Purchased the 130' TT 18 months ago, spent the last year trying to get this working properly. Great pains have been taken to get bench work true and level. It was installed on Midwest cork roadbed to match existing track levels. Calibration was successful. I only installed the lead track and track 2. I purchased two Walthers 3 stall round house buildings and laid out the track locations and 5 more garden tracks. This is where the problems began......the bridge would never properly line up with different types of locomotives. I don't know if weight was a factor or not. Multiple resets and calibrations failed to resolve the wandering alignment with different steam or diesel locomotives. Went over the rotation mechanism with a magnifying glass and see nothing wrong. Disassembled the contact ring.....cleaned and adjusted contact fingers and that assembly also is fine. Just when you think that last "adjustment " has corrected the problem, it would fail. Researched the various suggestions posted on MR forum to no avail. I have reached my limit of frustration. As of yesterday....TT has been returned to the original shipping container.......I glued the floors together for both roundhouse buildings and construction stops there, lids back on the box.......plywood will be replaced and the space used for something else. My experience with Walther's 130' TT has been an exercise in aggravation. As a side note.....this was the first time I worked with code 83 track and I found it way to "fragile" for my purpose. My layout consists of 900+ feet of code 100 flex track and 115 turnouts laid on Midwest cork roadbed for decades......still runs fine!
Thanks Ed!
On to the bridge. I'm waiting for some black shoe dye to arrive so I can stain the second attempt at planking. Guy suggested not leaving any gaps between the boards and I think he is right, so I stripped out the first attempt at planking which had spaces. The spaces just didn't look right.
I also have to build an overhead light to go outside the control cabin so the operator can see the track alignment. There will be a second very dim light in the cabin. I'm not sure how often a turntable would be operated at night at the end of the steam era, but the turntable also services a diesel engine shop too so my service facility staff choose to be ready for anything!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critterThe turntable looks better but it's still pretty dark.
Glad you had some success, Dave!
Over the years, an awful lot of grease and grime is going to accumulate at the ring-rail from all that grease being slung off the gears and bridge journals. I wouldn't be too concerned about it being dark. With all that oil and grease, the rust would not be very prevalent, either, in my estimation.
I think it looks sharp!
Ed
Guy:
trainnut1250I think its done. Just light touch up and finish the bridge. I have overapplied the rust many times
That's the trick - knowing when to quit!
Thanks
Dave,
I think its done. Just light touch up and finish the bridge. I have overapplied the rust many times - fortunately it mostly comes off with some water...
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
I followed Ed's suggestion and washed off as much of the weathering powders as I could. The turntable looks better but it's still pretty dark. I will have to do a little touch up along the edge of the ring rail ties. I'll try a much smaller brush and a lot less black weathering powder:
Hi, dave
I have had some luck toning down weathering powders (Pan Pastels) by using fine mists of "wet water" and in the case of your pit you might want to hold the pit vertically to keep too much "rust" from spoiling the look of the pit floor.
As you apply the damp mist use a fairly large artist's brush, 5 to 8mm or so, to help wash away the water. Hold the pit over a laundry tub or something to collect the wash water.
If that doesn't have enough lightening effect, then use a broad brush and simply apply some very light gray over the rails and ties to "bleach" them out.
Just a suggestion, others may have some better ideas.
Best Of Luck, Ed
I applied some grass tufts and some lime stains. They looked OK. Then I attempted to apply some weathering powders. I managed to get the weathering around the pit rail way too dark and the rust effects way too prominent. I'll have to figure out how to tone it down.
Any suggestions?
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/99558.aspx?PageIndex=1
Mr. B.
Thanks for the link to your thread on kit bashing the Atlas turntable. I made it clickable. Your tutorial is excellent!
hon30critterYour turntable is very rustic. How did you do the stone walls?
I cast the walls in hydrocal, using a rock wall mold that I curved around a form. This old thread describes the building process for this.
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/99558.aspx?PageIndex=1
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasley:
Your turntable is very rustic. How did you do the stone walls?
I did something similar with an Atlas turntable except it was lined with Plastruct brick sheets. I used an Atlas deck girder bridge and extended it to fit the turntable. After doing all that work I decided that I couldn't stand the noise and the start/stop action so it sits gathering dust. Its likely headed for a train show/sale.
This is a really informative thread Dave, It has just confirmed to me though, when I build my own layout I will be incorporating at least two Wyes!!!!
Hi Bear!
My turntable will be feeding a three stall roundhouse, a diesel engine repair facility and several locomotive storage tracks.
hon30critterPlease show me pictures of your completed turntables,
Well, this is mine. I'm sure it's not terribly prototypical, since it's based on an Atlas and is very short, but I like it.
