Some excellent woodworking there Tony. When you've done yours you can pop round to me and finish my ones off. LOL.
Dave
Brimsdown-The last grand project.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
For several years, my work desk had resided in the garage amid an assortment of cupboard units. The edge of Green Street visible to the left.
The baseboard on its side on the floor is not for this layout but part of the NAG group's layout I was temporarily storing for them at the time.
Before I could assemble the new base units, things needed to be rearranged. The desk was temporarily moved to the end of the garage and the existing cupboards shifted around to create a continuous set of units. The new ones were then assembled and positioned as required to achieve a level top surface.
The following picture has been used before, but shows part of the new arrangement before the doors were fitted.
One of the things that had been putting me off doing this was the fact that I did not have doors for some of the old units and didn’t much fancy making them from contiboard. However, when the time came, the task proved less difficult than feared. My main concern was drilling the recesses into the reverse side of the door for the special hinges, with only 15mm of chipboard, the remaining chipboard at the front of the recess becomes very thin and if one breaks through the door is ruined. I had purchased some new cutters from Wicks for this job, but they turned out to be pretty useless as they wandered something chronic. In the end I resorted to an old cutter that I had that was getting very worn. I managed to resharpen it well enough to do the job and all the cupboards now have doors apart from the wall mounted one seen above, which is used more as a set of shelves.
The next job was to fit the work tops. These are a mixture of 30mm worktop and 18mm contiboard. I needed slightly more clearance than the worktop provided in order to be able to stow part of Green Street under the layout. Another set of 4 T girder frames was then made together with the support units as before.
The next job to tackle was the scenic baseboards, the subframes noted above. These had been on the society sales section for some time although unbeknown to me already sold to a fellow NAG member, who subsequently decided that they were not quite what he wanted. In the end I somehow acquired them thinking they would save me some work. They are 1500 x 750mm close to the 5' by 2'6" dimensions I had originally planned, but were only 3" deep rather than the 4" I needed. I had hoped to try something along the lines of the open topped baseboard systems. However, the Lea valley area is almost billiard table flat and the wide trackbed required in places, made this largely impractical, so a rethink was required. A gradient profile I have of the line shows the gradient through Brimsdown as 1 in 801 for over a mile, so that is effectively level to you and me.
The first problem was fitting the pattern makers dowels to the existing subframes. The end corners already had two 5/16" holes drilled through them. Being jig drilled, they seemed to be consistently accurate. I wanted to use the outer hole of each pair to locate the dowels in. Since a Fosner bit uses a central pip for guidance, this could not be used in this case due to the existing hole. However the pin of the dowels happened to be a perfect fit in these holes and after much thought decided that the only way I could reuse the holes was to place the dowel reversed, with the pin in the hole, so the circular body of the dowel stood proud. Next I took a scrap piece of 9mm ply and cut a hole through this with the Fosner bit using the pillar drill to ensure accuracy.
This piece of ply was then placed over the dowel body and securely clamped onto the end of the baseboard. The dowel was then gently tapped out from the rear so that the layer of ply could be used to guide the perimeter of the Fosner bit whilst cutting the recess for the dowel. The same method had to be used for all four dowel recesses of each baseboard interface. Obviously a pair of dowel halves being fitted each side. I was pleasantly surprised how well this worked for the most part, there being only a few that needed some adjustment, this mainly being due to wear taking place in the ply guide as I proceeded.
The second hole will be used to bolt the boards together, at least to begin with.
Tony.
The baseboard on its side on the floor is not for this layout but part of the NAG group's layout I was temporarily storing for them at the time.
Before I could assemble the new base units, things needed to be rearranged. The desk was temporarily moved to the end of the garage and the existing cupboards shifted around to create a continuous set of units. The new ones were then assembled and positioned as required to achieve a level top surface.
The following picture has been used before, but shows part of the new arrangement before the doors were fitted.
One of the things that had been putting me off doing this was the fact that I did not have doors for some of the old units and didn’t much fancy making them from contiboard. However, when the time came, the task proved less difficult than feared. My main concern was drilling the recesses into the reverse side of the door for the special hinges, with only 15mm of chipboard, the remaining chipboard at the front of the recess becomes very thin and if one breaks through the door is ruined. I had purchased some new cutters from Wicks for this job, but they turned out to be pretty useless as they wandered something chronic. In the end I resorted to an old cutter that I had that was getting very worn. I managed to resharpen it well enough to do the job and all the cupboards now have doors apart from the wall mounted one seen above, which is used more as a set of shelves.
The next job was to fit the work tops. These are a mixture of 30mm worktop and 18mm contiboard. I needed slightly more clearance than the worktop provided in order to be able to stow part of Green Street under the layout. Another set of 4 T girder frames was then made together with the support units as before.
