# Make a Turntable?



## novice (Feb 2, 2011)

I've been considering adding a turntable and round house to my O layout - I'll have to expand the table a bit, but that's fine.

I've been pricing them and they're out of my price range at the moment.

I have an old turntable (records, yes I still have lots of albums) that I was thinking I could alter to work?

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts about this?

I'm not ready to do it yet, but since I'm starting to buy a few extra trains and cars, I thought this would be a nice addition.


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## Odd-d (Feb 22, 2011)

Novice-----I doubt if a phonograph turntable motor would be powerful enough to move an O gauge locomotive. I once toyed with using a motor from a rotisserie to power a turntable. Odd-d


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## novice (Feb 2, 2011)

Thanks Odd-d - I wouldn't use the phono motor - I'd either get a motor or use it as a manual turntable.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

novice said:


> I've been considering adding a turntable and round house to my O layout - I'll have to expand the table a bit, but that's fine.
> 
> I've been pricing them and they're out of my price range at the moment.
> 
> ...


How much space do you have?
I started with an 8x8 for my roundhouse and that is not big enough.

My turntable should be further out and I could use more space for the sidings off the turntable.

I would think a 12x12 would fit better.
Better yet a 16x16,:thumbsup: you need a lot of room for a 5 stall with the turntable.

You have to think smaller, if you don't have the room.
How much do you have?

You could get a 3 stall house, or two to save space.
Even a two stall long engine house would look nice.:thumbsup:

Take the manual table, put a gear on the bottom. 
Take a rod and add another gear that mates, run the rod under the table and mount it on the underside and put a crank handle on it
Just crank it around.
Shouldn't be that hard to fabricate one.:thumbsup:




One good thing about the one you can buy is it stops at each cutoff right on the money. If you build one with the crank setup you have to lock the crank to lock the table in place. Plus line it up accurate. The power one does all of it for you.

I have seen my table for under $135, but that was a while ago I haven't searched for any in a while. I got one.

You might find one cheaper... but watch out it could be damaged. If you drop it, it doesn't take much to rattle up the insides. Buy from a reputable suppler in case it doesn't work.


Heres what I started with 8x8, (and am still with )


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Hey Ed,

Just out of curiosity, is that roundhouse one big (single) building, or is it several segmented sections placed next to each other? I thought I saw the latter type advertised in a Lionel catalog somewhere recently.

Cheers,

TJ


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

There was a thread on making a cheap turntable, I forget what he used as a bearing. I believe you could do this reasonably. Look for something called a "lazy susan" at your local kitchen store, you might adapt that as the guts of the turntable.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> There was a thread on making a cheap turntable, I forget what he used as a bearing. I believe you could do this reasonably. Look for something called a "lazy susan" at your local kitchen store, you might adapt that as the guts of the turntable.


Shay's tip ... a stereo headphone jack ... quite clever for pivot and conductivity ...

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showpost.php?p=48748&postcount=7


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

That's the one!  The trick is support for the outside rim all the way around. I guess something like Masonite for a base and some hard rubber wheels mounted at about 45 degree intervals might do the trick.


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

tjcruiser said:


> Hey Ed,
> 
> Just out of curiosity, is that roundhouse one big (single) building, or is it several segmented sections placed next to each other? I thought I saw the latter type advertised in a Lionel catalog somewhere recently.
> 
> ...


When your done building it it is all together, assembled. I leave it to were I can lift off the roof, the 3 pieces are secured together. 
The whole house I can pick up off the table.


It comes with a 3 piece roof. you can build it 2 bay 3 bay or 5 I don't know if 4 bay would work.
Looking at my picture the ends are each 2 bay the middle is 1 bay.

Mine is made by Scale University.

A link for a better picture of the roof. Enlarge it and you can see the pictures of the sections.

http://scaleuniversity.com/su2010/i...page.tpl&pop=0&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=2


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## Big Ed (Jun 16, 2009)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> That's the one!  The trick is support for the outside rim all the way around. I guess something like Masonite for a base and some hard rubber wheels mounted at about 45 degree intervals might do the trick.



That one was for HO?
For O you would have to account for the extra weight.
And if your hand making one, and also take in account that some of the newer engines won't fit on a standard table.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

All of these factors are simply scaling the turntable to your job. I'm thinking of hard rubber wheels that would stand up to 10 or so pounds without any significant degradation.


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