This is a "pit-bash," taking the venerable Atlas deck turntable, dropping it into the layout and building a false floor which does not rotate. The bridge is mounted to the deck through the hub in the middle.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Thanks for taking the time to post all that information. Very helpful and much appreciated. I'll have to read it a couple of times to let it all soak in. Pardon the pun - 'soak' as in when dyeing the wood.
The water tank is really impressive. You are setting a high standard.
trainnut1250Have a great Thanksgiving,
Thanks, but I've already had my Thanksgiving! Canadian eh! It was good! I hope yours is good too!
All the best!
On the wood: Wow you don’t mess around when it comes to removing what you don’t like!! When you snug the wood together you may have to have a thinner strip to make the width work out. It will look better if the thin piece isn’t on the outside edge…
Suggestions for pit weathering: a black or dark rust color powders applied sparingly will work. You can really make lots of colors work depending on how you blend them. Try practicing on a scrap to check the techniques. You can layer a brown with black to mute it a bit. If you use powders they can be rinsed off if you don’t like them (providing none of the other weathering materials are water soluble)
On the rust and lime: I might try dry brushing some Polly scale… Easy does it… Practice on the scrap to get the technique right…I really like Model master rust color for darker rust….Not sure how paint thinner will act on the plastic in the pit. At this point you may have covered it with enough paint to render that issue moot…
Below is something you may have already seen. It is a description of the specifics of using real wood and the ins and outs of dyeing it etc.
More tips on working with wood:
Wood: Use fine grained basswood, many kits of old days use big grain pine. This looks bad when stained as the grain is grossly out of scale. Balsa can have the same issues. Northeastern scale, Mt Albert and Kappler are good suppliers. Think in terms of scale dimensions when using wood I.e. 2 X12s for planking, 2 x 4 studs, 4 x 4 posts etc. If you plan to do lots of wood construction, buy an NWSL chopper – one of my most used tools. Tasks like cutting out 150 identical size planks are a piece of cake with this tool.
Cut wood before gluing as mentioned above. Assemble before staining and you run the risk of the glue not absorbing the stain and you will have paint or resort to other methods to cover up bare spots – best to avoid if you can.
Alcohol shoe dye solutions: India Ink gives a slight blue cast to the stained wood, Kiwi shoe dye is more charcoal black, Lincoln dye is nasty but is very potent and gives a very dark jet black. Some modeler’s prefer premixed products such as driftwood stain or Silverwood stain. Micro mark’s sells a premixed shoe dye solution and another option is a product called weather it. All these methods and mixes work well, all have a different look…Refresh the dye in the bottle every so often.
Staining Process: Dyeing wood is messy and the dye solution is nuclear. It will ruin surfaces. God help you if drop your jar or spill it anywhere. Your dye bottle needs to be big if you are making large structures. Parts must be submerged completely for best results. Shake the bottle to insure an even coat (carefully). Get a fork (thrift store) to fish the parts out of the solution.
Drying: After dyeing the wood I will put the pieces in a paper bag with some paper towels and shake the bag a bit. This absorbs the excess dye and gives a nice even coat on the pieces. They are they laid out on paper towels to dry. To keep from sticking, I’ll turn em’ over once as they dry.
To keep from warping - use a solid substructure and when possible use weight to get things flat and solid. After they are dry you shouldn’t have any problems.
A photo: the water stain weathering on this tank is mostly polly scale that has been dry brushed. I was trying to get the white lime deposit look around the edges.
Hope all this is helpful. Have a great Thanksgiving,
trainnut1250Now worries on the wood.
The wood is history. I was able to get it off with a wide X-acto chisel blade and some sand paper. There was maybe $4.00 in wood so its not a huge loss. Good lesson learned. I also thought about your suggestion of not leaving spaces between the wood strip which I had done. I think that it will look better without gaps.
I used a wide artist's brush to apply the wash in the pit. It tended to leave streaks no matter how I tried to manipulate it so I ended up applying a fair amount of wash, spreading it around, and then I used the brush to wick the excess off the surface. I'm going to try a little isopropyl alcohol to see if I can soften the lines.
I don't plan on putting a lot of grass in the pit. I just want a few spots here and there. I'm going to try to cut the self adhesive grass tufts into thin strips so it will look like the grass is only growing in the cracks. If that doesn't work, I have some WS grass fibres that I can hopefully 'plant' in the cracks. I also have some WS ground cover to mimic a few weeds too.
I'm in a quandry as to what colour weathering powders to use and how to apply them. I've only got 4 or 5 colours, all in the yellow/brown range, plus black. Any suggestions?
