# Scratch-building a piece of custom track



## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

The subject of scratch-building track comes up frequently, but most people are nervous about approaching such a task. I wanted to start a new thread showing a new project I am starting tonight, built without any expensive tools or fancy jigs. I simply used my software of choice (xtrkcad) to lay out some straights and curves which define how I want the finished track to look.

This particular project is an old scales track, where the car to be weighed is diverted onto a side track while the rest of the train stays on the mainline. It will have points at both end similar to a turnout which diverts the cars, however unlike a turnout the offset is very minimal on the side track so there is no crossing of rails requiring a frog to be built. The actual offset of the side track is not known, but I guessed at about twice the standard gap seen between a regular rail and the guard rail on a turnout. One of the fun things about building these yourself is that you can make adjustments on the fly and it will not hurt the quality of the final product.










So the tools you DO need in order to build your own custom track work...


Bare rail - I like to use Micro-Engineering rail because it is stiffer than most and holds its shape when you put a curve in it
PCB ties - Clover House is an excellent resource for pre-cut PCB
Extra ties from flex track - if you have extra lengths of the plastic ties from flex track, save it and use it to fill in some gaps on your custom track
NMRA standards track gauge - don't leave home without it! (Seriously, this tool will be invaluable for building smooth-running track)
Three-legged track gauges - these are the little tools that sit on the rails and keep the properly spaced while you solder everything together. You'll want at least 2 or 3 of these
A soldering iron, and the knowledge of how to use it - I'm not going to cover how to solder here, but if you've done any work with electronics then you probably have an idea of what to do
Solder flux paste - This is what makes the solder flow smoothly between the rails and the PCB ties. Your track quality will greatly improve with a can of this stuff.
A set of small files and possibly a dremmel tool - You will need to do a lot of filing to build the points
Track snips - this is flat on one side so that when you cut your rail it leave a smooth edge

With that said, I start out by printing out the section of track from xtrkcad that I want to build. Due to the length of this piece it spanned three pages so I had to carefully tape the together, then I trimmed the excess from the sides.










Don't laugh, I had to work hard to clear off this much workbench space!  So I have my paper template laid out and a couple pieces of bare rail to start working from.

The first thing I want to do is get an idea of where my ties are going to be placed. The scales on the side track will be cut away from the rest of the track so they can move when a car sits on them. I used the ends of the scale section to center the position of the ties across the entire length of this project. Just a rough mark for each tie will do the trick.









I also marked X's on the printout where the scales will be cut from the rest of the track, and I made marks where I want to put the bit of tie that slides to move the points (tie bar). When I build full turnouts I will also mark the positions of each guard rail and the places where the rail will be cut for cross-overs near the frog.

One more little thing I forgot to mention... This is going to be a WORKING scale! There are now low-cost measuring sensors available to weigh very small items using an arduino computer. The device I have will measure up to 300 grams, or about 10.5 ounces. That should be close to what I need for a fully-loaded two-bat coal hopper. This thread will focus mainly on the actual process of building the scale track, but for those who's attention I now have, yes I will be wrapping up with making the scales functional and hooking up the sensor and arduino to a small display that shows the car's weight.

All right, so to wrap up this first post, once your have your printout prepped, the first thing you want to make are the stock rails. These are the two solid rails that go along the outside edge of your piece. In the case of a regular turnout that would be the two outer-most rails on the left and right side. In my case for the scale track, it will be one rail of the mainline and one rail of the scale track. You can see in the pictures above I have the bottom rail already formed. This is just one solid piece of rail, however we have to make one detailed modification to it -- you have to cut in the slot where your point rails will fit.

Next time I'll cover how to figure out exactly where your points should sit. This is a critical step right at the very beginning of your project, but don't worry, you can make a lot of adjustments later on if you don't get it exactly right.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

how are you going to keep the weighed section apart from the standard or non-weighed section ..?? and keeping them aligned good enough for slow speed travel ?? 

i -assume- they should be separated in order to obtain an accurate weight ??


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Basically I'm going to build scaffolding with brass. Both tracks through the scale section will be free-floating with no ties to support them, so I'm going to use 1/16 x 1/4 inch brass bar standing upright to stiffen the rails, then use some rod between each pair to ensure the rails stay in gauge. Where the rods from one track cross through the bar of the other track I'll drill large holes so the rod can pass through without touching.

The tricky part is the assembly for the scale track itself. I have a flat pad on the sensor that is only about 3/8 x 1/2 inch, so I'm going to build a brass bridge assembly to come down to that mounting point. If it is solid enough then even the weight of a loco shouldn't affect the alignment, however if the stability of the assembly is just too questionable then the alternate plan is to get a pair of smaller sensors and mount one end of the scale track to each of the sensors, then have the arduino add together the weights.

Of course someone who is going to build a scale track for looks only and not functionality can just solder all the rails directly to some copper and not have to worry about all of that.


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## tankist (Jun 11, 2009)

Excellent write up. Subscribed.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I've added a full-size image to the first post showing that actual track plan I am working from to create this piece. Not sure why the images disappear when I reload the page though?

Anyway I thought I would take a moment to describe the plan for getting started here... As I mentioned above you want to start with with your stock rails, however I always create my points after I have the stock rails shaped, but before I do any filing on the stock rails. I already have the bottom rail cut and shaped to the track plan, but if you notice, that rail will actually have TWO points seated against it. Lets start with something easier... Normally the top stock rail would also be a single long piece, but because the scale section needs to be detached I can actually cut a shorter piece of track and only deal with a single point on each side. This will give me a chance to get comfortable with making the points where I can move things around to correct for errors. On the bottom stock rail my measurements will need to be much more critical (although there is still some room for adjustment).

So I will start by cutting a length of rail suitable for the piece of the top stock rail. There are two things to consider here. First, you want the ends of all of your stock rails offset so when your custom piece is joined to your layout the rail joiners do not line up with each other. I try to leave an inch or two difference between the ends of the stock rails. Next is overlap and excess. If you are making a piece to fit into an existing layout, make sure your stock rails are longer than needed so they overlap the track already in place. Nothing worse than spending hours creating a masterpiece only to discover you are 1/4 inch short! (And remember we may do some adjusting the position of the stock rails as the points are formed.) The excess is just cutting pieces of rail a little longer than needed. In this case, one end of the rail will fit to a fixed position on the plans up against the floating scale rail... but again this piece may be moved around while adjusting the points so leave extra and cut it off to the right length AFTER the points are done.

