Good evening, late as it is,
good morning. 46f and rain.
BigE: I use CA gel to glue the posts to the rails. My posts are about 11/4" long so I can poke the finished fence into the "ground". The top and bottom rails are 3/4" apart because that's how wide the roll of toule is I have. It looks right. You could actually scale it out. CA to attach the toule to the rails.I set the posts about 1" apart.
This was one of the first attempts I tried. They got better! LOL!!
Hope that helps!
Terry in NW Wisconsin
Say Terry in Wis: Your post here of using Toule for the Chain Link Fence is very impressive indeed and looks very realistic and to scale. The shot of the fence before it was planted in the ground looks exactly like the way I remember it, even with the 'x' type of top. God I can remember as a kid climbing over that stuff, glad the crotch of my jeans were strong enough to protect my boys. LoL
I'm not sure if I'll make use of any of it on my layout or not as I've always figured on using wood fencing for my 1890-1900 area layout, but it looks great!
Afternoon All,
Hope everyone is well and I will spring for coffee and apple turnovers for everyone. I have pretty much decided after the first of the year I am going to start another remodel of a section of the layout. This time it will be to put some more curve into the ends of curves already there. It will be a major project because there are 5 turnouts involved, but I am not happy with the area. Some initial measurements looks like I can add 1.5-2.0 inches to the outside radius and possibly a little more to the inside track (which really needs it). I will post a picture of the area later. I figure I can ask for track and roadbed for Christmas.
I worked on a different project today. It is a kit from Jordan. I will paint it tomorrow. It wasn't real easy to do, but I finally got it together.
NG- The main reason I sold off my larger steam (2-10-4, 4-8-2, 2-10-0) was because of turn radius. I have limited sized curves and was having issues with them. Although it always seemed to be the large tenders that had the issue. The largest I have now are 2 of the 4-6-2's and I have to watch them on the curves at speed although the section that I finished works great now. So as the others have said always go for the largest radius possible.
Big E- The mountain is starting to come alive.
Ray- Very nice scene.
I hope everyone has a good night.
Say Curt: The Jordan kits are very nicely detailed but quite fragile to say the least. I have a little Green delivery truck, a '1911 Model T Ford Delivery Car', per the box, looks like an early delivery truck to me! Anyway I've pressed on it too hard or something fell on it and broke the front wheel off and was it ever a bear to get it glued on again so it looked wright. I have a buckboard from them and a little carriage too.
As far as your radius's they seem more than broad enough even for a the 2-10-4 as I imagine your tightest mainline radius is probably at least 24" and according to Broadway, which I think puts that model out, it's supposed to handle a 24" radius OK, so it's hard to know why yours wouldn't?
Hi David,
Rail Spikes.... In a discussion on an NMRA AP forum several months ago, the size of commercial spikes was discuss at some length. One gent was making his own from Piano Wire. Don't remember what size wire, but he was bending the ends and then cut the wire to a suitable length wire using a hard wire cutter. Said he could make about 500 of them in an evening while sitting with his wife and watching the idiot box... He said they were the only ones that ever looked correct... I haven't tried doing that but with a few hundred feet of hand laid track I am not about to do that. LOL At least not yet.... Hope he wears eye protection!
Fire Barrel... You are quite right about the use of sand in them. I was told by Harold Russell a couple years ago that the fire barrel I showed on the photo looked like it has water in it. He said, "Wrong Ray!" They used sand in those. Interesting that most everyone (including me) has always thought they were filled with Water.... I haven't got around to fixing it yet. I do have some rock dust that would work. Got it from sieving crusher run from the limestone quarry nearby. I mix a bit of the correct size from that with WS Ballast to add character to my ballast on the layout (Checked with a magnet to sure there are no problems).
Say Ray: About the rail spikes, as I wrote before, and corrected the head size, the current Micro Engineering 'ME' Small Spikes #30-106 have a head that is .044 wide which is fine to my thinking but their head is .071 long front to back which is far too long, as well as possibly being a bit too high? This is due to my using code 70 on the mainline and 55 on the sidings, so my rail height is diminished even more from code 83. The longer shaft length of the ME spikes is great though.
Anyway, in spiking my rail with the earlier Rail Craft spikes that have a head of .050 x .050, although I squeeze the head on it sides to compress it a bit so it's easier to hang on to with a small pair of needle nose pliers to insert it, I only put a spike on both sides of the rail every 6 to 8 ties, which in most cases has worked out fairly well. Otherwise I'd never get done spiking. Occasionally, especially on curves where I've used wood ties I do have to correct the gauge but that even happened with the Central Valley tie strips once so far but with their pre-molded tie plates on each tie the rail is generally held in tolerance fairly well.
I guess if the worst happens to where all I have left is the ME spikes I could always grind the head down a bit before putting them in, but I'd rather not have too.
