legal fees if somebody does sue. There are other coverages included of course, but that is the main reason. Getting sued doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to lose the lawsuit, but it does mean that you are going to have to spend a wack of money defending yourself no matter how frivolous the lawsuit is. It also protects you and your spouse's assets in the event that the case goes against you.
rrebellI don't know Canadian law but asume it is similar to US in that if you incorperate as a non profit, directors are safe.
Or during open houses, have a sales table for the unwanted stuff - even if someone donates some old Tyco train set cars, if they are all together and not destroyed, offer them to the public if they aren't usable on the club (in before Wayne shows some of his modified train set cars that you could never tell the origins...so they may be useful after all). One of the clubs around here does that, and a bunch of years ago I managed to pick up a favorite book I used to check out of the library when I was a kid - David Sutton's The Complete Book of Model Railroading. Certainly some of it is dated, but it does have 2 chapters on ASTRAC, which convinced me that command control was the way to go. And there wonderful high quality photos.
Another nearby club also usually has a table of donated items for sale cheap. Sell enough old train set cars for $1 each and eventually you'll have $5.
What you need is an e-bay officer to sell unwanted stuff on e-bay for you, takes care of alot of problems. Now I don't know Canadian law but asume it is similar to US in that if you incorperate as a non profit, directors are safe.
(Warning, the first three paragraphs are concerned with club insurance and are off topic as far as the layout construction goes.)
We held our monthly General Meeting and we made a couple of key decisions. One decision was to no longer be a 100% NMRA club. Before you go nuts on me, please let me explain our reasoning. The most important reason was that the NMRA club insurance was redundant. We are required by our landlord to have Canadian based liability insurance which we have purchased. It covers all of the things that the NMRA policy does so why pay for two policies?
Another reason for dropping the NMRA coverage is that there is a question of how much protection a USA based policy would offer in Canada. According to the NMRA itself, the NMRA insurance has not made a payment to a Canadian club in several years. That's not to say it wouldn't, but we couldn't get a clear answer that said it definitely would. In the opinion of our insurance broker, the NMRA policy is primarily designed to protect the executive members of the NMRA itself. It does not provide coverage for the executive members of local clubs either here or in the US.
That brings us to the issue of Directors and Officers coverage. Our basic liability policy does not protect the Directors, nor did the NMRA policy, so the club agreed to buy Directors and Officers insurance. Many of the club members said they would rather pay their $30.00 annual fees for NMRA membership to the club to cover the D&O policy instead. If any members wish to continue to belong to the NMRA that is their choice (I will).
As far as the layout goes, we decided to appoint an Acquisitions Manager for the new layout, which happens to be me. We have had a couple of small problems regarding purchases and donations. In regard to the purchases, we have been tripping over ourselves when buying various tools and supplies. For example, it was determined that we needed more knives or box cutters to work on bevelling the Homasote. The next week I showed up with two carpet knives (box cutters) and Henk shows up with two large knives with the snap off blades. Voila! Four knives when we only needed two. Another example was the feeder wires. We thought that we were almost out of the 18 ga. solid wire that we are using for feeders. Sure enough, I ordered some and Henk bought some so we ended up with more track feeder wire than we will ever use. We don't want to use the surplus for things like structure lighting feeds or signals because that will make wire identification under the layout very confusing.
As far as the donations from members, we want to avoid being given cast offs that won't be usable (we already have a policy in place for donations from the public which I won't go into). For example, one member gave us about 200' of telephone wire. We have no identified use for telephone wire at this point so it will now be my job to ask the member if he wants it back. If not we will offer it to the other members, and if they don't want it, it will go for recycling.
Part of my job will be to inventory all the stuff that we already have on hand so we don't buy something that we already have. That almost happened because I was trying to find suitable DPDT On-On toggle switches for the Tortii and I even ordered some samples. What I didn't know was that another member had already donated 84 DPDT On-On switches which will be more than enough for all of our switch motors. Nobody told me!
When we do need to acquire something, rather than just buying it, we will ask the members if they have said supplies available to donate. If not we will ask for suggestions on where to get the best price. Once we decide where to get it I will ask one of the members to purchase the items (because I live out of town and don't have a car through the day), or I will buy it through Amazon or eBay.
I don't mind taking on the role of Acquisitions Manager at all. Most of the layout design work has been done so that isn't taking anywhere near the time I had been spending on it.
Hope that wasn't too boring!
