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Carl B
Fireman
   
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/10/2018 : 6:26:14 PM
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but ran out of adhesive
Nobody got the short straw to go get some more? 
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Country: USA
| Posts: 4086 |
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David Clark
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/10/2018 : 7:12:02 PM
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Adhesive quantity.....Missed by "that" much.... to quote a certain TV spy. Looking good, Frank. Cheers, Dave
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Country: Canada
| Posts: 1243 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/11/2018 : 10:55:08 AM
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Ted, it’s a team effort. We have a cast of . . . well . . . 4 guys, 2 workers (Dave and I), 1 supervisor (Jim) and 1 assistant (Tim).
Carl, it was 2pm and we were losing interest. Actually we were tired from our big lunch at Outback, you know how old guys are. Another meeting of the ROMEOs, Retired Old Men Eating Out.
Dave, you forgot to use the Cone of Silence. Now everybody knows I screwed up.
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Frank |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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Carl B
Fireman
   
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/11/2018 : 11:54:26 AM
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ROMEOs, Retired Old Men Eating Out
Blahahahah! 
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Country: USA
| Posts: 4086 |
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danielb
Engine Wiper
 

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Posted - 03/11/2018 : 12:03:17 PM
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quote: Originally posted by Frank Palmer
Oh thanks Dan I've been looking in on yours too. Did you use a template to make your turnouts or did you just go for it?
I used Fastracks paper templates that you can print out from their website. The rest is purely eyeballed. :D
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Country: United Kingdom
| Posts: 330 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/11/2018 : 12:23:24 PM
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Carl, my story can top your story.
Wow, you-da-man. We spent around $500 buying all the stuff: template, filing tools, rail, rail cutters, wood and PCB ties and PCB tie cutting jig. It's a nice system but it's not cheap. The price of his Weller 35W soldering iron was double of online prices.
Then I made my own wood tie jigs.
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Frank |
Edited by - Frank Palmer on 03/11/2018 12:25:09 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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kumard
Engine Wiper
 
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Posted - 03/11/2018 : 11:13:53 PM
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I often look longingly at the Fast Tracks products - especially the jigs - but unfortunately can't justify the expense. I tend to purchase from them all the basics such as rail, PCB ties (the redesign of these is superb by the way), and wooden ties etc. All else I have to make.
Taking a page from your book Frank I've decided to go into production line assembly and finish the turnouts wiring in a similar fashion.
Incredible workmanship on your trackwork. I wish I could make my own trackwork efforts as clean as yours.
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http://thedepotonline.com/ |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 435 |
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Tyson Rayles
Moderator
    
Premium Member

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Posted - 03/20/2018 : 07:50:11 AM
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How about an update Frank!
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Country: USA
| Posts: 13400 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/20/2018 : 10:04:08 AM
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Gents, I was on a 1 week vaca so my update will be tomorrow when the 4 of us meet at the Center for our Wednesday workshop. It’s funny how it works out. The less people we have the more work we get done. Saturdays we have about 7 or 8 and we don’t get **** done.
Kumard, if it was me alone building these turnouts and layout I’d be in the same situation as you, just buying the peripherals. Thanks for the comps.
Mike, you’ll have to wait till Wednesday sorry.

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Frank |
Edited by - Frank Palmer on 03/20/2018 10:05:06 AM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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TRAINS1941
Engineer
    
Premium Member

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Posted - 03/20/2018 : 11:50:07 AM
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If your retired and on vacation. What's a vacation???
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Jerry
"And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." A. Lincoln |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 13068 |
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Tyson Rayles
Moderator
    
Premium Member

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Posted - 03/21/2018 : 08:33:11 AM
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"If your retired and on vacation. What's a vacation???"
It's what you do when you are rich and retired like Frank is! 
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Country: USA
| Posts: 13400 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/21/2018 : 6:36:15 PM
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Jerry and Mike, vacation is when you pay a lot of money to sleep in a crummy bed.
I used brass tube couplings. They came with ridges on both ends to secure the tubing . Tim cut one end down smooth to slide into a 5/8” hole drilled into the ends of the end modules. The other end had the ridges trimmed down some. This end was epoxyed into the ends of the center module.

This is the epoxyed end in place. Originally we were going to use 1/2" O.D. pipe but I changed it to 1/2" I.D. couplings.

This is the receiver hole. It has been routered out with a round-over bit. This makes it very easy to slide the male end into.
This is today’s progress. We almost finished the cork road bed but ran short of cork and adhesive, the 2 main ingredients. Another siding runs along the back about where the aluminum ruler is.
We are running the yard tracks off the end because we have high hopes to add a fourth module and increase the yard. Jim’s concerned he can only get 2 or 3 cars per yard track.
We will have the ability to use 2 passing sidings.

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Frank |
Edited by - Frank Palmer on 03/21/2018 6:40:08 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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Carl B
Fireman
   
Premium Member
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Posted - 03/21/2018 : 7:52:27 PM
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Looks good Frank.
but ran short of cork and adhesive
Not again! 
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Country: USA
| Posts: 4086 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/23/2018 : 10:58:04 AM
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Carl, seems to be just the way. Every project takes more time and material than you think at the start.
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Frank |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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Frank Palmer
Fireman
   

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Posted - 03/29/2018 : 5:50:09 PM
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I finished working on installing the turnouts today. The 2” foam insulation isn’t the most uniform 2” you’ll ever see so we spent about an hour and a half sanding the cork roadbed level. We had some pretty big humps and valleys to correct.
Before gluing the turnouts in place we checked alignment with others along the line. Then we checked before setting them in place and then we checked alignment after. I do not want to rip up any turnouts.
We marked the location for the Tortoise throw wire and drilled a 5/8” hole through the layout. Later we’ll slide the Tortoise wire through the hole in the throw bar and insert it into the switch machine mounted below. That’s the plan.
Then we’ll fill in all the open areas with track. I weathered the rail with an airbrush and rust paint and then dry brushed the ties with light gray paint.
I made bus wire standoffs from scrap poplar and drilled 6 holes for bus wires; hopefully that’s enough. I figured 2 for the track power, 1 for the common switch machine wire and if able the other wire and 2 for the lighting. I plan on using 14 gauge wires stripped of insulation so it’s easy to solder in the track power drops. I’ll screw them into the plywood deck underneath. The standoffs are circled in red. We laid out the track to see if we had enough. It’ll be close for now.
Here’s a sample turnout location. I don’t think we’ll use the long throw bar for anything so we’ll cut them off later. I can't get this picture to rotate. Oh well.

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Frank |
Edited by - Frank Palmer on 03/29/2018 5:51:41 PM |
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Country: USA
| Posts: 6093 |
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