The next job to tackle was the scenic baseboards, the subframes noted above. These had been on the society sales section for some time although unbeknown to me already sold to a fellow NAG member, who subsequently decided that they were not quite what he wanted. In the end I somehow acquired them thinking they would save me some work. They are 1500 x 750mm close to the 5' by 2'6" dimensions I had originally planned, but were only 3" deep rather than the 4" I needed. I had hoped to try something along the lines of the open topped baseboard systems. However, the Lea valley area is almost billiard table flat and the wide trackbed required in places, made this largely impractical, so a rethink was required. A gradient profile I have of the line shows the gradient through Brimsdown as 1 in 801 for over a mile, so that is effectively level to you and me.
The first problem was fitting the pattern makers dowels to the existing subframes. The end corners already had two 5/16" holes drilled through them. Being jig drilled, they seemed to be consistently accurate. I wanted to use the outer hole of each pair to locate the dowels in. Since a Fosner bit uses a central pip for guidance, this could not be used in this case due to the existing hole. However the pin of the dowels happened to be a perfect fit in these holes and after much thought decided that the only way I could reuse the holes was to place the dowel reversed, with the pin in the hole, so the circular body of the dowel stood proud. Next I took a scrap piece of 9mm ply and cut a hole through this with the Fosner bit using the pillar drill to ensure accuracy.
This piece of ply was then placed over the dowel body and securely clamped onto the end of the baseboard. The dowel was then gently tapped out from the rear so that the layer of ply could be used to guide the perimeter of the Fosner bit whilst cutting the recess for the dowel. The same method had to be used for all four dowel recesses of each baseboard interface. Obviously a pair of dowel halves being fitted each side. I was pleasantly surprised how well this worked for the most part, there being only a few that needed some adjustment, this mainly being due to wear taking place in the ply guide as I proceeded.
The second hole will be used to bolt the boards together, at least to begin with.
Tony.
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Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Having fitted all four scenic baseboards with their joiner dowels, the next step would have been to put them all together, however, this had to wait as a certain thread on Turnout construction proved a major diversion for several weeks. During the course of this time I also spent many happy hours printing out umpteen sheets of the Templot track plan as a background task at about 15 minutes a piece due to their shear size (double A3) and inevitably one of the ink cartridges ran out part way through, so a new one had to be ordered. Eventually the temptation to see how it was all going to look became too strong and I glued the sheets together in baseboard size sections (6 to a baseboard), put the scenic baseboard frames together and laid the printouts in situ. This was the result. It certainly gives a good impression of the scale of the thing.
Any apparent kinks in the track, such as in the head shunt in the left foreground, are optical illusions caused by the paper sagging between the ribs of the baseboard frame below.
That cupboard is going to have to go!
From the other end one can see that the clearance is not quite as bad as it first appears, however the final surface the baseboard will be about an inch and a half higher than this and there will be several buildings including the station buildings, which are quite tall in that area, so from a scenic point of view, the headroom will definitely need to be greater that it now is. So I may lose the lower shelf as well.
Note the three tracks curving off the edge of the baseboard in the foreground. This was the next job to be tackled as the success of this area is crucial to the operational interest of the layout. I wanted the baseboard interfaces to be at right angles to each track meaning a saw tooth arrangement was called for. This I regarded as the first make or break part of the project. The second being the lifting flap across the entrance doorway still to come.
Any apparent kinks in the track, such as in the head shunt in the left foreground, are optical illusions caused by the paper sagging between the ribs of the baseboard frame below.
That cupboard is going to have to go!
From the other end one can see that the clearance is not quite as bad as it first appears, however the final surface the baseboard will be about an inch and a half higher than this and there will be several buildings including the station buildings, which are quite tall in that area, so from a scenic point of view, the headroom will definitely need to be greater that it now is. So I may lose the lower shelf as well.
Note the three tracks curving off the edge of the baseboard in the foreground. This was the next job to be tackled as the success of this area is crucial to the operational interest of the layout. I wanted the baseboard interfaces to be at right angles to each track meaning a saw tooth arrangement was called for. This I regarded as the first make or break part of the project. The second being the lifting flap across the entrance doorway still to come.
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Le Corbusier
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Martin Wynne
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
+1
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
These two pictures show the difference in the height and width between the two sets of baseboards at the interface, the inch wide strip on edge being the difference to the underside of the baseboard top surface.
The layer of bare ply visible is glued to the end of the near board and carries the dowels. The end face of the adjacent baseboard is painted white.
Note that the surround of the wide baseboards are double skinned. This helps keep the weight down but provides greater strength, but was to prove usefull in another way as will be seen shortly.
The layer of bare ply visible is glued to the end of the near board and carries the dowels. The end face of the adjacent baseboard is painted white.
Note that the surround of the wide baseboards are double skinned. This helps keep the weight down but provides greater strength, but was to prove usefull in another way as will be seen shortly.