The next thing to consider is by what method you want to attach your points...

You can leave your points really long and solder the back end to a PCB tie so when you throw the points you are actually bending the rail into a new position. For this method and code 70 rail like I'm using you want at least 3-4 inches of point rail so it is flexible to move easily. This project actually has pretty short points so that won't work here (but it does produce a nice seamless track, so I use this method wherever I can).

You can use the rail-joiner method, whereby you use a short length of rail joiner to connect your points to the rest of the track (don't solder the points into the joiners!). The flexibility of the rail joiner will allow the points to pivot freely but still retain electrical conductivity.

The third method is essentially pinning the back of the point to a PCB tie. You would drill a hole through the base of the rail and the tie, feed a wire through the holes, the solder the wire to the side of the rail and to the BOTTOM of the PCB tie, making sure the point rail itself is not soldered to the tie. This holds the back of the point in place but still allows easy pivoting, and electrical conductivity can still be maintained. Note that this method can also be used for connecting the sharp end of the points to the tie-bar.

Your goal here is to use a method that allows the points to easily be moved but won't wear out and break after running operations for a decade. I haven't tried the wire method yet, so I am going to go with that route for this project.

All right, that's a lot of discussion with very little work done, however it is good to do a little planning ahead and understand where all of this is leading. Tonight I'll start forming more rail and get some pictures to show what I'm talking about...


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Very interesting project. Many of us are not
familiar with 'car weighing scales' such
as you are building. Even Wikipedia is 'dumb'
on the subject.

Your drawing seems to indicate a 'gauntlet' track,
a form of passing siding not using turnouts as such.

Could you explain how your track design works?
How does the train move through as a car is weighed?

Don


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Ah good point, DonR! There are many different types of scales that have been used over the years and this is just one of them (a style that I consider more visually interesting).

So the basic concept is that as freight is moved around the railroads need to weigh the cars so they know how much to charge each shipped for their services. Modern scales are actually the same technology as what I will be using for the electronics portion of this project... they are built right into a special section of RR track and are able to determine the weight of a car by how much the track is flexed or 'strained', measured by a sensor mounted on the track that measures the deformation of the track itself.

My time period is closer to the beginning of the 1900's, and the scales used were mechanical. You may have seen the same type used to weigh trucks, and it is also the same type used on your doctor's office. The one thing they have in common is that the person weighing the load will move around different weights on an arm until it balances out.

So in the case of the freight car scales, they could not actually handle the weight of a locomotive because it would damage the sensitive equipment. For this they would have a pair of parallel tracks where the loco could stay on the mainline and the car(s) to be weighed would be shifted to the side track which was attached to the scales. This arrangement allowed the train to continue moving at a slow speed without uncoupling the cars, so a crewman could note down the weight of a whole series of cars without much work.

There are, unfortunately, not many photos to be found of functioning scales. I guess nobody thought they were that interesting at the time? Here's a shot of the scale and shack still relatively intact.









This model shows a common sign (Engine must not cross scale). I'm not certain why the ends of the scale tracks here have been beveled, but perhaps that also served some functionality?









This shot shows a scale track being torn up, and provides some interesting detail. Note how the mainline track was sitting on a series of short ties just wide enough to anchor the one rail in place. I might have to try and recreate this, but remember there has to be enough clearance for the scale track to reach down into a pit below.









In my particular application, coal will be one of the primary industries of my layout, so they have many dedicated sidings. This particular siding will put the scales right before the pit where the coal is unloaded in to so that weight of each load can be recorded. Because this scale is dedicated to a specific company I can make it a specific size catered to the two-bay hoppers that will be using it. I simply measured the centerpoint between couplers on each end of the car (which came out to about 5.25") and used that as the length of the scales. That way the car doesn't have to be *exactly* in the right spot to avoid measuring the weight of the adjacent car. You could still measure a longer or shorter car here if you only shifted that one car to the scale track.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

I think I understand the operation.

A coal train (for example) approaches the scales,
the loco takes the non scale track but is still 
coupled to the cars and continues
to pull the loaded cars on the scale track where 
they are weighed. The very close alignment
of the two rail paths makes this possible.

Presumably, the switchman throws the points
at the right moment after the loco has moved
to the side track to complete the operation.

Is that the way it works?

Your pic of the white shack with green trim seems
to best illustrate your track design.

Don


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Yep, I think you've got it. One thing I'm not too clear on is whether the train would stop for each car. As I said above the weight was found by hand, however I've also read that trains could proceed up to 25mph on the scale track. So I'm not sure if that means they had another method of checking the weight, or if (more likely) they stopped to weigh each car of interest but then the train could proceed up to speed with cars still on the side track?

Of course due to (size) scale differences I can actually run the loco over the scales without damaging anything, unlike the prototypes, but during operations I could actually stop the train at the right spot, throw the points, and allow the rest of the train to proceed over the scales. And the equipment I am using is very sensitive, down to 0.02 ounce. Probably accurate enough to measure within a few grains of coal. I'm excited to get the trackwork completed so I can test out the electronics.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Check out http://www.cvmw.com and http://www.proto87.com/ for ideas on laying track and making switches. They also have a "Gauntlet" track, essentially the center part of what your are making except it would only work on a "simulated" weight station.


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## Nikola (Jun 11, 2012)

This is so cool! I love to see alternative and unusual trackwork.

Operationally and in response to one of the posts above, I wonder how the points could be flipped quickly enough - and precisely timed - with a train moving 25 mph.

But then. old timers were just as clever as we are nowadays, so maybe they could do it somehow.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Picking up with the pieces I made last night, I am starting with the top stock rail. This piece has a small S-curve to it, but since this track is for very low speed operations that won't be a problem. Again leaving extra on both ends I will cut a piece of rail and start forming it to match the curves on the printout. One thing to keep in mind with the stock rails... ALL of the other pieces of track after this will take their measurements from the stock rails, so you want to be especially particular about getting them formed as close to the template as possible. I use a marker to put some positioning dots on a rail as I form it. You can see in the picture below I placed the dot in the middle of the S-curve so I knew where my curves needed to be at. I form the curves with pressure from my thumb, working to get a smooth bend.









