Hawgheads Rio Grande Southern

[Hawghead]

Thanks Otto,

Wye oh Wye Rico!
 
Completed building the Rico wye.  It's not installed yet, I need to lay down the cork in that area and paint.  I added a short piece of bench work mostly because I needed it to support the wye switch on the right and I'm going to need it eventually.  When I moved Rico from in front of the garage door to the west wall I had to move it in two pieces, I took that opportunity to re-do all the drops and solder them to the underside of the rail and also to glue down all the track.  Additionally I was able to add another foot to the length of Rico.  After I get the wye laid down, the next step will be to rewire Rico and re-hook up all the switch servos.






Till next time,
Scott

[Hawghead]

Well the wye is laid down and I just got another Octopus from Tam Valley to drive the servos.  I have to make some mounts for the servos before I can install them.  In the mean time I've been working on getting all the yard tracks and switches powered and frog wired to the Frog Juicers and finding where I forgot to add gaps in the PCB ties when I built the turnouts.  For instance what is wrong with this picture? 




Till next time,
Scott

[dem34]

Details, Details. Little shot with a dremel clears that up real quick. Did that on an entire 3 foot micro layout, little too gungho to get trains running.

[Hawghead]

Actually had to cut out the section of track leading to the turnout as the spreader bars sit lower that the surrounding ties.  Using a dremel would have left big cuts in the surrounding ties.  The real pisser is that I spent about a half hour trying to figure out where I had a short in the 3-way turnout just out of the picture to left.  I got focused on that and didn't think to look down stream.

Scott

[Hawghead]

I haven't updated this thread for awhile as most of what I've been doing has been under the hood.  Wiring, installing servo switch machines and switches for controlling them etc and I'm still finding switches that I failed to cut gaps in or didn't cut all the way through the copper cladding.  Not much really worth reporting.  I did however want to share with you my birthday present from my lovely wife.

R.G.S. #41




This one completes the roster of the R.G.S. 2-8-0s




The two brass ones need paint and decoders and the Blackstone will need re-lettering as the era I model is before the sunrise herald.  The roster now consists of all the 2-8-0s, two of the three 4-6-0s and three of the four 2-8-2s.  For the portion I'm modeling this is more than enough motive power.

Thanks for looking,
Scott

[Hawghead]

I haven't updated this thread in awhile because, well I'm slow, and I've just been doing wiring, adding switch machines and installing the switches that control them, not very exciting stuff.  I did get the Rico wye completed and it's now operational with the exception of the switches that will control the turnouts for the south end of the wye and the ramp to the coaling dock.  I dug out the video camera my wife bought me awhile ago and made a short video of an engine moving around the wye.  Thank you for the guys here that helped with advice on wiring up the wye.  I went with a Tam Valley Depot dual frog juicer for the auto reverser. 

 

Sorry about the poor quality, I didn't set up any lights or anything, just trying out the camcorder (I've got a lot to learn).
Next project is going back and wiring up all the switch frogs I was going to use the Tam Valley Depot Hex Frog juicers but I'd need at least three of them and at $90.00 a pop, I'll just go with using the other side of the DPST switches I'm using to control the TVD Octopus IIIs that drive the turnout servos.  Again not very exciting stuff.

Scott

[Cajonpassfan]

I haven't updated this thread for awhile as most of what I've been doing has been under the hood.  Wiring, installing servo switch machines and switches for controlling them etc and I'm still finding switches that I failed to cut gaps in or didn't cut all the way through the copper cladding.  Not much really worth reporting.  I did however want to share with you my birthday present from my lovely wife.

R.G.S. #41

[img]

...
This one completes the roster of the R.G.S. 2-8-0s



Thanks for looking,
Scott

Ahh, what a lovely wife you have, Scott!
Otto

[Hawghead]

Ahh, what a lovely wife you have, Scott!
Otto

Yes, yes I do.

Scott

[Hawghead]

Well not much new to report but some progress is being made, mostly wiring (which I hate).  I did want to share with you my new toy, my Sculpfun S-9 laser cutter/engraver.






Still learning the Lightburn software and CorelDraw.  I'm currently cutting rafters for the Rico engine house roof then I'm going to work on the engine house doors.  This is going to allow me to build all kinds of structures that aren't available as kits.  Again my fantastic wife was the one that suggested I buy it but I'm pretty sure she has all kinds of plans for craft projects with it.

Scott

[Mdrzycimski]

Scott,
How do you feel the 5.5w laser performs on this machine?  Do you find it is powerful enough for most tasks?  What kind of materials have you been cutting?

Thinking about purchasing a laser cutter for N scale structures and trying to gather info.

Overall, are you happy with your purchase? 

[Hawghead]

I love it.  So far I've been cutting two and three millimeter birch plywood in a single pass and the engraving is very good.  I haven't cut any bass wood siding yet as I'm waiting for some of Mike Blazek's drawing to show up, but I'm sure it won't have any trouble with that.  It can get a little smokey when cutting but I've ordered an enclosure with an exhaust fan that should take care of that.  My wife ordered the rotary table for engraving mugs and tumblers and I haven't tried it yet but it looks pretty straight forward.  Below are a couple of things I've made with it so far (still learning the Lightburn software).

Scott

[Hawghead]

Just wanted to add that I tried cutting styrene with the laser.  When using high power settings to cut through the styrene I got a lot of flame, melting and burning of the material, however I had ordered an air assist and after installing that it cuts through .040 styrene cleanly.  It does stink to high heaven so be sure to make sure the area is well ventilated.  I got an enclosure with an exhaust fan for mine and when I get that set up I'll post some pictures.

Scott

[Mdrzycimski]

Thanks for all the info Scott.  Sounds like that machine and wattage of laser is just fine for most things. I think the air assist is a must from what I have read so far on other sites.  One guy I saw was trying to cut styrene and found that if you set the laser to engrave instead of cutting through, it left a clean score mark where you could just snap the styrene for a very clean edge.

[Hawghead]

One guy I saw was trying to cut styrene and found that if you set the laser to engrave instead of cutting through, it left a clean score mark where you could just snap the styrene for a very clean edge.

I'm pretty sure I saw the same video, but I wanted to see if I could cut styrene all the way through cleanly.  I'll make some cuts and post some pictures.

Scott

[dem34]

I'm pretty sure I saw the same video, but I wanted to see if I could cut styrene all the way through cleanly.  I'll make some cuts and post some pictures.

Scott

Might need to do an engraving pass. Wait 5 minutes. Then do another engraving pass.