Ballard Why v2.0

[glakedylan]

coming together really nicely
your work is very appreciated
great job!

sincerely
Gary

[Jrbenny2]

Greg, Looking Good!! Now I'm getting excited about the New Why.  I best get Der Sparken Plan going with Mr. Turnbull. Thanks again for making the dream happen.  br  JRB

[x600]

Thanks for looking, Gary, things will be getting more interesting soon.
Hey! Welcome to The Railwire, John!  Jrbenny2 is our club electron herder. He designed and built the complex tangle of components under our original Why.
JRB, notice in the one pic that I have made "Benny Holes" for you. The space between the legs and the outside of the leg are reserved for your stuff.
I'm thinking of closing off the bottom to keep the ants out, sort of an integral component box.
Here's John in his natural habitat, doing what he does best, "red to red, black to black."
I'm just glad I never had to figure out what wire was off what component !


Greg O.

[x600]

Had some time last weekend to get some more sawdust spread around the garage floor.
I fired up the jig saw and cut out the lower mains and the Green line section, with the ramp down to the yard.
Since the lower section also helps keep the modules square, I glued and screwed these sections down first.
The screws were counter sunk and filled with wood filler, I'll sand this whole mess off when all the carpentry is done.

The upper section is on temporary risers, so I could get a feel for how it's going to look.

This shows the yard lead from the mains going under the Green thru track with the ramp to the yard in the background.
I'm not really happy about the way this looks. It's an unusual situation, and it's going to be a challenge to scenic realistically.

Another view of the underpass. The left side will look the same. Sort of a short fill in the middle of nowhere?

Here's a look from the west end.

Here's a temp mock-up of the control panel location.

Greg O.

[x600]

I had today off and decided I will wait until Saturday to mow the back 40. When I get a new Riding mower!
SO I spent the whole day, about 7 hrs doing risers. Risers, Risers and Mo Risers. But the structure is solid and I feel good about it lasting
a long time.
Our club uses a end template to match the scenery from the Green line to blend from module to module.
I started by making 2 end risers and attaching them to the benchwork.

Here's the ends getting sanded to be the identical.


This is the end riser in place. The solid end board is stronger and takes a bashing better than foam or plaster.


The end is screwed and glued to a cleat that secures it to the lower frame.


Our club template is in place at the end. This template also sets track centers, joiner track ends, and Green line height.


After about six hrs, I'm almost done. Implements of destruction are strewn about and I took a few big boards and made
a bunch of little pieces out of them.

Greg O.

[x600]

I put my toys away, cleaned up the mess, and arrived at Riser City.

Miles of risers, all glued, screwed, leveled, and plumbed.
I still have to do the risers for the ramp from Green to the yard.
I ordered a digital grade device from Micro Mark so I can get the ramps as smooth and accurate as I can.


The upper tops are set in place until I can get the risers for the grade in. This is a view from the west end


This is the spot that bugs me. I'm not sure how the scenery will turn out. On the old Why we use some Kato Thru truss bridges to
bridge the gap between the modules. They are a pain to install and remove each time we do a show. Cleaning the track is a problems, too,
so I wanted to use the Kato plate girder bridges because they are open. I also wanted to have a solid end between the modules.
We'll keep our eyes on this spot to see what can be done.


Here's the joint between the modules, I need to get another bridge soon.



The Ballard Why v2.0 in 3D !
The digital grade thingy is suposed to be here Sat., then after I get my lawn done, I'll work on the ramp.
I'll need to get the yard throat section out into the middle so I can pull some track and start hacking into the bench top to get the ramp started from that end first.


Greg O.

[Jrbenny2]

Hi Greg, the Why looks great !! 
OK, now the Good Professor Turnbull and I had best get to building Der Sparken Routers, post haste.
 
BTW, the wiring will be a lot simpler this time around as we'll do it all at one time instead of a wire a month over the last 18 years. 

And will be using a new supply of electrons, too, none of those old tired ones.

[x600]

Thanks, John, It's getting there.
I did some recon under the Yard Throat and I'm pretty sure I can miss all the vital organs.
I will probably have to rebuild the folding leg mounts and move the North legs inboard to allow for the Torti.
I need to hurry this up, I need the room for the new John Deere !
Greg O.

