Roundhouse rails proceeding according to plan

The cunning plan appears to be working, although like everything else on my model bench, slower than hoped! Still, I’m happy with the first stall, and the first rail on the second stall looks nicely lined up with both ends of the turntable. I’m now positioning the second set of Vs, and you can see […]

Plan for aligning remaining turntable rails

The roundhouse tracks for Pembroke meet at the edge of the turntable in a ‘V.’ This, I think, is a little unusual for model turntables, and now that I’m about to start on them, I can see why: they require some careful construction or else they’re just not going to work! The key is going […]

Turntable end shims not too noticeable

As I wrote last night, the ends of the turntable need a little more adjustment in vertical alignment. Tonight I built some styrene platforms under the ends of the turntable, and laminated some .008″ phosphor bronze sheet onto them to form a sliding bearing. Then I tipped the turntable back over and reinstalled it in […]

Further adjustments to turntable height

The mystery of the misaligned turntable is solved, and the suspect finally apprehended. Last night I realigned the turntable lead on an actual radius of the turntable. I found the radius by drawing a line from the centre of the turntable and then measuring half a gauge-width to set the first rail. It looks like […]

Suspect identified in turntable alignment mystery

Last night, I dropped tools when I realized that I didn’t understand why my turntable was not properly aligned with the first rail of the roundhouse tracks in one orientation. Thanks to both Neil and Mark who wrote in with some suggestions. Neil’s suggestion that my turntable rails were off center was true – by […]

Turntable misalignment poses mystery

There are times when you should just put down the soldering iron for the night and take a breather. One of them is when you completely wreck something – clearly you’re not at your best, and it’s a good idea to quit before your frustration gets the better of you. Another good time is when […]

First rail is critical for Pembroke turntable

Tonight I finally started laying rail for the turntable. As with the staging yard turntable before it, the sequence of rails is carefully planned. Unlike last time, it’s only in my head — something I may regret. Tonight I glued down one end of the turntable rails themselves, as well as the near rail of […]

Cinders not quite right on Pembroke roundhouse tracks

Last night I glued down ballast for the tracks around the turntable. Now engine service areas are often ballasted with cinders from the engines, but I assume that it takes a little while for these to accumulate. After six years, would they have had enough to cover the area? I didn’t know, so I mixed […]

Joint bars at the limit of 3D printing

VanRail 2015 took up the whole weekend, and so, nothing much happened with Pembroke. I received a some test joint bars from Shapeways on the Friday. This made for some fun times as I handed them to people and made them guess what they were looking at. Packed together to minimize material usage, they look […]

Six-year old turntable ties require delicate staining

I got up early this morning to do a little sanding on the ties around the turntable. It turned out that the edge timbers were particularly proud – on one side, they lost about .010″ (.25mm). There is still a step of about the same to get on one end of the turntable. I think, […]