2013 August 18

2013 August 18 Sunday  Another wet day?  this is the longest spell of rain arriving every afternoon, I can remember up here.
How long before some cash starved Scientist starts claiming that the Ice Age is coming back and we need go all green to protect from floods and serious cold temperatures :D

This is supposedly the final paint sample of the Eureka R  Thank Goodness the front coupling is fixed and I hope we are not going to see those awful driving wheels? that look nothing like the real thing.
After waiting for so many years, one would also hope they will be blackened rather than slightly darkened?  and what is up with their crazy buffers?   Oh well ready to run or not I can probably disassemble the wheels and paint them black, mask and paint the buffers, and if I was really serious I guess I could source the correct wheels and change them over. Wait a minute every driver has a gear fitted, not sure anybody will be up to doing that :(

This is the real wheel

Here is one of the pictures supplied by Mark Bau on his site. How could anybody not see that they are different?

This weekend I was away in Melbourne. I took the train from Chiltern to Southern Cross where I met Graeme (who helped me a week or so ago lay out the Coal Siding) We spent a few hours searching the shops at Spencer Street and walked to the Docklands where we sat around and waited for a key to turn up to gain access to the Hobsons Bay Club.
We were there to attend the AGM and see a committee installed uncontested. Sad state of affairs, really.
The good part of the trip down continued after I decided to delay my return home by stopping off at Kilmore East to visit Tanya and Steve Munro and conduct an inspection of his new train shed :D

Here is the new shed.

Fully insulated and lined with LED lighting, construction already on the way. The studs are secured through the plaster onto the shed studs, and the tables are hung off the new studs without any other supports.

Here is Steve's helix, and just to show their are many ways to skin a cat. This one is about 40 inch radius but supported on one side only. The ply is also supported with pine spines underneath. Steve and Rob are using this to climb about the same distance as mine, however Steve opted out of keeping the climb under 1.5 % and this enabled double stacks to run, at reduced train lengths. Thisply will never sag like mine did in the finish.

A horizontal piece is glued to a central spline evenly spaced (100cm) around the helix, and the roadbed rises 3 cm and between supports (3%) then central supports are cut in under the track bed, to firm it all up. Once the first level is completed the other levels were added by maintaining a predetermined space on each support.

It is sturdy and very neat and does a very good job of it.


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Ron finds the studs and firmly attaches the new studs on top of them.

The double main line enters the helix on the bottom circles three times, and exits on the middle level. From the middle level the branch enters the helix and climbs to the top level circles only once.

Using the studs that is 3" x 2"  (What is that 70 x 45 ?) creates a very strong self supporting table top. After seeing this, I am really disliking my "L" Girder technique, and it has started to annoy me. I think I am going to rebuild the top deck from the Helix onwards using Ron and Steve's self supporting studs.

The bottom level does have legs!

Skirting board cut outs and pre drilled pieces helps with installation.

Here are three different ways of introducing maximum stability and strength.

This is the secret in my opinion.
The cross support is rebated with a router  and glued and screwed accurately to the stud.
this means that the integrity of the join is now not just glue and screws, the rebate edge is hard against the stud and adding to the strength of the join.

Of course it is an added advantage if the Cabinet maker is named Ron and he gets the bug whilst helping you with your benches, goes home a builds you a trestle bridge :)

These two get on pretty well together and it did not take very long to get this far along the new wall. In fact 30 minutes later the table top was cut out and the openings in the top for the studs were all cut and the top was dropped down to exactly fill the corner where Steve is seen working here.



I really do wish Steve had been able to build this shed 3 years ago.  I learned what my Router could do today, as well I got a lot of great ideas, and I trust you did too.
Cheers
Rod