The Western Maryland in Free-moN Modules

[PiperguyUMD]

@SAH those look amazing! I was planning to go with GMM brass stanchions but it appears there isn’t an alco style stanchion in that set. I’d consider going that route, but I’m not committed to the battery boxes just yet so I can still wimp out. My soldering skills leave a lot to be desired!

[SAH]

Soldering skills are not the critical part of the handrail build.  Make the spacers so that the handrails are on a plane parallel with the walkway and just touch the top of the stanchions (.010" x .018" brass flat stock) and, most importantly, do not move when you touch the iron to the parts.  The spacers are made from whatever you have on hand that can be easily cut and does not melt.  Paper, cardstock and the like work well.  Lightly flux the joint, put some solder on the iron tip and hold the iron to the joint for 1/2 second or so.  It makes a surprisingly sturdy joint.  Based on what I see on the rest of this project I think you have the chops to pull it off.

I would also encourage you to use finer wire for the iron work.  0.008" phosphor bronze is not that much harder to work with than what you're using.  I think you will be disappointed with how the larger gauge wire looks after you paint it.

Steve

[Angus Shops]

For what it’s worth, and nobody will ever accuse me of being an expert, I use a small 12W iron with a pencil tip, and I use tape (whatever is on hand) to tape each part in the position desired on top of a layout I sketch onto a piece of wood. It gets a little scorched over time but I can reuse it several times. Not really helpful, I suppose, if you are building handrails in place on the engine...
Geoff

[PiperguyUMD]

Thanks for all the pointers on the handrails everyone. I think I've managed a solution, hopefully it will be durable enough to last. If not, I may explore some of the options you all presented. My goal for this project was to replace as few of the stock handrails as possible and draw as little attention as possible to the fact that some of them were scratch built. I used 3d printed stanchions and .015" bronze wire.



There was a lot of failure in the printing process.



Here's what I found to work:

1) first attempt: Was printed in Anycubic gray resin at my normal model railroad settings. This gave me excellent detail, and a nice pilot hole for the handrail, but proved to be too fragile.

2) second attempt: Used a 10% mixture of flexible resin with the Anycubic grey and model railroad settings, followed by the normal post print curing procedure. There was minimal impact to the looks and a bit more flexibility, but still proved to be to brittle. About half of the stanchions cracked when sliding them onto the rail, and even after carefully installing all 8, they soon failed even with careful handling.

3) third attempt: Used 20% mixture of flexible resin with Anycubic grey, normal model railroad settings and normal curing procedure. These were quite flexible and had a different feel to the surface. Most detail was good, but the pilot hole was all but gone. With a lot of patience, it was possible to drill the holes for the railing. These appeared to be sufficiently durable, but many broke during installation. Upon further review, many of these failures occurred on stanchions that the whole was not centered.

4) fourth attempt: Used same settings as try No. 3 but did not cure the stanchions until after instillation. This left enough flexibility in the resin that they did not break while threading them onto the railing. Once they were in place, I added a dab of CA and slide the stanchion into place. So far I think this will be a winning combination. The painting process will be the litmus test.

So here's the comparison - I agree that I could have used a smaller wire - it probably would have made drilling out the stanchions much easier. But, here's the critical shot. I think once painted, the wire and plastic handrails will be indiscernible. The jury is still out on the stanchions, but I think it's the best possible result using this method. They look a little chunky to my eye while unpainted, hopefully some gloss black will slim them down.



Regardless, I'm happy to have a solution. Now I can finally finish up the hammerhead RS3!!

[PiperguyUMD]

Long time no post! But I'm all but done with my DMA, and it was spring break for my high school students, so lots of train time this week! I'd really like to wrap up Owings Mills soon. I have still have a few more weeks of pleasant garage weather here in SC, so I'd like to set up my modules and enjoy them before its gets scorching hot.

For some time I've wanted to build an insert for the station that served not only as a light block, but also to make the delicate structure a bit more rigid. I knocked this out relatively quickly and have the interior divided into three sections. I splurged on the WS lighting system and will add interior lights, as well as the street light on the west end of the building. I painted this flat black and let it dry while dabbling on something else.



Next I worked on a suitable foundation for the station. I initially planed to use cork to raise the structure to track height, but the realized that wouldn't give me enough vertical space to pave the parking lot. So I traced the base of the insert and cut out a negative, using the cork as a concrete form to be removed later.



I use Dap latex concrete patch for my roads. It's relatively easy to work with and can be sanded and cut to shape once dry. It usually takes two applications as thicker coats tend to crack.