Because there is so much filing to do on the points (and the chance of not getting it right the first time), I do not cut the rail until after I finish the piece. If the point is curved then go ahead and form that bend first. For this point I am starting with a straight piece. Put a mark on your stock rail where the end of the point should be, then lay the point rail next to the stock rail just a little past that mark. You will be filing away the point rail whre it lays against the stock rail so that the inside of the point will eventually come up flush to the inside of the stock rail. With that in mind, put a mark on the point showing how far back it looks like you will need to file. This gives you a reference to work from.









Now you want to put a small bend into the end of the point, towards the inside of the track. It's not much, maybe 1/8" of track or so. As you file away the outside of the point you would eventually go through the center web of the rail, however this bend ensures that you don't do that. Now you're going to start removing the outside of the point rail, using your mark for the back of the filing area as a reference so you don't go too far (yet). If you have a dremmel you can take out a lot of the material first, just don't go crazy with it. Here I have removed about half the material and then used a file to clean it up. Make sure to keep your filing perfectly vertical with the rail.









Keep removing material until you are getting into the center web near the tip (right where you made the small bend). Now you want to work on the inside of the point, filing down that bend until the top of the rail is straight in line again. The base of the rail should only have a very light amount of filing done to it, you actually want to leave most of the base in place for attaching it to the tie bar later. Focus mostly on the head of the rail to get it as straight as possible, which should take it flush with the center web if your bend was right. At this point you can change the bend a little if the end of the point isn't quite centered. Once the inside profile looks good, go back to the outside of the point and finish filing it down. You have two goals here -- first the outside of the point needs to match any bend in the stock rail and sit completely flush to the tock rail, and second is that you want the bring the tip of the point to a very sharp edge. Take your time, constantly check the fit. The finished point should sit on the base of the stock rail and fit nicely against the head of the rail.









Again check the tip of the point. By now there should be very little vertical material left, just a sharp edge (mine still needed a little more filing after this pic) and the base of the rail on one side. Note that if you accidentally file through the center web you can just use your rail snips to cut of the end, put a new bend in the end of the rail, and try filing it down again. You will almost certainly do this a few times on your first points, but after a few tries you'll get it right.









Whew, that finishes one of the most tedious pieces you will have to make! Now to finish up matching the point to the stock rail. Put a mark on your stock rail where you want the end of the point to sit. The goal here is to remove the base of the stock rail without touching the head at all. Again I'll use the dremmel to take out the first large bites without getting too close to my mark.









Now start working with a flat file to take the base back. My file also cuts on the sides so I can use it to pull the edge back towards my mark and keep a sharp square notch where the point will sit. You will be filing back the same distance here as you did on the point rail, and you want to keep the file angled at all times so it does not cut into the head of the rail. Try to match the profile of the point, and you should end up with an angled notch that the point sits in perfectly. Where the tip of the point sits, your stock rail should be filed all the way back to the center webbing.









Once again, check the fit as you go. When the point fits perfectly against the stock rail you can run your finger along the edge and only barely feel the transition.









Finally, I will take a file across the top of the point, at about a 30-degree angle, to create a very tiny amount of slope so the top of the point is not sharp. It doesn't take much, you might not even be able to see what you did, but you'll feel the difference when you run your finger along the transition as above. I finish up with some 600-grit emery cloth to clean all the areas I filed. Congratulations, you now have a point!

Since this track piece requires two turnouts, I'm going to do exactly the same thing for the other end tonight. Now that I have made a few turnouts it only takes about 15 minutes to finish each point. I'll get that second point finished up tonight, and then tomorrow I will start working on the points for the bottom stock rail.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Finished up the second point on the top side last night before dinner. Nothing noteable there, it was exactly the same as the point I just described. I'll get started on the two point along the bottom rail tonight and then post some pics of the progress. Once the points are done then I get to start soldering things together!


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## Stumpy (Mar 19, 2013)

Cool, interesting project.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I am constantly thinking about how a project goes together as I am working on it, and this one is no exception. The points along the top rail form part of the solid mainline track, so I decided to make both points as a single long piece, however because of where they will be soldered to the PCB ties it will still make their movement a bit stiff. There is another method of resolving that problem which I forgot to mention before -- you can use a jeweler's saw to cut notches in the base of the rail so moving the point only requires flexing the web and head of the rail. This will reduce the stiffness of moving the point by about half, but still allows me to use a continuous piece of track where possible.

The points along the bottom, on the other hand, meet with the floating scale tracks, so those points will be fairly short (about 3.25" in length). For these I will still use the method of putting a wire through the base of the rail and into the PCB tie. I will also use the wire method for attaching the points to the tie bar. I have tried soldering the points to the tie bar, but such a solid connection makes throwing the points much stiffer, and I've already had one set break loose on my test track, so I'm not confident in that method lasting long-term when I build my layout. By using a wire to connect the points, you create a hinge which allows the points to move easily and pivot on the tie bar.

Before I begin soldering the formed rails to the PCB ties I also needed to consider the differences between this project and a normal turnout. When building turnouts you always solder down the stock rails first, and the points can be added any time after that. For the scales track I actually need keep a tight spacing between the mainline and the side track. I've found that the base of some scrap rail provides a perfect amount of spacing. What I need to do here is solder down most of my mainline rail first, and that means along the top side I need to solder that single long point rail in place, then come back and solder the stock rails into the right position. The other consideration is that for each turnout I want the end of the pair of points to be aligned. That means the length of that long point rail dictates exactly where the shorter points will be sitting against the bottom stock rail. With this in mind, when I cut the notches for the points into the bottom stock rail, I simply used the long point rail as a guide for the end of each notch. In the picture below the long point rail is laid beside the bottom stock rail, and the notches match at both ends (with a little extra room in the notches to allow the points to move). Once I finish assembly, all of the points should be lined up.









So with these six pieces made I can finally start soldering them to PCB ties. It's a cold snowy day here in Colorado, so I'll be staying inside and working on this today. More to come later!


