While my wife was at the gym and the kids were playing nicely together (nobody visibly hurt or missing as far as I could tell) today, I pushed ahead with the other set of connections for the turntable. This was a cinch because of the existing indexing connection for one set of rails. I simply […]

Andrew came over on Wednesday and we made a start on indexing and feeding the staging yard turntable. This more or less followed the original plan from October. I varied the plan by using square brass rod and tube because it’s easier to solder things that don’t want to roll away from you. I also […]

Last night I found a few minutes to tackle the other three tracks that connect with the turntable. When I did the first three tracks, I found that the turntable wanted to spin as I was soldering the track. This was annoying, to say the least! I postulated that perhaps jamming the table with a […]

Three of the approach tracks to the staging turntable formed tonight’s subject. This proceeded more or less as planned, although the special gauge didn’t prove as useful as I’d hoped. Here I am, using it to solder down the far end of the turntable (e and f in the plan). I needn’t have bothered. It turns […]

Happy New Year! It’s been a busy holiday season for us, and so, nothing has happened on the layout in weeks. However, now I’m back in the swing again, and making progress. I soldered the “rails” half-way on the turntable tonight. As I mentioned previously, I am only fixing one end to start, and will […]

Honest, I’m not procrastinating, really!  Sometimes I do that when I’m not sure I can pull something off, but that’s not the case this time.  I’m actually travelling, so it’s hard to make progress on the layout.  I did spend some time thinking about how to line up the two ends of the turntable precisely. […]

Being made out of copper clad, wiring the turntable wasn’t so much a matter of wires as it was of gaps in the copper.  I made the gaps with a scriber, rather than bothering with etching.  It took more time to figure out where the lines should go than to make the lines themselves. Here […]

A little more judicious sanding with the sanding drum in the Dremel tool yielded a freely-turning turntable. Curiously, it turns freely about 30 times and then it seems to bind up again. I may have more sanding to do yet, but I decided to move on to the next step. While I still had the […]