T-TRAK: PRR MG Interlocking

[seusscaboose]

weren't you looking for glass block?


http://www.depotsbyjohn.com/kitspg3.html#N6009url

[chicken45]

I was.  In fact, I started a thread about it!

[chicken45]

[ Guests cannot view attachments ] What’s do yinz think about this?
Obviously the shade of brown is way wrong, but I think the @DKS blast method will work out.

[DKS]

...but I think the @DKS blast method will work out.

What exactly am I blasting?

[chicken45]

What exactly am I blasting?

I think we both know. 

[muktown128]

Looks pretty good to me.  Is that the Unitrack with concrete ties or wood ties?

[chicken45]

Looks pretty good to me.  Is that the Unitrack with concrete ties or wood ties?

@muktown128 it is the concrete ties.

[chicken45]

Tower is nearly complete. Waiting on those glass blocks, still. After that, I need to weather bricks and touch up some corners.
I need to figure out how to improve the roof shingles. Currently, it's paper and I am not crazy about the pattern.




Overall, a huge improvement, as long as you don't look around the back!


Also, my track came today.

[Philip H]

Me likey!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

You have an 80mac?

[wm3798]

Not a high speed interlocking, is it?

Looks like fun.  And the MAC looks great, too.
Now about the corner joints on the brick walls...  maybe should have sanded a bevel behind the edge to get a tighter fit?  Or are you going to putty it in and carve it?

Lee

[peteski]

Now about the corner joints on the brick walls...  maybe should have sanded a bevel behind the edge to get a tighter fit?  Or are you going to putty it in and carve it?

Lee

He probably thought nobody would notice. 
I love that tower - interesting architecure.

[chicken45]

You have an 80mac?

Yep! I love 80MACs. I'd eventually like another one of them with a big a$$ coal drag.

Not a high speed interlocking, is it?

Looks like fun.  And the MAC looks great, too.
Now about the corner joints on the brick walls...  maybe should have sanded a bevel behind the edge to get a tighter fit?  Or are you going to putty it in and carve it?

Lee

It's not a high speed interlocking, and of course, neither was the prototype! I think maybe it was 25mph max. Either way, these turnouts were the ONLY feasible option. You can't use #6's because the track spacing woudl be wrong without major surgery, and a full interlocking with #6's would not fit on a quadruple module-I didn't want that.

So, about those corner joints...
Remember, this is my second crack at this kit because the first one was worse. There's a lot of problems with this kit, and the complicated geometry of this structure...well, complicates it further. Here's a list of all the factors that worked against me and what I did to minimize them. In short, I spent probably 30 hours on this kit just to get it to look this good, and it's still not perfect. I don't think there IS a perfect one out there in N scale.

Each wall slab is assembled in sections, and are inserted in to slots in the base.
There is a inner wood wall, and an outer brick covering. I went and beveled every single edge on every single wall. Some of the bricks are actually too short to span the gaps between the walls. 
So knowing all this, I started with the front center piece and worked outward. I carved off pieces of the bottom tabs to make it fit best I could. I beveled every edge, but it was tricky- I have to bevel the edge of the wood and bevel the edge of the brick, too. The brick is very soft and flexible- hard to sand and file. And THEN, you still have to use the tabs that you mostly sanded off in the wood just to make it lock in with the mating wall.
And because of the way everything doesn't fit together great, you can't really even assemble the inner wall and then stick the outer wall on top if it to make the fit better, BECAUSE THEN THE BRICK FACES ARE TOO SHORT.
Since I was pushing everything in towards the center front, that changed the geometry of the tower considerably, to the tune of a 1/8th inch over it's length. That's a huge freaking gap. Since the tower is against a hill, you won't really see the back where everything DIDN'T align. Maybe I'll take a picture of it and post it.
So it's one things to just to get the walls to butt as close as possible, it's another to get the complicated roof to now sit flush on this new, uneven geometry.
 

If you look back a few pages,  If you look at my next post, you'll see my first attempt where I tried to putty in the corners. It didn't make it look any better. It made it look worse. Instead of a clean line like the prototype (each vertical has a clean vertical line at the end of each section), it created a new flat bevel. I tried to paint in bricks to blend it in, I tried to carve in mortar lines, but none of it looked right. It bothered me enough to sell it and start anew.
I'm still going to weather the new one, and I think those big water stains will help distract from the corners.

That being said, if someone out there can do one better, I'll pay for the materials! I would love to know someone else out there that built this kit to see how they handled its challenges and flaws.
I hate this kit, but it's my only option and I am thankful for it. It's a unique prototype and we are lucky to even have this available.

[chicken45]

@wm3798 and @peteski
I realized that I actually didn't upload pics of my first attempt...here you go.

Here's a pic I drew showing the problems with the walls.


You can see that beveling does NOTHING without shifting the entire wall over. That's what I did to the best of my ability on the new one.

The seams are pretty small and I had a hell of a time getting putty in there without getting it on the adjacent bricks or filling in the mortar lines. Putty shrinks, I applied more and tried to make it as level as I could.

Notice how the roof supports don't actually touch the wall!


Fast forward a few years after some cleanup...it's still a mess. The gaps are filled in better, but they just look like red globs. I still could not accurately get putty in there and have it flat enough to NOT get mortar in them.




Despite all the layers, every new layer of putty, and the sanding that accompiniues it, also sands down the edges of the bricks, making things worse.

[peteski]

Yeah, this is a tough problem. I hate using putty in general, and when I absolutely have to fill a gap, I try to use other type of filler.  In situations where I need to confine putty application (like here) I try to first put strips of masking tape, just exposing the gap where the putty will go. Then after putty was applied, peel off the masking tape.  But that doesn't seem very doable on your building.

A thinner (less viscous) type of filler might have been easier to keep from spreading on the bricks.  Some 5-minute epoxy in a needle-type dispenser might have worked. Heck, Bondic has a hypodermic-tube applicator. That might have fit the bill.  That might have been *THE* solution here.