Turntable details completed

Thanks to my masking tape plan, it didn’t take too long to get the walkways back onto the turntable. The masking tape kept the boards in order so all I had to do when I was ready to re-install them was peel them off the masking tape one at a time, scrape and sand off […]

Turntable tie extensions

I spent a day’s worth of spare moments pondering what to do about the interfering centre-posts. On the one hand, I don’t want to make the ties look too long as my reference photo implies there wasn’t much space for a crew to walk alongside the engine; earlier mockups indicated that 12′ is slightly too […]

Shoulda measured the turntable before adding details!

This week marked a return to modelling – something I feel I’ve been lacking for the past few years as I’ve been renovating the basement and building a layout in it. There was that little bit back in the spring when I had to build the cosmetic girders for the turntable, and now, this week, […]

On Using Scale Spikes

By the time I had finished spiking the ties to the turntable, I had learned a few more things about spiking. So, I thought I would write them down in my book for future reference. These are, of course, the excellent scale spikes available from the Proto:87 Stores. It sounds ridiculous to use scale spikes, […]

Choices for manual turntable control

I got down to ReStore today to search for some options for turntable controls. This place is like an extended basement – boxes of stuff that people have saved from their renovations and donated. You can’t expect to find exactly what you need, but if you’re flexible, you might find something that will work for […]

Testing the turntable

This evening, I successfully turned and parked the locomotive using the turntable. There are still some kinks to work out around driving the pin and turning the turntable from the fascia, but I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Test fitting the turntable

Before I go and invest time in detailing the turntable, I thought I’d better do a test run. I’m glad I did, because as usual, it was two steps forward and one step back. I had the drive wheel assembled, and was blithely rotating the turntable when I came up against something hard. Hmm. That […]

Learning from a Master – Brian Pate’s KMR

Brian Pate is a master model railroader. Surprisingly he doesn’t have the designation from the NMRA, but nobody who knows him would argue that he is otherwise. I believe he is perhaps the only person to have won the gold award at two national NMRA conventions. So, when we learned that he and his wife […]

Turntable wiring made simple

Turntables obviously need to reverse polarity of their rails. In the bad old days, people used to use all sorts of tricks to switch the polarity. One could use a split ring rail and opposing wipers, or a manual switch with DCC, but in either case, the engine sound will cut out briefly. It’s much […]

Turntable locks

Tonight I redid the lock sockets on the turntable, and this time they seem to work much better. Before starting, however, I had to get the turntable itself more firmly fixed to the lazy susan base. To accomplish this, I took the big risk of disassembling everything. Recall that the lazy susan has to be […]