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Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
So now we come to the really tricky part, positioning the saw tooth join. Firstly I printed out the bridging board full size from Templot using a combination of centre lines only and background shapes as this would provide the working template.
This was carefully positioned against the subframe and map pins carefully placed at all the crucial places that is the corners and changes of angle. The yellow pin is at the reference point, which was checked several times before proceeding.
The red lines are the edge of the baseboard frame.
The plan was then slowly rolled back removing each pin in turn and replacing in the hole it had made thus.
Vertical pencil marks were then made on the edge of the frame using a square against each pin hole as reference marks.
This is a very useful method of transferring dimensions from paper to wood and is in fact a very old one.
The same method was used to transfer the pattern to a spare piece of Sundeala board I had available. I decided not to use it in the end as it was not quite big enough. Basically mark the holes and join the dots.
In the end, I decided to use a piece of 9mm ply for the edge pieces on the grounds that as the bridging board is likely to be removed and replaced fairly frequently, so Sundeala board may be too prone to wear. The edge profile was transferred to the piece of ply in the same way and the profile cut very carefully using the band saw. Various pieces of ply were cut and shaped to produce the result I wanted. It ended up a right jigsaw.
Green Streets sector fiddle yard board stored underneath.
Pictures and explanation. Pencil marks against some of the corners faintly visible at full size.
The top surface as already mentioned is 9mm ply. The vertical edges are 6mm ply. The tongue pieces are the nearest thickness I could find to be a good fit in the gap of the sandwich frames. These were built up slowly by gluing and clamping a few sections together at a time and leaving to set before attempting the next bit. Viewed from underneath. The right hand slot fits over one of the internal spacers between the two ply layers and helps locate it.
It will also be noticed in the above picture that I have also screwed it into place temporarily. Gluing can wait until I am certain I have everything right.
The edge profile of this unit was later transferred to its counterpart by placing this upside down on the underside of its opposite half and running a fine pencil along the edge of it. Clamp together first if possible to prevent any movement taking place whilst doing so.
Tony.
This was carefully positioned against the subframe and map pins carefully placed at all the crucial places that is the corners and changes of angle. The yellow pin is at the reference point, which was checked several times before proceeding.
The red lines are the edge of the baseboard frame.
The plan was then slowly rolled back removing each pin in turn and replacing in the hole it had made thus.
Vertical pencil marks were then made on the edge of the frame using a square against each pin hole as reference marks.
This is a very useful method of transferring dimensions from paper to wood and is in fact a very old one.
The same method was used to transfer the pattern to a spare piece of Sundeala board I had available. I decided not to use it in the end as it was not quite big enough. Basically mark the holes and join the dots.
In the end, I decided to use a piece of 9mm ply for the edge pieces on the grounds that as the bridging board is likely to be removed and replaced fairly frequently, so Sundeala board may be too prone to wear. The edge profile was transferred to the piece of ply in the same way and the profile cut very carefully using the band saw. Various pieces of ply were cut and shaped to produce the result I wanted. It ended up a right jigsaw.
Green Streets sector fiddle yard board stored underneath.
Pictures and explanation. Pencil marks against some of the corners faintly visible at full size.
The top surface as already mentioned is 9mm ply. The vertical edges are 6mm ply. The tongue pieces are the nearest thickness I could find to be a good fit in the gap of the sandwich frames. These were built up slowly by gluing and clamping a few sections together at a time and leaving to set before attempting the next bit. Viewed from underneath. The right hand slot fits over one of the internal spacers between the two ply layers and helps locate it.
It will also be noticed in the above picture that I have also screwed it into place temporarily. Gluing can wait until I am certain I have everything right.
The edge profile of this unit was later transferred to its counterpart by placing this upside down on the underside of its opposite half and running a fine pencil along the edge of it. Clamp together first if possible to prevent any movement taking place whilst doing so.
Tony.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
I now needed a baseboard to join the bridging board to.
This has actually already featured in a previous post posing as a baseboard built my preferred way.
With the diagonals added.
However, it also now has a corner cut down and in-filled. This to support the other end of the bridging board.
Again this is made from 9mm ply but with bracing made from 18mm ply.
However, the underside is the interesting part and by far the most intricate.
The tongues locate the board accurately and the strips of ply behind them control the vertical height.
The two strips of wood behind these are spacers for added strength and ensuring that all is vertical, which my first attempt without them wasn't.
The other end mates with the baseboard pictured above and has a dowel on its underside to ensure accurate engagement.
Which fits into this,
This is the only baseboard so far to use traditional full length legs with screw adjustable feet at floor level. They were quickly cobbled together using some existing legs that came with the acquired layout baseboards and may yet be replaced. Green Street's main baseboards are stored underneath and hence dictate this baseboard's minimum length.
