Great idea on how to make the ridge cap! Looks great.

Hakan

Mike, neat technique for the ridge cap, and also works well for the standing seam metal roof.

Hakan,

Thank you very much.

Mike

Standing rib indeed.

Bill and Frank, thank you very much.

Mike

I've been working on and off on my coal trestle. I finished the nbw's for the diagonals on the bents, thinking that it was enough detail and I would not need castings on the opposite sides. I built the stringers, which could be straight pieces of stripwood 85' in length for the ramp and the top, with three sections for the transition from ramp to top. These required four nbw's above each bent. I liked the detail so much I decided to add the additional 12 nbw's per bent.

A couple of views:






I have assembled the stringers and bents for the two main sections and will do the three section that make the grade transition at a later point. The stringers for the transition are just lying on the bents so I can see what everything looks like.

The next step? Ties.

Mike

Yesterday my wife and I were walking a favorite rail trail on the former roadbed of the Morgantown and Kingwood RR, and I realized that the now-paved trail crossed an old trestle. Here's one of the photos I took:



The nuts are about 1 1/4 " on a side. The large washers are about 2 3/4" in diameter. You can see on the bents the washers and nuts are the same size on both sides of the bents. A couple months ago when I started adding the nbw's to my trestle, I was wondering the size I should be using. It's too late now but it appears I was in the right territory.

Mike

Hi Mike, you've made a lot of progress here. the trestle is looking great. I appreciate the good information on the shingles too.

Thank you, Bob.

Progress on the coal trestle ground to a halt as I worked on projects around the house and did some volunteer work.

I have now assembled all sections of the trestle itself (the ramp is a separate section.)



It's hard taking a picture of it now because the trestle is about three feet long. The length had me concerned about the structural integrity of the structure; the real thing had long bolts connecting stringers to the bents. Also, I wanted to build it on my worktable so gluing the bents onto the layout was not an option. To really strengthen the trestle I drilled holes through the stringers down into the tops of the bents and inserted brass pins secured with ACC.

You can see that I'm about halfway done with adding the ties. This process goes pretty quickly with a jig for spacing and centering. Here it is in action; I've used it to position a short and a long tie. You can also see the tops of a couple of the brass pins.



Here's the jig in place, ready for more ties. I build the jig to be a little sloppy so that it will slip off the ties easily.



While on the subject of jigs, here's the one I used to position nbw's on the sides of stringers:



I did not use the pair of holes on the right because they were not aligned accurately.

And finally, a jig for spacing the bents while gluing on the stringers:



Next I will complete laying ties and move on to walkways. At some point I will be inspired to complete the ramp.

Thanks for watching.

Mike

I glad you have a well-balance life Mike and the the trestle is looking great. I really like the jigs too. they're a good idea.

Nice job Michael. Trestle looks great.

Bernd

Agree with the others: You coal trestle is looking really good.

Very smart making templates to keep your alignments symetrical!

Andre

Thank you, Bob, Bernd, and Andre!

Here's another view . . .



. . . as seen from my rocking chair.

Mike

Trestle and jigs are all well done Mike. Nice work! :up: