Scarpia's MINIVerse - Model Railroading

Test Layout 2

Work in progress

continued from page 3

Working on the Turntable (Walther's 90' non-motorized).

	I had already painted the bridge, and the pit (aged concrete), so I figured it was time to get busy with the rest of it. I assembled the electrical connections on the shaft, and was impressed with the brass collar way of getting power up. However I broke one solder point under the rail due to too much wire in the cavity (this was following the instructions to use 5" pieces), so I broke all the rail off, and trimmed the wire a bit shorter.
	I really wanted a rock solid electrical connection on the bridge, as this won't be easily pulled apart. I was unhappy with soldering the wire to the bottom of the rail. I found the contact area too small, and if the wire was bent in a 90 degree angle, it sat too high on the ties. I considered removing more of the plastic ties, but finally decided that instead of a soldering the wire to the bottom of the rail, I'd attach it to the outside. In order to provide clearance, I used the Fast Tracks stockaid to file off a bit of the outside edge of each rail. I didn't need to use the stockaid, but as I had it handy, well, it was!
	next up was stripping a solid piece of 16 guage wire to a two inch length, and bending it so it came up underneath and wrapped around to the outside of the rail. This was than soldered in place.
	You can see from this view that the wire isn't that ugly, and I think gives a very solid connection.
	With those soldered, and the rails glued in place (clamped for an hour or so), I than flipped it over, and bent each feeder 90 degrees in opposite directions. This allowed me to loop the wire in the bridge around the bend, and solder it home tiight for a nice solid electrical connection.

with the lack of excess wire in the well, the top fit right on easily, and was glued on.

So how did it work?

Not well, I had no electrical connection from the top to the bottom. With the multimeter, I was able to confirm that the contact from the brass rings on the shaft to the rails was perfect - it was the damn wipers. Getting those to contact the rings, and only the right ring became a real pain in the butt. I finally cut away an inch wide "window" in the bottom of the undertable motor compartment so once it was in place I could line them up with a screwdriver. And than it worked - but only if you spin the thing in the counter clockwise direction. Spinning it clockwise somehow throws off the wipers.

I suspect that the shaft isn't spinning perfectly evenly, hence it will throw off the wiper in the wrong direction. This is somewhat confirmed as the table grinds a bit when you move it.

So after all that, well, it works. See for yourself.

With that kind of working, I finally went back and laid the curved mainline and drill track on the far left hand side of the layout.

	The curves in place - along with a lot of the corner terrain base.
	I stained these ties in place instead of painting. I think they look a bit better than the painted ones.
	they're a bit more brown as you can see in this picture. Cardboard and masking tape makes a great sub-structure for terrain. Note that I ran out of masking tape.
	I haven't ballasted these yet, as I needed these tracks as soon as possbile to operate - I'll come back and get them.
	Clearances are, well, a bit too tight as you can see. It works, but consider this a lesson learned.
	Armed with more tape and some brown cheap paint, voila!
	The last of the ties for this test layout went down.
	And I installed a couple more Bullfrogs with the Fast Tracks control rods.
	Here's a close up of the pull for the control rod
	and at full extension.
	The first one I assembled wasn't that pretty, but it works!
	I had enough left over from the regular installation, that I used it to on this bluepoint that was close to the fascia. Note the wire adapter is nothing more than left over throw wire bent around, both ends inserted into the control rod with glue. The star shaped thing is the "wrench" to help you twist on the pull, I used it here to force down the wire, and left it in place as a sort of clamp.
	The last few open ties were stained and ballasted
	I tried spray painting the tape with a flat sage green, but I think it actuallly looks worse than the brown paint. It doesn't matter much here as it will get covered with plaster, but there you go.
	The first train runs along the new track work on the right hand side.
	You can see the difference between the ties on the lower half (stained) and the upper half (painted) in this shot.
	The end of the line! Other than two turntable leads, which await some turntable modifications the trackwork here is done. On to scenery!

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