Bridging board in place.
Although it is possible to duck under quite easily when in place, I wanted it easily removable when not needed. I have spent some time trying to ease the fit, but still sticks a bit in places, so further sanding cannot be ruled out. It is though difficult to work out where it binds as it was cunningly designed so the problem is hidden from view when in place.
Here are the boards with the track plans in place.
This is the factory visible in one of the prototype pictures I posted earlier in this thread, the first black and white one half way down page 3. It was only when I printed out the track plans that I began to appreciate just how big it was, about 6 ft from front to back if modelled in its entirety.
This was the moment of truth as a further small baseboard visible, just, under the plan toward the top left of the picture needed to be made.
If you think this was all carefully planned to the nth degree, that is something of an illusion as much improvisation has been needed along the way.
I had worked out from Templot how long this needed to be, but this dimension differed somewhat from what I now measured. After investigation I realised I had miscalculated somewhere and the discrepancy was actually 2mm, which I could live with. One of the perils of using the walls for reference is that the building is not square. For instance I know that one side wall is 2" shorter than the other. This throws the end wall with the up and over door out of square. Guess which end they started fitting the roof from!
Tony.
This has actually already featured in a previous post posing as a baseboard built my preferred way.
With the diagonals added.
However, it also now has a corner cut down and in-filled. This to support the other end of the bridging board.
Again this is made from 9mm ply but with bracing made from 18mm ply.
However, the underside is the interesting part and by far the most intricate.
The tongues locate the board accurately and the strips of ply behind them control the vertical height.
The two strips of wood behind these are spacers for added strength and ensuring that all is vertical, which my first attempt without them wasn't.
The other end mates with the baseboard pictured above and has a dowel on its underside to ensure accurate engagement.
Which fits into this,
This is the only baseboard so far to use traditional full length legs with screw adjustable feet at floor level. They were quickly cobbled together using some existing legs that came with the acquired layout baseboards and may yet be replaced. Green Street's main baseboards are stored underneath and hence dictate this baseboard's minimum length.
Bridging board in place.
Although it is possible to duck under quite easily when in place, I wanted it easily removable when not needed. I have spent some time trying to ease the fit, but still sticks a bit in places, so further sanding cannot be ruled out. It is though difficult to work out where it binds as it was cunningly designed so the problem is hidden from view when in place.
Here are the boards with the track plans in place.
This is the factory visible in one of the prototype pictures I posted earlier in this thread, the first black and white one half way down page 3. It was only when I printed out the track plans that I began to appreciate just how big it was, about 6 ft from front to back if modelled in its entirety.
This was the moment of truth as a further small baseboard visible, just, under the plan toward the top left of the picture needed to be made.
If you think this was all carefully planned to the nth degree, that is something of an illusion as much improvisation has been needed along the way.
I had worked out from Templot how long this needed to be, but this dimension differed somewhat from what I now measured. After investigation I realised I had miscalculated somewhere and the discrepancy was actually 2mm, which I could live with. One of the perils of using the walls for reference is that the building is not square. For instance I know that one side wall is 2" shorter than the other. This throws the end wall with the up and over door out of square. Guess which end they started fitting the roof from!
Tony.
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Last edited by Tony Wilkins on Fri Jun 29, 2018 9:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Terry Bendall
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Some very careful work here Tony both in design and implementation.
Three possible aids:
Use a thin strip of metal - e.g 10 or 20 thou brass strip as a feeler gauge to find the high spots - if you can do that. I have used this trick in the past using a conventional set of feeler gauges when fitting a fairly complicated woodwork joint known as a secret mitre dovetail joint where none of the joint can be seen once it is assembled.
Rub chalk on one part, put the two parts together and see where the chalk is rubbed off.
Apply candle wax which is a good lubricant for wooden parts that have to work together - e.g. drawers.
Terry Bendall
Tony Wilkins wrote: I have spent some time trying to ease the fit, but still sticks a bit in places, so further sanding cannot be ruled out. It is though difficult to work out where it binds as it was cunningly designed so the problem is hidden from view when in place.
Three possible aids:
Use a thin strip of metal - e.g 10 or 20 thou brass strip as a feeler gauge to find the high spots - if you can do that. I have used this trick in the past using a conventional set of feeler gauges when fitting a fairly complicated woodwork joint known as a secret mitre dovetail joint where none of the joint can be seen once it is assembled.
Rub chalk on one part, put the two parts together and see where the chalk is rubbed off.
Apply candle wax which is a good lubricant for wooden parts that have to work together - e.g. drawers.
Terry Bendall
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Le Corbusier
- Posts: 1600
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Terry Bendall wrote:Three possible aids:
Use a thin strip of metal - e.g 10 or 20 thou brass strip as a feeler gauge to find the high spots - if you can do that. I have used this trick in the past using a conventional set of feeler gauges when fitting a fairly complicated woodwork joint known as a secret mitre dovetail joint where none of the joint can be seen once it is assembled.
