Building an E&N curved steel viaduct

[craigolio1]

Apologies for having to ask about something that I’m sure most others know, but what’s the poop on the kosher salt?

I learned it from Tom Man’s book on weathering.

Basically for creating really rusted peeling surfaces you paint your model the rusty colour of choice. Then crush Kosher salt in bag with a rolling pin. Wet the model. Apply salt as a mask in the density and places desired. Let it dry.  Shoot your actual colour. Then wash away the salt and voila the look of chipped paint with rust under it.

Kosher salt (or sea salt I think?) as it’s a random shape vs table salt which is all uniform little granules.

Craig

[Dwight in Toronto]

Thanks for explaining - interesting!
We do happen to have Kosher salt in the kitchen.  I had read a bunch of gourmet crap about how special this stuff is for cooking - reportedly “SO much better/tastier than table salt”.  Asked my wife to pick some up.  I use it for cooking, but sheesh, salt is salt is NaCl … no difference to my palate.  I don’t think that it’s sea salt, but the big flakes are used for salt drying/curing meat/fish etc. 

[peteski]

Yes, this is all about the shape and size of the crystals, not the taste or chemical composition.
If you visit some stores (like Home Goods in USA) they have large selection of various "gourmet" salts, like Pink Himalayan and others.  They also can have different shape crystals, from fine to coarse.  Not just simple table salt anymore.  Everything must be "gourmet" variety. 

[craigolio1]

Thanks for explaining - interesting!
We do happen to have Kosher salt in the kitchen.  I had read a bunch of gourmet crap about how special this stuff is for cooking - reportedly “SO much better/tastier than table salt”.  Asked my wife to pick some up.  I use it for cooking, but sheesh, salt is salt is NaCl … no difference to my palate.  I don’t think that it’s sea salt, but the big flakes are used for salt drying/curing meat/fish etc.

No problem! I love when common household items can be used for modelling. I’m still trying to find a use for drier lint and coffee grounds.

[craigolio1]

I havnt been too motivated to work in the bridge deck lately. However I was fortunate a couple of weeks ago to find myself on a trip to Victoria where for one afternoon I had no obligations and I was by my self. So my sister and I made a pilgrimage to the E&N bridges in the Malahat. We hiked up to Niagara and then carried on down the line to Arbutus and finally to tunnel hill. Arbutus isn’t photographed all that often as it’s access is a little more difficult. The hike is a couple km longer and my guess is the goat yoga Instagram crowd are happy enough to do that in the Niagara canyon bridge. And when they do make it to Arbutus they don’t take a lot of useful photos anyway. So!  Here was my opportunity to get some photos of the good stuff. Like the bridge foundations and the river! Up to now I’ve never found any pics of the foundations on the large tower and I’ve only been able to get one fuzzy you tube screen grab of the river below.

I started with a few shots of the bridge it self.



….. and the landscape around it. I’ve discovered that I need to rework some of the scenery.  I have more of a cliff at this spot. Turns out it slopes down for a bit and THEN drops off the cliff.






 Ok now for the money shots. Up to now the only good shots I’ve seen of the foundations are variations of this type of shot….

Here’s the south end.



It’s from an era where the trees were much smaller, but still just barely missed the bottom of the main tower.

Looking towards the North end the best I could find was this….



It’s from my era but it’s not a great detail shot. Now a days the tree cover is very thick and hiking down to take pics would require climbing gear.

On my journey I was able to take a shot down through the tracks or the north end…

And was able to confirm they are the same style as the ones in the lone good B&W shot of the south end. Good enough.



For the main tower I got a bunch of shots like these !…….









These are gold! I learned that they are a completely different shape. More of a boat shape. I presume because the river goes right under the tower and when it swells in the spring the foundations would be at risk so this shape would help to protect against the flow of water and debris.

Armed with these photos I found a new inspiration to work on the bridge.

Craig

[Scottl]

Very cool.  The girders seem to be similar to the Cisco type that are typical of the early 20th century.  How are you going to do them?

[craigolio1]

I wanted to pour the foundations for this bridge from plaster or anchor bolt cement. In the era this bridge was built the forms would have been made from dimensional lumber. I had used 1mm V grove styrene for bridge foundations on the Lake Cowichan bridge so I decided to do the same here. It creates lots of nice lines for form lines which can be sanded or otherwise altered to achieve lots of age and weathering affects. So I opted to use the same here.