Progress continues on the layout. We have a bunch more mainline track laid. Brian, our chief track layer, is able to do about 30' of track in approx. two hours with a couple of guys assisting him. He has a unique method of offsetting the rail joints without creating any gaps in the ties. I'll try to remember to take my camera so I can show you how he does it.
We also have about 1/3rd of the bus wiring in place. Rene (Dutchman eh!) and Ron were under the layout soldering feeders to the bus tonight. Rene swore he wasn't going to burn himself but of course he did manage to drop some hot solder on his hand! That made him really swear!!! The two of them forgot to offset the feeder connections so we have a bit of insulating to do, but no big deal.
We looked high and low for the rail cutters and couldn't find them. Then we realized that Ron had them under the layout and was using them as wire cutters. Fortunately it was copper wire so no harm done, but he couldn't understand what the fuss was about. He had no idea what they were for.
We have made a small change to the position of one of the turnouts in order to lengthen the spur coming off of it. It will require some patchwork to install the subroadbed where needed.
Bob spent the evening bevelling the Homasote so we can have deeper ditches along the mainline. He managed to get the cuts nice and even and parallel to the cork roadbed. Cutting the Homasote seemed to be easier than I thought it would be, but we were using fresh blades so I'm sure that helped.
We are also working on rebuilding our portable layout. The wiring has been giving us problems for quite some time. We are in the process of replacing all of the original feeder wires as well as adding a bunch more, and we are using terminal strips to connect everything together instead of trying to solder the feeders to the bus. The terminal strips help us to keep the wires flush with the bottom of the modules. They used to hang down and were constantly getting snagged when the modules were being slid in and out of the storage boxes. To tell the truth, the original wiring was a total botch job. In many places they were relying on turnout points to feed two or three feet of track, and they had used telephone wire for the feeders. We are using 18 ga solid because the layout gets bumped around pretty good while it is being transported.
We also solved a problem with the turnout motors on one module. They were operating intermittently. Turns out the old power pack that we were using to supply them had gone belly up. One minute it was producing 17 volts and the next minute it was down to 3 volts. Of course, instead of measuring the output right from the start we fiddled and farted around for about an hour before we got to the source of the problem.
The portable layout is also suffering a lot of damage to the scenery. I think it is a result of being dragged around in a trailer on rough roads. Ballast is cracking and several of the buildings are damaged. Once we get the wiring up to snuff we will go to work on that. Some of the scenery is pretty amaturish too so we will eventually have a go at that as well.
That's all for now.
Cheers everybody!
What's funny is all the major browsers have spell check built in now - but however this forum implements the editor, it disables or blocks that. My posts would look a lot better if it didn't disable the spell check.
hon30critter rrebell Did you reprehand them? Did you mean 'reprimand'? I sent out a politely worded email asking all members to get permission from the intended recipient(s) before sending emails that some people might feel were not appropriate. The only response I got was from the guy who sent the inappropriate email in the first place. He thought I was asking everyone to get permission from the Executive Committee before sending any emails, so I sorted that out. Dave
rrebell Did you reprehand them?
Did you mean 'reprimand'?
I sent out a politely worded email asking all members to get permission from the intended recipient(s) before sending emails that some people might feel were not appropriate.
The only response I got was from the guy who sent the inappropriate email in the first place. He thought I was asking everyone to get permission from the Executive Committee before sending any emails, so I sorted that out.
rrebellDid you reprehand them?
Did you reprehand them?
rrebellSounds more like someone got a virus, haven't seen that one in years.
Naw, the inappropriate message was intended, unfortunately. It wasn't real hard core but some of us have moved beyond the school boy stage.
I just wanted to mention that there is another current thread in the General Discussion area that talks specifically about what industries we could put on the layout. There are lots of good ideas on it.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/269603.aspx?page=1
Sounds more like someone got a virus, haven't seen that one in years.
hon30critter I just had to send a pleasant reminder to all the members to restrict the use of other members' email to club related messages only. Why? Because one of the members was blanketing everyone with inappropriate content. Don't worry Steven Otte, I won't post the naughty message here. Dave
I just had to send a pleasant reminder to all the members to restrict the use of other members' email to club related messages only. Why? Because one of the members was blanketing everyone with inappropriate content. Don't worry Steven Otte, I won't post the naughty message here.
Wow, that sucks, who knew someone would be so inconsiderate. Do you have any young members of your club? Well, on a lighter note, how is work on the new layout coming?