Rub chalk on one part, put the two parts together and see where the chalk is rubbed off.
Apply candle wax which is a good lubricant for wooden parts that have to work together - e.g. drawers.
Terry Bendall
Gold dust Terry .... thanks - squirrelled away for future reference.
Tim
Tim Lee
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hi Terry.
Tricks of the trade are always useful to know. I can certainly try the feeler gauge and chalk dust techniques, the latter probably being favourite.
I had forgotten about using Candle wax despite using it to lubricate the sliding draw runners under my work bench. Also useful on sticking wood saw blades, but I think I will leave this until I have freed things up as best I can by the others methods first.
Regards
Tony.
PS. Have since had a go with the feeler gauge method and gentle sanding with some measure of success. I have also shortened the locating tongues again, which has helped ease things.
Tricks of the trade are always useful to know. I can certainly try the feeler gauge and chalk dust techniques, the latter probably being favourite.
I had forgotten about using Candle wax despite using it to lubricate the sliding draw runners under my work bench. Also useful on sticking wood saw blades, but I think I will leave this until I have freed things up as best I can by the others methods first.
Regards
Tony.
PS. Have since had a go with the feeler gauge method and gentle sanding with some measure of success. I have also shortened the locating tongues again, which has helped ease things.
Last edited by Tony Wilkins on Thu Jun 21, 2018 12:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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- Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:57 pm
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Next job was to fit the baseboard tops.
The bridging board was tackled first and the Sundeala board was simply cut to shape and firmly glued down.
The extra thickness here will not be an issue as all the track on this board is plain.
As the off cut I was using was not quite big enough, extra pieces had to be cut and glued for the teeth.
Because of the length of the next baseboard, one and a bit sheets of Sundeala were required.
An extra strip of ply was added to the cross brace to support the edges of both sheets and to the inside of the near rail.
I had originally planned to use Sundeala only for the trackbed area, but decided that this offered little benefit at the cost of rather more woodwork, so elected to surface the vast majority of this baseboard. Join just visible. Also note the extra pieces of ply glued under the edges of the open area of the Sundeala. These are to support the edges of the scenic drop in board that the factory building will sit on.
This is the small baseboard that will be a mini fiddle yard representing a large industrial complex. The plan is to use cassettes to deal with wagons only (so no electrics required) as locos were not permitted to work under the road over bridge marked on the map (shown above in yesterdays post) as Mollison avenue. This was not due to height issues, but the severe curvature of the track past this point. Underbridge way followed the tracks round into the industrial estate for some way and was shunted by specially modified Massey Ferguson tractors and probably horses before them.
This is the underside, which may yet have diagonals added should any sign of twist appear.
It locates on the rear of the bridge baseboard using this which is a precision fit.
At the other end it should sit in this cut out and be level,
but at present isn't due to errors in the levels of baseboards elsewhere round the curved end. This will need to be corrected, but for the moment, a piece of 9mm ply under the end resolves the problem.
This takes us up to early May historically and now, six months out, I seriously question whether I shall reach my target of having a circuit of track laid and wired by the end of the year as I have the four scenic baseboard surfaces to raise by an inch, which is what I am currently working on and still have all the curved boards for the North end to make before woodworking can take a back seat. Then I am promising myself a major tidy up and sort out.
Tony.
The bridging board was tackled first and the Sundeala board was simply cut to shape and firmly glued down.
The extra thickness here will not be an issue as all the track on this board is plain.
As the off cut I was using was not quite big enough, extra pieces had to be cut and glued for the teeth.
Because of the length of the next baseboard, one and a bit sheets of Sundeala were required.
An extra strip of ply was added to the cross brace to support the edges of both sheets and to the inside of the near rail.
I had originally planned to use Sundeala only for the trackbed area, but decided that this offered little benefit at the cost of rather more woodwork, so elected to surface the vast majority of this baseboard. Join just visible. Also note the extra pieces of ply glued under the edges of the open area of the Sundeala. These are to support the edges of the scenic drop in board that the factory building will sit on.
This is the small baseboard that will be a mini fiddle yard representing a large industrial complex. The plan is to use cassettes to deal with wagons only (so no electrics required) as locos were not permitted to work under the road over bridge marked on the map (shown above in yesterdays post) as Mollison avenue. This was not due to height issues, but the severe curvature of the track past this point. Underbridge way followed the tracks round into the industrial estate for some way and was shunted by specially modified Massey Ferguson tractors and probably horses before them.
This is the underside, which may yet have diagonals added should any sign of twist appear.
It locates on the rear of the bridge baseboard using this which is a precision fit.