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## Nikola (Jun 11, 2012)

Looks amazing! I assume that you will not be using track joiners, correct?


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

@Nikola, that is correct, however if you're interested in an example I have pics of a dual-gauge turnout I made at this time last year in which I used short pieces of rail joiner (about 1/2 joiner for each) to connect all three points. You can see those pictures here: http://sourpuss.net/projects/trains/misc/turnout/2017-11-02/
(Note: click the thumbnail for larger images, click the larger image for a fullsize image where you can see all the grisly details.)


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Preparing for soldering the rails to the PCB ties, I need to first cut the notch on the long point rail. The picture below shows the bottom of the rail, where you can see I cut all the way through the base and stopped there.









So this image shows how I plan to space the side rail. I have several rail gauges ready to go and some holding the rails in place before I start. I'm going to begin with the last tie on each end right before the scales, which you can see I've already cut and placed under the track. I also use several other scraps of PCB tie to place under the rails and keep everything level while soldering. Note that the rail gauge tools also make a good place to hold down the rails while you solder, because if you try to hold them in place with your fingers you'll get burnt!









As a general rule I find that ties under normal track are about 1-1/8" wide, however as you work through areas with multiple rails you will need to cut longer ties. What I do is measure the width to the outside of the outer-most rail heads, round up to the next 1/8" increment, and then add 3/8 inch to the length. So on a normal piece of track I measure the width at 3/4", which is already at an even 1/8" increment. Add 3/8" to the measured 3/4", and you come up with a tie length of 1-1/8". For the widest part of my scale track the outside of the rail heads are about 13/16" wide, so I round that up to an even 7/8" and then add another 3/8", giving me a total tie length of 1-1/4" long. By using a fixed step of 1/8" you will see on turnouts a distinct stepping of the tie lengths as the two track diverge apart, which mimics what you will commonly see on the prototype and in commercial turnouts.

All right, so I've cut a few PCB ties to various lengths, carefully positioned the bottom stock rail on the first tie, and I'm ready to start soldering. Make sure your iron is good an hot as the rail will suck up a lot of heat. Dab some solder flux paste on top of the tie and the side of the rail, get a small drop of solder on the tip of your iron, and get the stock rail tacked down. I did the same thing on the other end, tacking the rail to the last tie before the scale track starts. Then I figured out the position for the long upper points rail, making sure the end of the points were parallel to the point notches I cut in the bottom stock rail. Use several track gauges to keep the two rail parallel and properly positioned, then tack down the long point rail.









Normally I will only solder to the outside of each rail, however because there is going to be some strain on this solder joint for that long point rail, I went ahead and soldered to both sides of the rail, ensuring there was enough heat for the solder to melt on both sides at once. This should provide a very strong pivot point for the point, and you can see the cut I made in the base of the point rail is just past the solder joint (it will fall in between two ties).

Now break out your NMRA track gauge. Note that when you first get the three-legged gauges, they may not be exactly the right spacing, but the NMRA gauge will give you an exact reading. There should be a very slight amount of space between the gauge and the inside of the rails. If not, reheat the nearest solder joint and adjust the rail. On the three-legged gauges, you can adjust them for proper sizing by bending the two adjacent legs on one side. Squeezing the closer together will make the gauge spacing wider, and spreading them apart will set your rails closer together. Once you have them adjusted properly then any other rails you solder using those gauges should allow the NMRA gauge to fit loosely between the rails.









With these two rail in place setting the location, I now need to solder the upper stock rails in place. I'm going to cut two longer ties (1-3/4") for my signal stands at each end. First I will solder one of these ties directly under the end of the points, but only to the bottom stock rail. I'll use some scrap rail to set the spacing at the left side between the mainline and scale tracks, and I'll put track gauges across the two rails out to the right side. That will roughly hold the upper stock rail in position so I can solder it to the ties, however there are two caveats here! First off (and this applies to all turnouts) the points have some light width to them even though you filed them down to a sharp point. When you solder the stock rails in place to the signal stand ties you need to leave just a little extra space between them to allow for this. Second, because in this situation I already soldered the long point rail in place, I have to be very careful not to solder the point down as I am soldering the stock rail to the tie. (Guess what? I did it anyway on one end!)









Once you've soldered the stock rail in place, check the spacing at the points again with the NMRA gauge. If it looks good, grab a free truck and roll it over the track. It should roll easily through the point and you should barely even feel a bump. NEVER proceed to the next step until each new rail passes the rolling test. If your wheels do not roll smoothly through this spot then you'll have nothing but trouble when you try to run a whole train through it. Also when you are doing turnouts you will find that each new piece of track you add becomes the spot you measure from for the next piece of rail, so error will quickly compound. Take your time to check every piece you solder down.









Because I already have a point in place, I also take this time to make sure I can slide it smoothly with my finger. A little 600-grit emery cloth can knock down any burrs on top of the PCB tie, and a hobby knife can be used to clean out any solder that seeped in underneath the stock rails. If the points feel sticky you may also have some solder flux under them. Use some alcohol and an old toothbrush to clean the flux off. As you can see I spend a huge amount of time working on and around the points because smooth track operations through turnouts depends entirely on smooth operation of the points.

With all of the stock rails in place now and the two existing points cleaned up, I add the second signal stand tie to each end, plus a couple more PCB ties just to make sure the rails are solidly mounted. If the gap between these ties were any longer I would have added another in the middle to ensure the rails stay in gauge, but this gap is less than 3" so there's no worry. Note that the points are NOT soldered to any of these new ties, so the points can still freely move. I also used a scrap of PCB tie wedged in between the stock rail and points to keep the points out of the way as the other rails are soldered to the PCB.









And finally, remember when I said to keep excess ties handy that you might cut off of flex track? Here's where we're going to start using it. I didn't have any lengths of ties long enough so I decided to salvage a whole piece of flex track for its ties, and I'll use the rails later for making another turnout.

Basically you want to cut a length of ties to go on the ends of the track you are making where it merges back to just two rails. Carefully slide the ties onto the track, trying not to damage the little nubs that hold the rail in place. This will keep those rails exactly aligned and give you an exact match to the flex track that you connect to your custom work.