For lake Cowichan I only needed two so I made two molds and destroyed them in the casting process. For this bridge I need 6 of one style and 4 of another. This meant making re-useable molds.

For the foundations at the north and south ends, they are square with an angled top. The nice thing about the V grove styrene is that it makes it really easy to make uniform cuts.

I started drawing it right on the styrene and cutting the shapes.



I then scribed and snapped where they were to angle up, being careful not to snap them right off.



I made angle braces to keep the two halves square and then once glued in place, I bent the angled parts in and secured them.







The last step was to build flanges so they could be clamped together.




For the foundations on the middle tower I had a lot more work to do. As with the first, I had no measurements and went based strictly on perspective and ratios in the photo comparing the foundation to the bridge structure.

I made a drawing of what I though the foot print would be and began cutting pieces based on that. I’m no engineer so this was very much a see how it fits as I go along type endeavour.



I started out making them quite tall:



But as I mocked it up I saw that the foot print at the top would be too small compared the the bridge leg so I shortened it which made that foot print larger… thank you again V groove siding.








Once I had the basic shape done I added the top layer and was left with two halves of a mold.



And then flipped it over and sat the tops down on two roof halves which would serve to strengthen the whole thing and act as a bottom of the mold. I also added reinforcements at corners and joints.





Finally I wanted to strengthen the outsides of the molds in general and had a tube of PL Premium construction adhesive near by…. And figured why not. Can’t get that crap off my cloths or tools as it’s very strong….

Also for the angled mold, I stumbled a bit on how to hold it together. Flanges would be awkward as it doesn’t sit flat faced down on a table, and so to make the two halves fit I think I would have had to glue the angled flanges on while paired together and feared a gluing then mold halves together. So I came up with an idea to drill holes at the corners and wire the halves together. Seemed to work of so it was time for a test pour!



Success! The molds aren’t exactly water tight but that’s ok. And there are some blemishes and flash… but  I’m not making automobiles, so I’m happy with the result.

On the first I took it out after only a few hours. You can see that some of the “form lines” stayed in the mold making kind of an eroded or spalling effect.





The big question mark was would the more complicated multi piece mold survive?

And it did! I left it in over night so more of the detail survived. Future ones I’ll probably pull early so they look more beaten down.





Now for some prototype comparison.












And that’s that!  Time to make a bunch more and let them cure for bit. I can make 1 or two a day so it’ll take at least a week.

Craig

[craigolio1]

Very cool.  The girders seem to be similar to the Cisco type that are typical of the early 20th century.  How are you going to do them?

Thanks Scott. I used modified Micro Engineering and Atlas C55 bridge girders.

By using off the shelf parts, this bridge ends up being compressed. Now you know I LOVE bridges and would really like to avoid compression but in this case it would mean another massive scratch build, and I’ve already button off more than I can chew committing to scratch building Niagara uncompressed. Building this bridge this way has saved huge time and expense… and it also allows it to fit my room. Thankfully it’s not compressed by much so the trains still look appropriately proportioned atop this bridge. 

Craig

[Scottl]

It looks really great, compression is a necessary evil in this game!

[samusi01]

Very nice work there. If you have a drone, or know someone who does, that may allow better access to those piers and any other detail shots you might need.

[craigolio1]

Very nice work there. If you have a drone, or know someone who does, that may allow better access to those piers and any other detail shots you might need.

Alas I live on the other side of the country and I don’t know anyone out there with a drone. But you make a good point. I should have brought one.

Craig

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Alas I live on the other side of the country and I don’t know anyone out there with a drone. But you make a good point. I should have brought one.

Craig

True. But you ALSO have The Railwire! Maybe someone can make it happen for you? Stranger things have happened.

[amato1969]

@craigolio1 has major cojones to lean out over the ties for those straight-down pictures !!!

[craigolio1]

True. But you ALSO have The Railwire! Maybe someone can make it happen for you? Stranger things have happened.

Hmmmm good point.

[craigolio1]

@craigolio1 has major cojones to lean out over the ties for those straight-down pictures !!!

Nooooooooo sir he does not. Craig lay on his belly and dragged his cojones over the rails until his hands were over the edge and just hoped he didn’t drop his phone! Too far down for me man.