The other thing I want to do is re-create some lime deposits on the side walls. I'm thinking of getting some white and grey artists oil paints, applying them in thin irregular lines, and then using paint thinner to 'wash' the paint into streaks below the lines. I also want to put rust streaks on the walls from the rails using artists oils as well, but I think that will have to wait until the turntable and tracks are in place so I can position the rust stains properly.
Comments and advice welcomed as always! (Did I say that before?)
Now worries on the wood. You can still stain it in place. Just make sure that the wash you use isn’t too dark (alcohol and shoe dye/india ink mixture) Test on a scrap piece to see the results before applying to the deck.
As for the hard edges on the pit weathering: using Polly scale as weathering is a bit tricky because of this tendency. I usually will feather the paint a bit to break up those edges. It does have a tendency to bead up a bit and create the edge. This can also happen with alcohol/dye washes on plastic as well.
I’m not sure that you will see the edges when you get the bridge back in and your grass in place. If it is still noticeable, I would use some black or rust colored weathering powder and just soften the very edges of a few of the spots. You don’t have to eliminate the edges just blend them enough so that the eye can’t connect the circle and they don’t read as “water spots”.
The Paint thinner doesn’t seem to matter much in my experience as far as whether the edges develop. You didn’t say how you applied the weathering, but I find using an airbrush will make this tendency go away but there is also a very distinctive “airbrush look” that I try to avoid.
You can also minimize the hard edge tendency when using acrylics by creating a wet on wet approach where the edge feathers out smooth. Personally I use acrylics in an airbrush for weathering buildings, locos and train cars. I use lots of other methods (mostly powders) when I don’t want to hassle with the airbrush.
It will be great to see the final results on this when you get it all back together with the grass in the pit.
Hi Guy:
trainnut1250On the wood, if you want the weathered look, it is better to stain it before you glue it down.
You make some very good suggestions. I wish I had thought the process through a little better. The boards are CA'd in place so removing them will be messy but not impossible. I bought more than enough to do it over.
Could I have lessened the effect of the 'hard edges' on the concrete stains by adding a little soap to the mix? I used tap water and Polly Scale acrylic paint. Should I have used distilled water or alcohol to dilute the paint?
Thanks for your help. Much appreciated.
Looking really good. Little nitpicks, many of which will seem fussy….On the wood, if you want the weathered look, it is better to stain it before you glue it down. I would make the boards as snug as you can, so we see almost no gap between them along their lengths. Definitely put boards between the rails.
The weathering in the pit is spot on but you do have a few hard edges where droplets dried. I would soften those by applying powder etc. Little point again as They most likely won’t show if you leave them as is…
Today I received the Mt. Albert Scale Lumber boards for the bridge deck:
End view. I think the real wood planks look much better than the molded ones, but I do recognize that the grain is way out of scale. I now have to add a ton of nbw castings to the safety beams outside of the rails. I'm not sure if I will leave the area between the rails as is or cut it out and put in real wood:
A couple of days ago I applied a first layer of weathering to the pit. I'm hoping that the brush strokes and puddle lines will be less obvious when more 'layers' of weathering are added:
Comments welcomed as always. This is my first major attempt at weathering so please share your advice.
Hi George:
Thanks for all the advice.
I'm at the stage where I have the bridge turning smoothly under power. I went through most of the steps that you suggested. I took one look at the bogie wheels that came with the kit and immediately tossed them. The metal wheels seem to work very well although I had to make some modifications to the position of the bogies to get the wheels to sit on the ring rail properly. There is no wobble in the bridge.
The motor/gear noise is quite noticable but I'm hoping that once the turntable is installed in the benchwork that things will quiet down. I think one of the problems with the noise is that the pit tends to act like a big speaker cone. I may add some spray foam insulation to the outside bottom of the pit to try to quiet it down but obviously the motor housing will have to be accessible.
Getting the fit in the benchwork right is definitely important.
I'm not going to index the turntable. I think it will be much more interesting to use a manual switch, including the 'bumping' that you mentioned. I am actually considering using an old train set power pack so I can vary the speed of rotation.
Thanks for your input.
Regards,
Thanks for the link. Great information.
I think I'm going to use a real wood overlay. I'm going to call Mount Albert Scale Lumber on Monday to order some scale 2 x 8s and 4 x 8s. One of the problems with the molded bridge planks is that whoever did the design put all of the end to end board seams on the same beam. Not a particularly strong way of doing thing, although I guess if the underlying structure was steel it wouldn't matter too much.
I'll post pictures once I have made some progress. The scale lumber will take a week or so to get here. In the mean time I will experiment with adding some stains to the pit and rust on the bridge.