I now have a section of track where the mainline is complete. Again I check carefully with the NMRA gauge and a truck to make sure the wheels roll through freely. Give the truck a little flick and see if it rolls through the points without bouncing. I've done a really good job so far on this one because the truck rolls smoothly and I cannot feel even the slightest bump as I push the truck against the points.  And now that all the stock rails are in place, I went ahead and cut and filed the upper stock rails so I have the required gap for the floating scale track.

Any time you wrap up soldering you will want to clean all the flux off the track. It's best not to leave any flux between work sessions. I still plan to get the last two points fitted in place today, so I'll leave the cleanup until later...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

All right, last bit of work for today...

To attach the last two points we need something that pivots very easily but still holds the rail firmly in place. I'm going to use a #80 drill bit to drill through the base of the rail and through the PCB tie, feed through a piece of 0.0125" phosphor bronze wire, bend it over onto the tie and solder down to hold the rail in place. I don't recommend this technique for a first attempt, but I think it is one of the best techniques to use when your point is only a short bit of rail. Keep in mind I will also use this to attach the sharp end of the points to the tie bar.









Three drill bits later and I finally have the hole. It takes a bit of finesse to work with such tiny drill bits, but once you have it then you can move forward more easily. After I got this first one finished I was able to also finish the second point with the same bit.

Once the holes are drilling I will bend a 90-degree angle on the end of the wire and feed it up through the hole, then thread the point onto the wire. Bend the wire over tightly and cut it off. I'll use some sharp tweezers to hold the wire down against the PCB tie while I solder it in place. Note I kept the solder back well away from the actual rail. I don't want to take a chance of the solder running up the wire and attaching to the rail itself.









Once the top side is done I can flip the whole piece and solder the wire to the bottom of the PCB tie the same way, keeping the solder back from the edge of the hole. The point should now move freely back and forth, but should not have enough slack that it can rock sideways. It should be held flat to the tie. I finished both points the same way, and since these rails also connect to one of the floating scale rails I again marked and cut off the end of the point rail.

As before, I once again check the clearance with the NMRA gauge and with a truck. I found the base of one of the points was hitting the stock rail before fully closing so I used the file to remove a little more metal until the point could seat fully closed against the stock rail. Everything looks good now, so I'm going to clean up the flux for the night.

The next step is drilling similar holes at the sharp end of the point rails, making a wire hinge to hold the points in their proper positions so they are able to move back and forth together, while maintaining enough of a gap between the open point and its corresponding rail so that the train wheels don't hit it.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

It occurred to me someone might want to see the whole piece in a single shot. Because this one is so long, there would be a lot of wasted space in the image so I cropped it down to a more suitable size...










And if you want to see the full-size image that you can zoom in on, it's here: http://sourpuss.net/projects/trains/misc/custom/scales/2018-11-11/IMG_0351.png


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

To wrap up the points in this project I need to mount them to tie bars. There is no set length required for a tie bar, so I usually keep them as small as possible for the required setup. In this case I will be using some Caboose ground throws to manually operate the turnouts, so I need to leave a little material sticking out to one side. At the very least your tie bar needs to go completely under both rails regardless of which position the points are in. Here I will cut my tie bars to 1 inch.

Tie bars are also PCB material, however they are only about half the thickness, allowing open space underneath them so your roadbed material does not interfere with their movement. I will also take a file or sandpaper to the sides to make sure they are smooth, in case the sides of the tie bar rub against the switch stand ties that it sits between.

Earlier I mentioned that when making your points you do NOT want to file away much of the excess rail base that was created by bending out the tip of the points. That material comes into play here. You want to drill a hole through the point base, centered between the switch stand ties. I am again using a #80 drill bit and the 0.0125" phosphor bronze wire.

Once the holes are drilled through the points, then you need to also drill a corresponding hole through the tie bar. For this I keep a scrap of tie bar PCB on hand. Lay down the scrap piece first, then put your tie bar on top, and lay the turnout on top of the stack. This sandwich should hold the tie bar in place fairly well. You will start with drilling through just one side, so position your tie bar and drill through the existing hole in the point (which is probably at an angle), down through the tie bar. As we did with the hinge end of the point, put a 90-degree bend in the end of the wire, feed it up through the bottom of the tie bar and the point, then bend it over and snip off the excess. Solder the wire to the bottom of the tie bar first, then snug up the wire on the top side and solder it to the top of the tie bar (making sure you only solder the wire and not the point itself). The bottom should look like this (remember you should only have ONE of the points soldered at this stage though)...









Now you're ready position the second point. On the NMRA track gauge, one of the angled sides is marked as 'points'. The point I just soldered will be pushed against its stock rail, then I lay down the gauge against the soldered point, with the other point moved to the *inside* of the other nub on the gauge. This will give you the proper spacing between the points so that they can be thrown in both directions. Once you have the second point positioned, again drill through the existing hole in that point, down through the tie bar. Feed the wire through and solder it in place, then check that the tie bar is being held tightly against the underside of the rails and that the points can be moved back and forth with only a slight resistance. Check with a truck that you can roll through the turnout in both positions and that the wheels do not hit the open point.










Clean up the flux residue, for this project the soldering should be complete. Later when I'm ready to mount this piece I will drill a hole through the outside of the tie bar to connect a wire to the ground throw. The finished points will look like this...









One last thing to do here... The copper on the PCB ties create a direct short across all the rails. I use a dental burr or a cutoff wheel in the dremmel to cut across the copper down the center of each of the ties. For the ties where you soldered hinge wires to the bottom, you must also separate the bottom side of the ties. When you have finished making all of your cuts use a multimeter to check for continuity. There should be none at all between the left and right rails, however where the rails diverge after the points it is ok for the pairs to stay connected to each other, since they will receive the same electrical signal anyway.

For this project the main portion of track is now complete. The next step is to start building a support bridge for the scale rails. It will probably be a few days before I get started on that though, but I'll be back when I have an update.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Ended up with some free time yesterday and got the 'bridge' for the scale track built. Whew that one took a lot more effort than I expected! Because of the large pieces of brass I had to break out a torch to get enough heat to melt the solder. Then it became a matter of heating small areas to keep from re-melting the solder on the parts I already finished.