While that was setting up, I did some work on the coal trestle. I made coal piles from foam to go between the pilings, once the scenery gets a little further along, these will be glued in place and covered with "coal." Will the spray paint was drying on those, I secured the rail to the trestle.





Returning to the paving project, the concrete had set enough that I could run an xacto knife along the forms and remove them. There was minimal cracking, but I will still need to come back and do some touch up - which I'll get to when I pave the crossings.



The rest of the module then got my usual scenery base treatment - brown paint/matte medium topped with sanded grout. This was my starting point this morning:



I started this morning by making forms to pave the crossings - this was fiddly, and I'm lazy, so I'm hoping that I can reuse these on the second one!



Planted them into the foam and slathered on some more concrete patch - also took the opportunity to touch up the parking lot around the station.



I'm a little nervous to work with this stuff between the rails. It shouldn't be an issue, but I'll do that when I can give it my full attention.



Finally for the moment, I started working on blending in the coal trestle. I have an idea how I'm going to do this, but now that I'm actually doing the work I'm having doubts. I painted the back of the face plate brown and plan to add ground foam and left over bits of super trees to hopefully make it less offensive, but time will tell. I parked the painted coal piles in place and that made me feel a little better about the scene 



I have to run some errands this afternoon, but when I get back I'll sand the parking lot, drop the station in place, and give a big picture update!

[wm3798]

Good to see you making forward progress again!
Lee

[wm3798]

While you're goofing off in the train room,
Here's something you can play with.


I also found the plan file for this...


I can send you an STL file to monkey around with if you like...

Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

I picked up a few of Jim Cushon's company houses before he passed, so I'm good on those. Elkins gets my attention though! Not sure how much I can do with an STL file, do you have it in sketchup? My next two modules will be a pair of straight modules, one will definitely be the 4th canal crossing. But looking down the road, I want to incorporate a coal branch. This will follow a fictitious track plan through a mish-mash of prototype scenes. It would be cool to figure out how to include Elkins

[wm3798]

Most of the downloadable prints I've seen are .STL.  You have to put it through a slicer to set it up to actually render.  This is something I have not done.
The level of detailed information that goes into the Chief drawing is probably excessive, but I don't know how much of it actually loads into the .STL.  (like framing, insulation and all that stuff that shows up in a 2D drawing)  I'm going to see about setting up a render of the company house (which Jim's were based on my drawing) just to see what's involved.  I'm mainly concerned about textures and details like windows and such.

I can also export as a 3DS file.  Is that more in line with a Sketch up output?

Lee

[PiperguyUMD]

Owings Mills is really starting to come together!

[dem34]

Go on FB and tell people this is 2 rail O.

Great stuff.

[PiperguyUMD]

Ok, so I need some ideas. As I mentioned elsewhere, I discovered a heat kink over the bridge of the Long Run Module. Any ideas on how I might fix it without pulling up the track and scenery? This is Atlas C55, so I could cut the rail that is free to move and adjust it that way. Do you think it would be possible to do the same on the fixed rail?

Fortunately its not bad enough to keep me from JFRTM with 4 axle diesels at 55 ton hoppers in the meantime!

[btrain]

I’ve used a dremel cut off wheel to help relieve pressure on the rail in a similar situation. I did use pliers to pull the rails together and found the gap to be too big in appearance for my tastes, even though cars and locomotives go over it just fine. You may have better luck with a Dedeco 0.009 cutting disk to make a small expansion gap. They are nice, but can break very easily and you need to cut rail in one slow and solid downward motion.

[CRL]

You don’t need much of an adjustment. This event cured a bit of a kink where the top (in the photo) section of bridge track joined the other track. The inner radius needs to be shortened just a hair or three. Then trim the outer radius until it’s in gauge with the other. I’d make the relief cut a few inches into the flex track on the movable rail and in the rail joiner on the non-movable track on the opposite end of the bridge from the other cut. Replace the rail joiner soldered on one end only (if possible) unless it kinks.

Just form a smooth curve over the bridge. You can solder some thin flexible copper wire with a U in the middle to bridge the electrical gap over the expansion joints.

[Mark W]

Looks like you could easily remove two ties on either side of the bridge with minimal scenic damage/repair.  I'd replace those with PCB ties (orange), then alternate your gaps between those ties (green).

If you use a cutoff disk, make sure you have a firm grip while cutting.  Once you sever the rail, it will want to pinch the cutoff disk and the jerk reaction could cause more damage, including ripping the the rail from the several ties.   Don't ask how I know...

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