Weekend Update 2/8/15

[superturbine]

Have started an overhead pipe rack following this photo:

Looking great Robert!!!

[superturbine]

MAX,

The extra detail of the engine capture the look much better.

[up1950s]

Chris , by the color of the tie's I think the ties weren't hot enough to have the solder flow onto them . These look like cold solder joint failures . Given vibrations , pressure , and dissimilar shrinkage and contraction rates of ties vs rail over time it broke . The fact that it just didn't break in place , but moved speaks of expansion in the rail . I think the fix is a Dremel cut midway along the break which will give you room to bend and re-solder in place  . This is just a guess on my part .

[alhoop]

Chris, Very nice hand laid turnout. Looks like a case of rail expansion, you might want to add a small gap to relieve some of the pressure before trying to re-solder.

 

I vote for rail expansion. What is the roadbed/sub- roadbed material?
Was this kept in a climate controlled environment?
Al

[Jeff AKA St0rm]

Trouble in smallville 

This is the tiny layout I copied from DKS. It has been in the basement since built and just 2 months ago I was running trains on it, but tonight I was pushing cars around and noticed they were derailing at this turnout:

The rail to the right popped out of place big time, blowing 2 or 3 solder joints. That curve is 7" radius and I pre-bent all the rail before soldering so no rail was forced into place. Why didn't this happen before paint and scenery    Grrrrrrrr

The problem here is probably from the track that connects to the turnout. I have had the same problems this winter. If you leave a .020 gap in the join before and after the turnout it will stop this from happening in the future. The track relieved its stress at the weakest part so the solder joints were weak. But without gaps every now and then in the rail this will happen again some place else.

[Chris333]

The layout base is 2" pink foam with 1/8" thick cork sheet glued over it. All track was glued to the cork with ACC. I built the layout in May and it has been in my basement ever since. There are no rail gaps and everything is soldered. I figured the track was fastened so well there was no way it could move.

[Ken Rice]

How is the cork glued to the foam?  My guess would be the cork shrunk, and possibly pulled free of the foam somewhere.  Perhaps even leaving the surface of the cork still glued to the foam - cork is not the strongest stuff.

[basementcalling]

The rail itself will expand and contract from changes in temperature.

[Jesse6669]

More work on the foam-board underpass.

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Prototype

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Model

[Scottl]

Finished the decals on a  batch of containers.  Fading and weathering and then they are in revenue service. 



I am nearly ready to get the China Shipping decals printed as well

Next up, Briggs 9-40CM kit!

[Chris333]

How is the cork glued to the foam?  My guess would be the cork shrunk, and possibly pulled free of the foam somewhere.  Perhaps even leaving the surface of the cork still glued to the foam - cork is not the strongest stuff.

Used Glidden Gripper, it's like a thick paint that works as a glue.

[MichaelWinicki]

I finally added the rest of my white picket fence, a shed, some pines, and birch trees to finish the major details of this house.
The shed came from an modler on ebay, is cast resin, and finished, very nice at 4.00. The trees are Scenic Express, and have made the rest of my
trees look horrible. Any ideas on how to freshen up older foliage? Everything looks kind of dusty and dull.
I also added birches on the lower section.

Nice!

When it comes to older foliage, quite honestly I would slowly replace it.  Clump foliage Woodland Scenic trees are just... well... you can do better.  Even the Bachmann low-end pre-built trees are better looking for the most part. 

Using pre-shaped armatures with polyfiber and cover them various colors of shake-turf will yield pretty good trees.

Good looking trees can make all the difference in the world.

[Ken Rice]

The rail itself will expand and contract from changes in temperature.

Very true.  But how much?  If you google "nickel silver coefficient of expansion" you find a bunch of references that all put the number in the range of 9.0-9.5 microinch/in/deg F.  Let's call it 10 for convenience.  So for every degree F, 1 inch of nickle silver rail will get 0.000010 inches longer.  Let's say there's 100 inches of rail around that loop (8'4", probably in the right ballpark if that's a 7" curve).  So, the 100 inches of rail will get 0.001 inches longer per degree F.  If the temperature in the basement changed 20 degrees (80 in summer to 60 in winter perhaps) that means the rail would have gotten 0.02 inches longer.  Which doesn't seem like quite enough to account for that much bow, although I have to admit it's closer than I expected it to be.

BUT, that rail gets longer when it's hot, not cold.  It's winter now, the layout was built in the spring.  So presumably the basement is colder now than it was in the spring.  So the rail would be shorter.

On the other hand, if we consider humidity, the humidity is most likely way lower now than it was in may, and cork drying out shrinks.  I suspect a whole lot more than cold rail shrinks.  I wasn't able to find any actual numbers (too many hits on wine corks and flooring), but all the cork flooring blerbs say you have to allow for expansion/contraction due to humidity changes even if they don't say exactly how much.

My bet it still on the cork moving due to humidity change.  I suppose it's even possible the bottom of the cork is still perfectly glue to the foam, but the top has shrunk pulling in the top surface - just 1/32" inward movement at all the edges would squish together the track quite a bit.

Used Glidden Gripper, it's like a thick paint that works as a glue.

Interesting, hadn't heard of that before.

[alhoop]

I can't believe what my lying ears are hearing. Cork strong enough to kink NS rail?
Anybody that has cut a gap in  NS rail with a Zona saw and then have the gap close up
knows it is due to rail expansion.
 BS on all the other!!

Al

[Chris333]

The Glidden Gripper was suggested here a while back to glue foam. I first tried it to glue foam to my hollow core door and it worked great. I can't find the original Glidden Gripper post, but I do remember this video comparing foam glues:

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At any rate I guess I'll go try and fix the rail now