So I started with just getting the rails attached to the top of some 1/16 x 1/4 brass. Takes a bit of effort to keep the rail centered when it is too hot to touch.  I finally settled on using popsicle sticks to move and hold the rail while the brass was clamped in a small vice, and got the rails reasonable centered down the length.

Next I needed to drill matching holes through both pieces so I could use brass rod to fix the width of the two rails. I drilled four holes but only used rod through two pairs. To solder the rods in place I turned the torch down to where it almost went out so I had a very fine tip of flame. I set up both rail pieces with the rod going through them, then got some solder around one of the joints. Once the solder flowed, I used a square to straighten up that side. Repeat once more for the rod on the other end of the rail, and this side is sitting nice and square. Now to solder the two rods to the other rail carrier... This required using a couple of rail gauges to hold the tops in the right position, then using the square to make sure the flat brass was squared up again. Once everything was sitting right I hit that side with the torch and got the solder in place.

The last bit was a flat piece across the bottom center. This needs to be thick enough to bolt to the scale device and still be solid enough to hold a loco. I didn't have any brass thick enough so I ended up doubling a thinner piece.










Afterwards I used the dremmel to cut off the extra length of brass rods and some sandpaper to clean up the excess solder and sharp edges. A bit of fitting and filing, and the piece fits nicely between the tracks on the section I just built.









After the brass cooled down I re-checked the rail spacing with the NMRA gauge and found a twist in the whole carriage. Luckily the solder joints are strong so I was able to bend and re-shape the brass until the rails lined up down their entire length. The carriage itself doesn't have to be square, but the top rails do need to be as perfectly square to each other as possible so that when the scale tracks are in place the cars will see a nice flat surface to roll across.

An issue I can see is that this doesn't allow for a very thick support of the mainline rail that sits between the two scale rails. I think I'll cut a rectangle out of the board for the scale bridge to fit through, and then use some more brass to span the opening and support that rail. Also the brass carriage is a bit heavier than I would like. To reduce the effect this have on the overall range of weight that can be measured I think I will put a small spring under the scale assembly to nullify its own weight.

So the next step is getting a wood frame built to hold the entire assembly, then I can start adding the planking around the scales, which will also be used to pin the mainline rails in place where there are no ties.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I built a display board for the scales today. It was still bitter cold outside but I managed to get some scrap lumber chopped up and put together. After cutting the slot for the floating scale tracks I found a piece of 1/8 x 1/2 inch basswood fit nicely to bridge the gap for the center mainline rail. Another piece of 1/16 x 3/32 (what I use for ties) worked well to support the length of the closest mainline rail. I'll fill in the wood planking around the rails once I have the scale track mounted.









I had thought it was going to be tight spacing underneath the board for mounting the weight sensor so I made a cross piece out of more of the thin plywood. Turns out I actually have quite a lot of space, but as long as this sits flat on a table it should be fine.









I tried laying down some cork roadbed but it just lifted the track too high to work with the way I built the board, so I scrapped that for now. This piece will be going on a siding anyway, so a thin layer of ballast should look about right I think?

The next step is getting the points wired up to a pair of Caboose ground throws, then I can glue down the track. The scale track bridge assembly will get screwed to the weight sensor, then the sensor will be mounted to that bottom diagonal board and carefully aligned so the scale tracks are level with the rest of the track. That'll be fun...

I was thinking about painting the board a base tan color, but it already has a decent color to it and the grain of the wood adds some nice variation so I think I'll leave it and just do some basic landscaping right over the top of it. This will actually be my first attempt at any sort of landscaping or ballast so I'll keep it fairly light so my lack of skill isn't too blatantly obvious.  Oh, I did finally finish cutting the copper in the middle of the PCB ties, but unfortunately the rails are still shorted together. Gotta track that down before I glue down the track. And I suppose one of these days I should actually hook up the electronics and make sure that part works.

Anyway progress will continue to be sporadic this week with the holiday coming up, but progress is still being made.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

Shdwdrgn said:


> Anyway progress will continue to be sporadic this week with the holiday coming up, but progress is still being made.



it's actually a pretty big project to take on , as long as the progress is forward, it's all good ..


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

A little more progress here and there. I've been building up the deck around the scales based on some of the pictures I found, and am pretty happy with how it is coming out. I also filled in the missing ties on the base.










The hard part here was making sure I still had proper clearance on the inside of the rails. Once again the NMRA gauge tool was used. There are nubs on top marked as flangeways which will tell you if you have left enough room for the wheels to pass by. I probably should have left slightly more clearance between the mainline and scale tracks, but I just barely had enough space. The multiple side beams are 1/32 x 1/18 basswood, and came out to be the same height as the top of the rails. The styrene planks in the center are 2x8 and 2x4 scale strips which I cut to a maximum of 8 scale feet (about 1-1/8") and used a small file to bevel all the edges to help keep the individual pieces more visible.










As I've worked through adding the pieces I had to keep re-checking the fit of the scale assembly. A bit more filing here and there was needed, but I think it should be able to move freely. I think now all the wood work is done though, so it's about time to glue the track down in place.

I made a trip to the hobby store today and picked up nearly $50 in supplies, mostly for the landscaping. I found a nice canister of salt&pepper ballast, some light green lichen, and some large chunks of medium green foam. Because of my previous work on making pine trees I already have some different shades of fine-ground foam. All together this should make a good assortment of materials to lay down the ground cover. I plan to start with a coat of ultra-flat dark brown spray paint (which eliminates my previous idea of leaving the wood grain visible) which will cover all of the track and woodwork. The ties and planks will then get some lighter colors brushed on to give some variations, and the sides of the rails will get some rust added. The ground will be brushed with a tan color, and because this is a mountain region I'll also add some reds (we have a lot of red dirt around here), then use some burnt wood to create darker paths where crewmen have walked between the shed and the turnouts. Then a layer of green for grasses, and finally the bushes and lichen material. At least that's the plan...

Of course before I start any of that I still have one very important step left to perform... getting the scale track and the weight sensor mounted to the base. I still need to hit the hardware store and figure out what thread is used in this sensor (probably metric) and get some appropriate screws to fit it, then try to square up the whole scale track assembly. Yeah, one might get the idea that I've been avoiding this step...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

A bit of painting today in between visiting with the family...










