Building the Canyon Diablo Bridge


Thanks for responding to my post 2869ral! I've made two other post and I was starting to wonder if I was a ghost, as no one said anything about them! Nice to know I am still alive!
 
Putting the CVMW beams together. This is a tedious job. After a couple hours, I have one bag put together. Only 5 more to go.
One thing I don't like about these CVMW kits is that they include stuff that I don't need. Those items make up about 1/5 of the kit.
 
45 gusset beams and 30 punch plate beams.
The piles of material on the left is all the extra unused stuff that CVMW puts in these kits. Kinda a crummy way of making sales if ya ask me.

Parts.jpg
 
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However, now you have your parts! What kit did you buy? How much did it cost? Could you sell your extra parts on Ebay; or, here where people are tuning in and watching your build? I guess I don't understand what your saying.
 
The gusset and punch window beam kits also have half sized gusset window beams. That's the pile of beams just to the lower left of the glue bottle. A small pile of assembled half sized gusset beams is to the left of the pile. The kits also have solid beam assemblies, one set per sprue. Those are the pile of beams just to the left of the gusset beams. A few assembled solid beams are to the left of the pile. The parts that are still on sprues to the far left are lattice beams, unassembled.
The kits that I bought are listed on the CVMW web page. Gusset window beams and punch window beams. They are $14.25 each and contain 5 sprues each kit. Each sprue will build three window beams, one solid beam and two half sized gusset beams. Each beam measures 4 7/7" long and 1/4" wide on each side.
 
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These are tedious! I have built 8 packs so far. I like the gusset beams with the square openings, but i chose the window girders for the whole bridge because the square opening gussets are 24" and the window girders are 30" which fit my arch beams better. If you end up not useing the extra for anything, i might buy them from you.
 
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This bridge is 544' long, i glued my girders 30.5 scale feet on center which equals 549'. Close enough i think. This scales down to 75.7"
 
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I was looking at the MicroMart web page and saw the add about the decal rivets. I ordered 4 sets of them and will see how they blend in with the bridge design. As I had decided to use 5/8" I beam for the main arch and the top beams, they didn't have the box look of the prototype bridge. Now, thinking through this, I'm going to see if Plastruct makes strips of plastic that will fit over the web so that it will be box shaped instead of the I beam.
I'm going over to a friends house this afternoon to watch the Green Bay game and I can stop in a hobby shop that sells some plastruct material and see if they have the sizes I would need.
 
I forgot about your suggestion. Sorry.
After looking at their web site and the video illustration, it looks identicle to the rivets from the Micromart page.
 
The shipment from Plastruct arrived today.
Unpacked it and all was there.

Shipment Received.jpg


First thing I wanted to check was if I could make box beams out of the 5/8" I beams.
I marked then scribed the .020" sheet to make 5/8" strips.

Scoring plastic.jpg


Using the Plastruct Bondene, I fixed the strips along the side of the I-beam to form the box.

Box beam.jpg
 
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Looks like you're making some headway Ken. Watched the posts here over the weekend and will have to agree with you on the CV products. Sure would be nice if they would offer one particular product instead of including it with others that yo may not have a use for. I have a bag full of unused CV parts.

Looking forward to see the progress of the build.
 
I made a short video on how to convert the Plastruct I-beam into a box beam using the Plastruct .020" sheet polystyrene.

 
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Can't believe that you cut that freehand instead of using a straight edge. That's talent, pure talent. cheer.gif
 
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