I just finished a second Walther's 90' TT kit. The first one I built about 10 years ago and it runs but stutters and jumps.
I took more time with this one and it came out pretty good. Here's what I learned:
- The bogie wheels are not round. It looked like the mold halves didn't quite line up. I filed the wheels into a better shape with a small file. After assembling the bogies in their trucks, I ran the trucks at an angle on a sheet of 600 grit sandpaper. This made the wheels turn but also scrubbed off the high spots. I applaud the skills and patience of those who retrofitted metal wheels!
- The big drive gear had some flash on it, particularly where it joined the sprue.
- The benchwork support must be absolutely flat and the hole for the pit must not have any spots that make for a snug fit. That causes the pit to warp slightly and causes binding.
- Take time to test things. You can put the deck in the pit, attach the lower housing, and spin the turntable with your finger to see if there's any binding. That's how I found an area in the pit opening that needed to be enlarged. After it passes the "spin test" the motor should be the last thing installed.
- As far as noise, there is a grinding sound. But the one prototype turntable I am familiar with, at the Steam Railroading Institute (operators of the Pere Marquette 1225), is not particularly quiet. There's a good bit of noise from the drive unit. There is also no such thing as indexing. The control is a lever that obviously has contacts that give you a few speeds in each direction. It's normal to "bump" the turntable to get it lined up - and often "bump" it back because you overshot the desired track.
George V.
I used scale 1" x 12"s (not sure width) basswood from Mt Albert. These were alcohol/shoe dyed to get the color you see. Eileen's tacky glue and some weights will keep things flat and snug while the glue dries.
The painting thing is a good idea as well. Check out Harold Huber's technique for making plastic look like wood here -
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/weathered_plastic/
Love to see some pics when you get a chance.
Nice job on the other turntable. I love the NBW castings.
trainnut1250you can probably glue some scale 1X stock right over the plastic with no modifications.
I have some very thin mahogany which might work but it has two problems. One is that I'll have to see if I can split it half lengthwise because the strips are too wide to be reasonable in HO. The other is the naturally dark colour. I want a tone similar to your bridge boards so the mahogany would have to be painted anyhow. I'm also concerned that it would be hard to get the thin strips perfectly flat.
Before doing that however, I'm going to try some paint. I gave the bridge boards a coat of medium grey this morning and I think it is a good start. I will try to paint some individual 'boards' a slightly different colour. I'm going to make up a cardstock mask and use my airbrush.
Thanks for the kind words on the layout. Send me a PM if you want the current updates.
On the wood deck: you can probably glue some scale 1X stock right over the plastic with no modifications. I have done this on flat cars and it looks great without raising the original surface height very much.
Here is the other scratchbuilt TT on the layout (yeah - the vertical alignment needs to be fixed):
Have fun,
Thanks for the thumbs up on the concrete cracks. I have ordered some scenery materials to scenic it with including some self adhesive grass tufts. I'm hoping that I can cut the tufts into narrow strips so it will look like grass is growing out of the cracks in some places.
Right now I'm in the process of painting the ring rail and ties. What a tedious job!
I checked out your website. Nice job on the scratch built turntable! In fact, nice job on the whole layout!!
You have got me thinking about replacing the top of the bridge with real wood if I can't get the appearance I want with the plastic. Unfortunately I already have the rails glued to the bridge. I had to do that to check the bridge height after I changed the bridge wheels.
I think the weathering will mute the cracks. BTW: They look good. Here are a couple of shots of my scratchbuilt 70' turntable. Still haven't finsihed the ground cover, but it works well.
There is more info on the construction of this turntable on my website (see the link in my signature)
I didn't like the unpainted colour of the pit so I primed it with automotive primer in anticipation of painting it with something a bit more grey. I actually kind of like the primer colour so I may stick with that as a base.
I also decided to scribe the normal stress relief seams in the concrete as well as add some cracks. I used a #11 blade to cut the lines and then used a chisel blade to remove the raised edges from the cut lines. I may have overdone it with the cracks but I can sand them down and fill them if it looks too busy. Otherwise I will just blame it on corrupt concrete suppliers! I will use a wash to bring out the lines in the concrete as well as adding some appropriate stains etc. I really like the idea of having a small pool of oily water in the bottom of the pit.
I also want to have a bit of vegetation growing in the cracks so I ordered a bunch of Woodland Scenics supplies today.
Here is the pit with the seams and cracks cut into the surface. Please tell me if you think it is overdone:
(Edit - after looking at the picture I do think that the cracks appear to be overdone but I'll add a bit more weathering to see if I can mute the effect somewhat. If not, out comes the sandpaper!).
Thanks,