After I finished touching up the solder on the track I hit everything with the flat brown base. Once that dried I started in with the acrylics to add color to the ties.










There are a couple issues I'm having. First off, where the points move they scrape the paint off the PCB tie. Not quite sure how to hide the copper. The second problem is adding the rust color to the side of the rails. Burnt sienna looks like a great color when it's sitting on the paint palette but it nearly disappears after applying it to the rail. I think I'm going to try adding some straight orange to it and see if I can get a brighter color would looking too drastic.

The hardware store was closed today, hoping to pick up some screws for the weight sensor tomorrow. Maybe I can get the ground throws mounted tonight though, then I'll be ready to glue down the track. Anyway, still making baby steps...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

As I hoped, I picked up the screws and other hardware from Ace today. Turns out the thread on this weight sensor is an M3. I drilled the appropriate holes and then spent quite a bit of time fiddling with the assembly to get it all to line up. Here's a couple pictures of the scales track bridge, the weight sensor, and the various hardware to allow it all to be adjustable...



















The threads on the sensor are a bit sloppy, so there is some slack in the fit of the screw. Since I need to keep things to a pretty tight tolerance I added the spring on one side which helps push the sensor against the screw threads and eliminate the slack. Care to guess how much fun I had just trying to get that spring in place???  You can't see from the pictures but the long screws do go all the way through the sensor, and come out just a hair below flush to the other end. How's that for a lucky guess on the lengths?

I had to pull it apart several times to get the scale tracks centered properly between the fixed rails as there's only about 1/16th inch total gap between the ends. However I finally got it, and because of a bit of springiness in the brass you can actually push down on the scale tracks and tell that they are not rubbing anywhere, so the sensor should be able to get nice clean readings. It also means the tracks will sink slightly when a heavy car is sitting on them, which should look pretty neat.










Once everything looked good I laid down some caulking to glue the track in place, straightened out the straightaways, hooked the pin between the ground throws and the tie bars, and then weighted everything down. It feels like this caulk is setting up pretty quick, so I think I'll be able to work on it again after dinner. One other thing that I noticed while testing the alignment of the scale track is that all the metal amplifies the sound of the metal truck wheels rolling over that section... makes it sound like there really is some large mechanism underneath it. Usually you want to deaden that sound but in this case I think it adds to the 'ambiance' of the particular section.

I dug up some more pictures of scale houses last night while trying to get an idea of what size it should be. I found this one with that great signage again, I definitely plan to include that in my build.









Also take a look at this page, which has some great pictures of scale houses from the PRR used around 1905, perfect for my own time period. I especially like the build of the two houses in the second row, and there is a low-quality copy of actual blueprints at the bottom of the page which gave me just enough information to know the house is 7.5 feet by 13 feet. I really love the angled sides to allow crewmen a full view of what's going on around them. I found some windows and doors from Tichy that will nicely create the same look, and because of the many windows I can include some interior details like the wood stove that will be visible after the model is done.

One thing I haven't figured out... next to the scale houses on the website link above there is an oval-shaped tank. Does anyone know what that might be? My guess would be either drinking water, or oil for the stove (which I think would have come at a later date)?


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

the tank wth the rounded sides is for oil heat for inside, most were 250 or 500 gallons ..still used up here some places .. heating oil is similar to winter diesel fuel,


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Ah cool, thanks. So any idea when were oil-burning stoves replaced wood? I'm thinking that was around the 1920's but I'm really not certain.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

Shdwdrgn said:


> So any idea when were oil-burning stoves replaced wood? I'm thinking that was around the 1920's but I'm really not certain.



no idea at all when they first started .... coal was still used in town in the early 50's, both oil and coal are still used, but more money to run than natural gas .. startup is cheap though, good for occasional usage


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

I think I was shoveling coal into the stoker in 1957, only the move to Columbus, O saved me from that task! I still have the coal shovel I used!


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Wow... even when I try to think of everything ahead of time I still don't think of *everything*. Remember my nice solid brass carrier bridge I made for the scale tracks? Remember my nice solid brass *conductive* carrier bridge?  Crap... At least that is an easily-removeable piece, and I suppose rebuilding it in styrene means it will be much lighter weight.

Meanwhile, I started working on ballast last night. After the first six inches I absolutely hated ballast. After the next six inches I started to be ok with it. And here I thought building turnouts was going to be the most time-consuming part of my layout. Anyway the glue dried overnight and I need to do some touch-ups today, but will add pics later.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

All right, so the ballast is pretty much finished up except along the back side of the scales, and I started working on some simple landscaping.










For putting down the grass, I started with trying to brush some of the ballast glue onto the board and then sprinkling the ground foam over it. That was a bust, the foam didn't hardly stick. So I went back to hair spray (used frequently for making trees). That worked better, except it was hard to control exactly where the spray hit, so I ended up with some foam in places I didn't want it. For the most part I think it is turning out ok though. Using a drop of the ballast glue DID however work great for putting down the larger dark green foam bits.

I also added barricades at each end of the piece. In an open display like this, it might help stop the cars from rolling off the end.









I really like the accidental strip of grass growing behind the barricade. Not sure how I only got it between those two ties, but I think I'll add more across the rest of the ballast behind both barricades.

A darker color ground base would have been helpful. The khaki color I had on hand is just too light and needs to come down a shade or two.

I have to order parts and build the scale house before I can really finish the landscaping, but I wanted to give it a try. I never had a chance to try placing any of the lichen either. Not much left to do on the model at this point...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I've been looking more into the scale house and how I'm going to build it, and since that is the only actual structure on this model I thought maybe I should talk about it a bit. As you may have noticed I over-think everything and then change my plans mid-stream. 

The one significant detail of the scale house is all the windows. You want your crew to have a great view of what's happening, so this building has two 45-degree walls to mount three full sized windows. I've been pretty happy with Tichy parts in the part, and I plan to make this building mostly out of styrene anyway, so it will be a good match. The first step is to find some windows and doors that roughly match the prototype. Looking at the images, it appears the front windows are almost as tall as the doorway. The windows slide vertically, have six panes in the top, and just a single large pane in the bottom. I also know the building is about 13 feet wide, and with the angled sides that allows roughly three feet for each window, which also works nicely for the angled walls. From Tichy I found 6-pane double-hung windows with sills which are 36" wide and 64" tall. I can easily cut out the pan dividers in the bottom window to recreate the look of the original.