At the other end it should sit in this cut out and be level,
but at present isn't due to errors in the levels of baseboards elsewhere round the curved end. This will need to be corrected, but for the moment, a piece of 9mm ply under the end resolves the problem.
This takes us up to early May historically and now, six months out, I seriously question whether I shall reach my target of having a circuit of track laid and wired by the end of the year as I have the four scenic baseboard surfaces to raise by an inch, which is what I am currently working on and still have all the curved boards for the North end to make before woodworking can take a back seat. Then I am promising myself a major tidy up and sort out.
Tony.
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Colin Parks
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hello Tony,
Very impressive engineering in wood! Speaking from my limited experience, great care at the woodwork stage of layout construction, causes less complications with horizontal track alignment later on in the build. (No need to ask how I know this...)
All the best,
Colin
Very impressive engineering in wood! Speaking from my limited experience, great care at the woodwork stage of layout construction, causes less complications with horizontal track alignment later on in the build. (No need to ask how I know this...)
All the best,
Colin
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Colin Parks wrote:Hello Tony,
Very impressive engineering in wood! Speaking from my limited experience, great care at the woodwork stage of layout construction, causes less complications with horizontal track alignment later on in the build. (No need to ask how I know this...)
All the best,
Colin
Thanks Colin, and not just horizontal alignment either. Despite the care I have taken during the baseboard construction, I am now finding slight changes in baseboard levels at the joins as things settle and stabilise. This is one reason why I wanted to make the baseboards well before I need to stick the cork down. There will be some (mucho) sanding required to get things flat and smooth again before that happens, inevitably followed by further sanding I suspect. Wood ain't what it used to be, even in a nominally stable atmosphere it seems. I had a similar experience with Green Street's baseboards so was prepared this time. Build the baseboards and leave for six months minimum whilst the humidity sorts itself out, seems to be the moral.
I am perhaps lucky that there is much else to be getting on with during this period, so less temptation to rush on to the next stage.
Regards
Tony.
Last edited by Tony Wilkins on Fri Jun 22, 2018 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Le Corbusier wrote:Terry Bendall wrote:Three possible aids:
Use a thin strip of metal - e.g 10 or 20 thou brass strip as a feeler gauge to find the high spots - if you can do that. I have used this trick in the past using a conventional set of feeler gauges when fitting a fairly complicated woodwork joint known as a secret mitre dovetail joint where none of the joint can be seen once it is assembled.
Rub chalk on one part, put the two parts together and see where the chalk is rubbed off.
Apply candle wax which is a good lubricant for wooden parts that have to work together - e.g. drawers.
Terry Bendall
Gold dust Terry .... thanks - squirrelled away for future reference.
Tim
Further to the above, I can add a forth aid that I have found very useful. Shine a light up from underneath the join area. The light shines through the gaps, but the parts of the join that are in contact, no light can be seen from above. I only thought of this yesterday and it has helped improve the issue a lot.
I still have a bit of an issue with twisting the lift out section rather than it lifting out cleanly. I may still reduce the lengths of the tongues further as they are only needed for positive location at the final fit. However, this will be the last resort as shortening them is far easier than the reverse, which would necessitate replacement.
Regards
Tony.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Colin Parks
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hello Tony,
It must take a great deal of planning to be able to rest boards for six months to stabilse the woodwork. Certainly, only small discrepancies in levels are best found early and yes, wood is not what it was in terms of quality, being sold almost unseasoned - at least it is around here.
Do you have a dehumidifier in your building? Using a dehumifier, I extracted a surprising amount of water out of my workshop over the first part of this year, and humidity levels make a difference to how materials behave. It did cost around five pounds a week to run, when initially on full power.
All the best,
Colin
It must take a great deal of planning to be able to rest boards for six months to stabilse the woodwork. Certainly, only small discrepancies in levels are best found early and yes, wood is not what it was in terms of quality, being sold almost unseasoned - at least it is around here.
Do you have a dehumidifier in your building? Using a dehumifier, I extracted a surprising amount of water out of my workshop over the first part of this year, and humidity levels make a difference to how materials behave. It did cost around five pounds a week to run, when initially on full power.
All the best,
Colin
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Tony Wilkins
- Posts: 818
- Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:57 pm
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Colin Parks wrote:Hello Tony,
Do you have a dehumidifier in your building? Using a dehumidifier, I extracted a surprising amount of water out of my workshop over the first part of this year, and humidity levels make a difference to how materials behave. It did cost around five pounds a week to run, when initially on full power.
All the best,
Colin
Hi Colin.
I wondered if someone would ask that question.
Yes, we actually have two. One lives in the conservatory to help dry washing, particularly when the tumble drier is running, the other moves around as required. I did buy the second one specifically for the garage once it had been insulated and lined. I generally set them to 50%, but as the humidity was always less that this, it did not have much to do, so came back into the house. The water extracted gets used for steam irons and the sponge of my soldering iron, but NOT car batteries as it contains a surprising amount of dust particles despite the multiple filters the air has to go through.