[Philip H]

Looks good. I hope the plate girder bridges work out better - if Exactrail ever does their HO bridges in N you may need to replace the Kato ones.

[x600]

Had a major project this week; turn the whole Why and Yard throat 180 degrees so I can work on the Yard throat.
This required moving everything out of the way, unclamping the sections, moving them into the new position and reclamping and leveling the whole shebang.
It worked and I was able to get my new riding mower a spot, too.

On the left side of the center divider is what I need to make it look like. The tracks closest to the divider are the Balloon Loop tracks.
The second tracks are the tracks to the Yard Ladders. On the right, what it is. On the left, what it will be.


 I got a little package this week that should help set the grade ramps. This thing is cool! and because I can use it at work, the boss (me) paid for it.
Use in conjunction with a straight edge, I should be able to get a grade that within a few hundreds of an inch of dead nut on.

It was brought up that the real estate between the Green ramp and the skyboard should be used for some stub sidings to add to operations.
I ordered a few more switches to give us a Helper Pocket/ MOW siding on the uphill side and a small industry/business on the down hill.

Here's the mock-up on the down grade. I'm thinking J. R. Benny Lutfisk Wholesale  Distributors.
 This one is on the up hill side and will have two tracks. MOW siding helper pocket, etc.

I'll have to do some more cutting to make the sidings work, but it'll add some interest.

Greg O.

[x600]

Had some more time yesterday and today to work on track. It's amazing the amount of time I freed up by getting a BA riding mower!
I was able to get all the track replaced in the yard. I forgot how much I enjoy rail joiners under the fingernails

I need to clean up this mess, and start figuring how to get the ramp up to the Green Line.
There is a bunch of electrical stuff under the main crossovers and some folding leg  braces in the way, with prevents me from just slicing out a ramp from the bench top.


I had to remove the switch for the crossovers. I'll leave it to "others" to figure out what to do with it.

Spending Sunday with the Family so, no work will get done.
Happy Fathers Day !

Greg O.

[x600]

Lotsa progress this week on the Yard Throat section.
I laid the switches and track for the new routes and forgot to drill the holes for the switch machine rods under the switches.
I had to carefully locate and drill the holes from below. I only screwed up one side of the switch throw rod so I think I did good.
The tortoise switch machines need to be mounted on their side as the bench work is too shallow. This was a rpita!!!! It took 4 hours over two days to make them work
correctly, so it is possible.

I dropped a few feeders, and connected the wires from the previous trackwork.

 The folding legs and crossover components and wiring prevented me from just slicing a ramp out of
the existing benchtop. I decided to taper rip the ramps from some 1X4s.  I figured in the 5' of ramp, I needed to go from 0 to 1 13/16". This will give me
right around 3% + or - a few%. I screwed 2 5' 1X4s together and marked out the ramp taper. It didn't turn out too bad for a free hand run through the table saw, so I made
another one. This gave me two 1 1/2" wide ramps. I didn't take any photos of this part of the process because I was too busy watching my fingers and the table saw blade.
The two halves of the ramp were glued and screwed together and the saw blade marks sanded out.
Then it got a little tricky. The yard section has a sag around the area of the crossover which would put a sag in my ramps.
Using a straight edge and some strips of different thickness' of styrene sheet, I managed to get the ramps pretty smooth.
I still had to fill in some low spots and sand some high spots on the surface of the ramps using wood filler and my cordless belt sander.
Here's the ramps with a little more sanding to do.


Here's the finished ramps after sanding, filling, sanding, and painting.



Another view


So here's where I stopped. I just need to lay the track up the ramp and drop feeders. Then I can turn this whole mess around and start on the Why.

The two center tracks come from the Balloon Loop. The next outer tracks come from the Yard Ladder. Through the straight leg of the switches lead up the ramp to the Green Line.
Through the curved leg of the switches send the train to the crossovers and then out to the Red- Yellow-Blue lines on the Ballard Why.

Time to clean up, and move everything around again.... Stay tuned.
Thanks for looking,
Greg O.

[nscalemike]

The tortoise switch machines need to be mounted on their side as the bench work is too shallow. This was a rpita!!!! It took 4 hours over two days to make them work
correctly, so it is possible.

