How not to drive your turntable

To recap of where we are: The gears started spinning on their shafts because the shafts are round, and well, there is too much torque to overcome in the lazy susan. To overcome the spinning problem, I drilled and pinned the gears to their shafts. Then the whole mechanism had stiff spots, but kind of […]

Smoothing the Sky

I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve sanded the backdrop now. There is at least one more time in my future as the velour mini roller, which the manufacturer describes as follows 100% wool velour extreme short nap rollers provide a very smooth finish and are virtually lint-free. Velour has excellent loading and uploading […]

Collapse!

“Aaack!” I cried as the rope suddenly slipped and the layout lurched. After an evening of working on switch targets, Andrew and I were hoisting the north section of Pembroke back to the ceiling so it would be out of the way. I had been thinking that it was likely one of the last times […]

Solution to Broken Headblock

Well, it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be. When the headblock tie first broke, I had visions that it could mean tearing up the turnout and re-laying it. However, once cooler heads had taken over, a good solution presented itself. I cut a length of .005 brass sheet, and bent it […]

A Problem with the Switch Rod System

Andrew came over on Wednesday to help install the Bullfrogs on the North Section. This is something that goes best with two people: one to move the turnout control around, and the other to say what is happening above. So, I was grateful for his help. We got four of five done, but on the […]

Failed Bullfrog Mutation

This week I managed to get the two Bullfrogs for the remote switches installed. After an evening’s head-scratching, I actually managed to get the switches themselves to move relatively sweetly. The secret was to add sufficient screws to the near end of the sliders to keep them from lifting or twisting at all. So far […]