More recently we bought a wooden garden shed for storage that had been pretreated, which suffered severely from internal condensation when new to the extent that I began to wonder if the roof had a leak. Although the instructions cautioned against the use of dehumidifiers, I placed one inside set to the highest humidity level setting (80%) and left it on low to begin with as I did not want the wood drying out too quickly and splitting. This did remove a substantial quantity of water over the first month or so.
Tony.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
I mentioned previously that I needed to raise the top level of the scenic baseboards by an inch. This is the additional penalty I incurred for using a set of baseboard frames not designed for my layout. How to achieve the desired result? I decided to use a mixture of solutions, which in the best of traditions evolved in the course of development. The existing cross braces and diagonals needed to be built up and widened to support the underside of the top surface. I found that 6mm MDF was the closest match to the width of the existing plywood subframe members and used a one inch strip of this as the core of a sandwich between two wider layers of thin plywood. Here is one being glued together.
Several pieces were made for a dry run with one of the subframes. I later decided I needed extra cross bracing and made two lengths 2" deep from 9mm ply. These were carefully cut to fit over the centre of each cross pair of diagonals. A 1" end strip had been glued to the frame. This subsequently became the mk1 version.
I was obviously going to need quite a lot of these pieces and a lot of tea. This was the production line, but as I only had enough clamps to glue two at a time, the output totalled four a day.
Two weeks later.
Checking for levels
A potential drawback with the mk1 version was provision of gaps for wiring runs, this led to the mk2 version as exemplified by the far end baseboard pictures taken today.
I decided to cut the supports for the diagonals into 3" pieces to give maximum flexibility but not those used on the 90 degree cross braces, which were done differently. If anyone else is daft enough to make their baseboards this way, (not that I can see why anyone else would want to) do make sure that any beads of PVA glue that have dried in the slot are removed or they will prevent the channel section from seating fully against the internal strip.
An end strip being glued into place. At present none of the support strips are glued in place. I still have longitudinal strips to cut and fit under the track bed (an off-cut is shown in position to illustrate the principle) and until I work out exactly where those go, nothing can be permanently fixed.
My criteria is no support gap to be greater than 12" in any direction.
If you are thinking that they seem overly complicated, I couldn't agree more!
Just in case you were wondering what else I have been getting up to while the glue sets, here is a clue.
A pair of E-16s.
Tony.
Several pieces were made for a dry run with one of the subframes. I later decided I needed extra cross bracing and made two lengths 2" deep from 9mm ply. These were carefully cut to fit over the centre of each cross pair of diagonals. A 1" end strip had been glued to the frame. This subsequently became the mk1 version.
I was obviously going to need quite a lot of these pieces and a lot of tea. This was the production line, but as I only had enough clamps to glue two at a time, the output totalled four a day.
Two weeks later.
Checking for levels
A potential drawback with the mk1 version was provision of gaps for wiring runs, this led to the mk2 version as exemplified by the far end baseboard pictures taken today.
I decided to cut the supports for the diagonals into 3" pieces to give maximum flexibility but not those used on the 90 degree cross braces, which were done differently. If anyone else is daft enough to make their baseboards this way, (not that I can see why anyone else would want to) do make sure that any beads of PVA glue that have dried in the slot are removed or they will prevent the channel section from seating fully against the internal strip.
An end strip being glued into place. At present none of the support strips are glued in place. I still have longitudinal strips to cut and fit under the track bed (an off-cut is shown in position to illustrate the principle) and until I work out exactly where those go, nothing can be permanently fixed.
My criteria is no support gap to be greater than 12" in any direction.
If you are thinking that they seem overly complicated, I couldn't agree more!
Just in case you were wondering what else I have been getting up to while the glue sets, here is a clue.
A pair of E-16s.
Tony.
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Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Colin Parks
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Crikey Tony, there are some layouts which are shorter than those E 16s! How do you shape the switches for such long turnouts? The work to raise the height of the baseboard frames looks to be progressing well, you never can have too many clamps.
All the best,
Colin
All the best,
Colin
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Tony Wilkins
- Posts: 818
- Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2012 3:57 pm
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Colin Parks wrote: How do you shape the switches for such long turnouts?
All the best,
Colin
Hi Colin.
The short answer is very carefully.
However, although I can shape A, B, C & D switch blades with my standard vice, I have a special vice with long jaws for longer blades. There was a picture of it in the Turnout construction thread. I had hoped to take some pictures of it in use yesterday evening at the NAG meeting, but due to an oversight, was not able to do so. (Left switch rails behind!), but here is a quick picture or two.
Tony.