Could you post some information on how you did that?  I have 2 or 3 switch machines above my workbench that I would like to put in on their side but haven't found much info on it. 

Thanks
Mike

[x600]

Sure, Mike, but it's not real easy, takes some trial and error, and patience.
Make sure you drill the hole in the road bed BEFORE you mount the turnouts.
I cut a piece of 1X4 a touch bigger than the width of the tortoise. This gives room for you to slide the fulcrum if you need to.
Also gives some clearance above the throw arm screw.
I mounted the machine on the block and moved the block around under the bench top until I had a good idea where it needed to be mounted.
I then measured how far along the machine I needed to make the bend up in the throw wire. This took a bit of time and patience. Not an exact science, just my best guess.
Then I installed the throw wire and put a 90d bend up (since the machine is on it's side), mounted the Tort back on the block and fished the wire up through the throw bar.
Again, Lots of patience. A good bit of wire sticks up through the switch throw bar, so I moved the block and Tort around until The wire was vertical. At this point, I had the distance that the block needed
to be along the line of the track, so I marked the underside of the bench top along the edge of the block.
The next thing was to get the block( and thus, the throw wire) lined up left to right so the switch would work. This took lots of fiddling, adjusting the fulcrum, putting the block back in place on my marks,
and some bad words, too. But eventually, I had the end marked where the block would mount under the table.  From the under side, I drilled 2 pilot holes up inside the marks where my block would be mounted
I put some glue on the top of the block and held it tight while I drilled through my pilot holes into the block, then put some screws into the holes.
This allowed me to mess with the fulcrum to fine tune the action of the Tortoise. There is just enough room above the SM (Switch Machine,Tortoise) to push the throw arm on the SM
with my little finger. If I could have hooked up power to it, it would have made this part easier.
I had to remove the detente spring from the Peco Turnout as the wire has too much vertical distance for as stiff as it is. I was able to get the adjustment perfect after the spring was
pulled out. You can unhook the spring from above, but it still remains under the turnout somewhere. I couldn't get it out from above. I did have a thicker piece of wire on hand in case
the one with the SM did'nt work at all. I'm going through 3/4 plywood, but no cork roadbed.
  The second one went a lot easier as I could duplicate the wire bend,and the end location on the block.
It all would have been easier if I had some help to hold things, or was able to clap the mounting block some how.
Here's photo from below that might help....

The best thing I had going in my favor was that these were close to the end of the module, so I was able to work above and below without too much trouble.
Hope this helps and if you need any more info let me know.

Greg O.

[x600]

Had a good afternoon of progress yesterday. Jim Younkins came over and we got all the sub roadbed and grade risers finished. We figured out some siding elevations on the
upper plateau and got them cut in. So essentially the bench work is finished.

The area around the wye. I got the bridge sections finished today.


The siding cut in on the Mountain line grade.

So after we were done and Jim was getting ready to leave, we started to discuss the problems with the current Ballard Why Junction Track.
The track through the crossings has been repaired and replace enough that the cork road bed is beat up and not flat anymore.
When the new movable point crossings were installed, although they work really well, the trains uncouple and derail while going straight through
the track work.   Jim came up with the idea of using some luan plywood (or door skin) through this area as it's the same thickness as the cork and much more
durable and flatter than cork would be. We took out a piece from my stash and cut some 24" inch pieces the width of the three track road bed.
We laid out the track center lines and marked the outside of the road bed. I used my jig saw to cut the "template" out and we traced it on the other piece
on the reverse side, so when you flip it over, it works for the opposite side. The track geometry is the same on both sides.
Here's the "template" for the West Why.


This is the template on the east side with the slips and switch laid out. You can also see the siding on the upper line cut in the bench top.


I came home a bit early today and felt like laying some cork. Easy job to relax a bit before dinner.
I did the Green lines and then started on the lower mains. I took the crossing templates and glued them to the plywood.
I have a 18" long section of 1 to 1 130lb rail, so I set it on top to flatten it while the glue dried.
It worked, It's flat!


I was having fun, but alas Mrs. X600 called me to eat.
Here's where we are now, getting ready for track soon.


Greg O.