~Eastrail
If you have been following this thread you will know that have vented my frustrations about some of the occurrances at the club. Here goes again.
Hi gang!!
First, I want to express my gratitude for all the interest that all of you have shown in this thread! The guys at the club are amazed!
Second, I wish to announce that we achieved a major milestone on Tuesday night! We ran our first engine!! Granted it was only on DC and it only went for about 30 ft or so, but it never skipped a beat. So far, so good!!
And, if you recall my rant about having to appease the government's bureaucratic requirements, we passed all of the necessary resolutions with 100% of the members present voting in favour. Our President, Henk, has done a ton of work to make sure that the club is on solid ground legally, and everyone was very appreciative of his efforts.
As a result of all of this rigmarole I can now add the title of Director to my credentials!! My head is swelling!!!
“Kia Kaha”, (stand strong) Dave.
Thanks Bear! Things aren't quite so bad yet that I will have to stomp my feet, stick my tongue out and make my eyes bulge!
Hi Brian:
railandsailIt appears as though it is PRIMARALY changes in the subroadbed (usually wood of some sort) that results in track distortions. And this can occur over a long period of time as the wood adjust to indoor climate.
You are probably right, because the track distortion is less pronounced today then it was two weeks ago. Never the less, there are areas where we haven't installed enough nails yet so that is next on our project list.
As far as layout progress goes, we now have almost all the mainline cork roadbed in place. There are just a few turnout areas left to do. We also finally decided on the bus configuration. We were going to go with a 5 amp command station and a 5 amp booster, but we can't find the booster after our move last summer. We have decided to work with just the command station for now. If it proves to be inadequate we have designed the bus system so that a booster can be added in without having to re-do any wiring. Fortunately, despite changes to the plan, all the wire that we have already installed can stay in place. We also got a bunch of feeder wires connected to the various buses tonight.
Next Tuesday will be the big meeting to appoint the Board of Directors and ratify the by-laws. So far everyone seems to be accepting the reasons for all of this so we don't anticipate too many objections.
Stay tuned!
Thank you Carl, that's what I was trying to remember that I had read,....not to use acid core solder. Getting older is not all its cracked up to be, particularly memory. (I can't even talk politics any more as I can't remember all of their names, and there are SO MANY crooked ones now.)
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
railandsail Solder questionI'm still a bit ignorant about really good solder technics, but I thought I understood that it was NOT a good idea to use rosin-core solder on electrical circuits??
Solder questionI'm still a bit ignorant about really good solder technics, but I thought I understood that it was NOT a good idea to use rosin-core solder on electrical circuits??
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
hon30critter ATLANTIC CENTRAL Being a Yank and a conservative, don't get me started........ Hi Sheldon! I figured my post (rant) would get your attention! Every time I have to address the situation I shake my head. We are a group of 22 people who just want to run trains. Give me a break! Unfortunately, if we ignore the rules, the government will recind our corporate status, which will mean that we can't get the necessary insurance to meet our landlord's requirements, which will mean the end of the club. The NMRA club insurance unfortunately doesn't carry much weight up here. We will hopefully be done with all of this rigmarole by the end of April. Then we can get back to working on the layout. Dave
ATLANTIC CENTRAL Being a Yank and a conservative, don't get me started........
Hi Sheldon!
I figured my post (rant) would get your attention!
Every time I have to address the situation I shake my head. We are a group of 22 people who just want to run trains. Give me a break! Unfortunately, if we ignore the rules, the government will recind our corporate status, which will mean that we can't get the necessary insurance to meet our landlord's requirements, which will mean the end of the club. The NMRA club insurance unfortunately doesn't carry much weight up here.
We will hopefully be done with all of this rigmarole by the end of April. Then we can get back to working on the layout.
hon30critter We decided that the track could be easily straightened and held in place by simply using more nails. The track crew was nailing every 4" which is the spacing of the nail holes in the Atlas track. Additional nails were added at rail joints and turnouts. We are going to put in nails every 2" to see if that solves the problem. Lifting the already laid track to apply latex caulking under it was deemed to be far more work than drilling ties and installing nails. Dave
We decided that the track could be easily straightened and held in place by simply using more nails. The track crew was nailing every 4" which is the spacing of the nail holes in the Atlas track. Additional nails were added at rail joints and turnouts. We are going to put in nails every 2" to see if that solves the problem. Lifting the already laid track to apply latex caulking under it was deemed to be far more work than drilling ties and installing nails.