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Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
What I needed next was a quantity of 1" wide strips of 9mm ply to match those already cut, so a 4' x 2' sheet was reduced to 23 - 4' x1" strips. One was cut first and checked for the width, adjusting the setting until correct. The blade of a band saw has a tendency to be pushed sideways so producing a slightly over-wide result. This needs to be allowed for if consistent results are required. These were then cut to fit the gaps as needed, cut slightly over length and sanded to fit, then glued and clamped into position and left to set. The middle two follow the edges of the main line track bed. Next position all the 3" support pieces and then remove and glue firmly into place.
Double width strips support the edges of the Sundeala board under a join.
The next job will be fitting the Sundeala surface boards.
Only three more of these blighters to do assuming this one works out OK!
In the meantime I have begun construction of the North end boards, (well the simplest one of them at least with straight sides) whilst I still had some spare clamps available, as I won't have once the top starts going down.
Sides and cross-braces with corner blocks being glued.
End board pairs with dowels fitted.
Tony.
Double width strips support the edges of the Sundeala board under a join.
The next job will be fitting the Sundeala surface boards.
Only three more of these blighters to do assuming this one works out OK!
In the meantime I have begun construction of the North end boards, (well the simplest one of them at least with straight sides) whilst I still had some spare clamps available, as I won't have once the top starts going down.
Sides and cross-braces with corner blocks being glued.
End board pairs with dowels fitted.
Tony.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Colin Parks
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hello Tony,
Thanks for the picture of your long-jawed vice, That must make the shaping of E switches somewhat simpler. The jaw edges of the vice must be very sharp to grip the rail so well. The latest photos of the base board construction show just how thorough your preparations are for achieving a level track bed. The dowelled ends look very neatly done and I must re-read how you bored the recessed holes so accurately with the Forstner bit.
All the best,
Colin
Thanks for the picture of your long-jawed vice, That must make the shaping of E switches somewhat simpler. The jaw edges of the vice must be very sharp to grip the rail so well. The latest photos of the base board construction show just how thorough your preparations are for achieving a level track bed. The dowelled ends look very neatly done and I must re-read how you bored the recessed holes so accurately with the Forstner bit.
All the best,
Colin
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Terry Bendall
- Forum Team
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Colin Parks wrote:The jaw edges of the vice must be very sharp to grip the rail so well
Not many people want to make blades this length but for those who do the following may be helpful. Looking at the pictures of the special vice the long jaws appear to be about 12mm square mild steel or perhaps a bit larger. Some vices have removable jaw plates held with screws. It would not be to difficult to make up some special jaws to fit this type of vice. An alternative is to use bright mild steel angle section, probably about 20 mm x 20mm and 5mm thick. If angle section is used is could just be clamped in place using the normal jaws. These sorts of materials are available from model engineering suppliers.
Terry Bendall
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Tony Wilkins
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Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hi Terry, Colin.
Terry is absolutely correct about how I modified the vice. I did this many years ago when I had a series of F-16 turnouts to construct for Ken York's Addison Road project, which unfortunately never saw the light of day. I purchased a foot length of 1/2" square mild steel bar and cut it into two equal pieces. I drilled fixing holes to match those in the existing jaws, but instead of the original screws, I substituted Alan screws and recessed the jaw holes to suit. Finally, I had the top and inside faces trued with a surface grinder that an associate of mine had access to at the time. That vice is though very tricky to use as the rail is very prone to jumping out of the jaws. I hope to cover this in a little more detail under the turnout thread at some point.
Regards
Tony.
Terry is absolutely correct about how I modified the vice. I did this many years ago when I had a series of F-16 turnouts to construct for Ken York's Addison Road project, which unfortunately never saw the light of day. I purchased a foot length of 1/2" square mild steel bar and cut it into two equal pieces. I drilled fixing holes to match those in the existing jaws, but instead of the original screws, I substituted Alan screws and recessed the jaw holes to suit. Finally, I had the top and inside faces trued with a surface grinder that an associate of mine had access to at the time. That vice is though very tricky to use as the rail is very prone to jumping out of the jaws. I hope to cover this in a little more detail under the turnout thread at some point.
Regards
Tony.
Inspiration from the past. Dreams for the future.
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Colin Parks
Re: Brimsdown-The last grand project.
Hello Tony,
Thanks for the full description of how the vice jaws were fitted. Having access to a surface grinder (or someone who has one) must have been useful. While most of my switch and crossing rails are filed and shaped on a jig to Howard Bolton's design, I might try the idea out on my old mild steel vice to rejuvenate its jaws for more accurate applications
All the best,
Colin
Thanks for the full description of how the vice jaws were fitted. Having access to a surface grinder (or someone who has one) must have been useful. While most of my switch and crossing rails are filed and shaped on a jig to Howard Bolton's design, I might try the idea out on my old mild steel vice to rejuvenate its jaws for more accurate applications
All the best,
Colin
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