Next up is the door. This building is set up off the ground to allow a better view, so there are three steps to the door, plus a transom over the top of the doorway. The door itself should also have six panes, and the transom should have three panes, however the door appears to be fairly narrow to I went for something about 30" wide. The closest I found is a door with four panes and two panes in the transom, but otherwise the size is just right. I got both parts ordered tonight and should see them next week.

Next up is the walls. Looks like a fairly standard clapboard construction, and I estimated around 6" wide boards. A sheet of Evergreen clapboard siding with 0.060" spacing gets the job done. There will be some additional trim along the walls and roof, but I have a fair stock of styrene strips now to choose from.

And of course there is the roof. That's a bit of a conundrum, however a little reading lead me to learn that in the late 1800's as the NorthWest opened up to the railroads, cedar and redwood shake roofs became very common. But how do I do that? Well there are panels of laser-cut wood roofs but they commonly run $10-15 for a single small sheet. It turns out some folks have discovered an easy DIY way that works great for smaller scales -- brown paper bags. You cut strips of brown paper about 1/4 inch wide, then you make vertical cuts for individual shingles about half way through the strip. Starting at the bottom of the roof line you lay down the first row of shingles, only putting glue on the uncut half of the strip. Now put down the next strip so the cut portion of your shingles overlaps the uncut portion of the previous row you laid down. The cap at the top of the roof is finished with a narrow strip of brown paper folded in half so it lays over the top of the peak and covers the last bit of uncut paper in your shingle rows. This is finished with various paints and weathering, and a few individual shingles can be curled up just like real wood does. And if you really want to give the roof an old look you can use a little landscape foam to add moss on some of the shingles. Since my model will be a well-maintained and highly used station my roof will remain in fairly pristine condition.

And finally there are the details... I still need to find a wood-burning stove and appropriate stack for the roof. The actual scales would be seen through the large windows, so I need to find some images of what they looked like for a simple reproduction. Around the outside of the scale house we might find a wood pile for the stove, some miscellaneous tools, and perhaps some debris forgotten in the weeds. And because of the time period, my crewman will have come to work on his horse, so I need a place for her to graze during the day.

It's a lot to think about for one small building, but details count. I'm excited for the windows and doors to arrive so I can get busy building!


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

It's been a few weeks since I updated this project, but I'm still working on it. I've been building the scale house, which is entertaining since I've never scratch-built scale structures before. I think I'm just about done with the exterior, minus the roof and stairs. As I mentioned before, the windows and door are from Tichy, and the rest is Evergreen styrene.










Half the battle has been trying to figure out the actual layout of this building from the tiny pictures I had above. And the wood siding has trim at all the corners, which helps cover up the rough edges. The trim was made by folding some .010x.080 in half and then gluing it in place (trying to keep it centered and square). The last bit I just finished was those braces at the top of the corner windows, which are incredibly tiny and hard to keep in place while the glue sets. Seem to have come out fairly decent though, and I even got them mostly uniform to each other.










I think I'm going to white-wash the siding, and paint the windows and trim brown. I also 3D-printed a small water tank to sit beside the building. Not the same as the tank in the pictures, but I think it will work for the display.


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## Nikola (Jun 11, 2012)

Really terrific. Even to the rusty rails beyond the wheel stops.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Ah thanks, I didn't know if anyone would notice the details like that but it made sense at the time. The actual layout will have the scales near the beginning of a long spur but I wanted to test out an idea for a simple end-of-line, plus I didn't want the cars accidentally rolling off the ends when I take it to the club to show. A couple things I'm not happy about is the base color under the grass is too light, and the ballast color isn't what I expected. I was trying to go for a combination of granite and cinders, and I think maybe I should have laid them down in layers rather than mixing the colors. Ah well, live and learn.

I saw a technique for peeling paint that I want to try here, but that was for wood rather than plastic, so I might have to search some more. But I think I need to start with a grey wash on the sides of the building, then add the white paint, and wherever the white is peeled off it will show grey 'aged wood' below it. Sounds good in theory, I just have to find a technique that will work on this textured surface.


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## Nikola (Jun 11, 2012)

Shdwdrgn said:


> Ah thanks, I didn't know if anyone would notice the details like that but it made sense at the time. The actual layout will have the scales near the beginning of a long spur but I wanted to test out an idea for a simple end-of-line, plus I didn't want the cars accidentally rolling off the ends when I take it to the club to show. A couple things I'm not happy about is the base color under the grass is too light, and the ballast color isn't what I expected. I was trying to go for a combination of granite and cinders, and I think maybe I should have laid them down in layers rather than mixing the colors. Ah well, live and learn.
> 
> I saw a technique for peeling paint that I want to try here, but that was for wood rather than plastic, so I might have to search some more. But I think I need to start with a grey wash on the sides of the building, then add the white paint, and wherever the white is peeled off it will show grey 'aged wood' below it. Sounds good in theory, I just have to find a technique that will work on this textured surface.


We see everything! LOL.

Try White-Out. What could possibly go wrong? (Seriously.)


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Finally got a chance to put down a base coat, attempting to simulate dilapidated wood. I mixed a squirt on 'thunder grey' with a single drop of 'burnt umber' to get something that I hope will look like exposed weathered wood. Most of this will never be seen, but I'll be adding a coat of bright white to the wood and dark brown to the windows and doors, so this grey color *should* show through the peeling paint spots. (I hope?)

I also received some flood lights for christmas and added a pair of those to the front. Maybe some day I can convert them to LED, but I don't have anything that small at the moment.










After this has dried for a bit I'll add a coat of light brown to the interior as a block against any lights I add (plus with all the windows the white plastic will be rather obvious). If I have a chance tomorrow, I'll add a light spritz of hairspray around the bottom area. Oh, guess I never mentioned that I found a technique for peeling paint on styrene by spraying the base coat with hairspray and then adding your target paint color on top of it. Anyway the idea is to make it look like it's been a few years since the last coat of paint, and I usually see peeling paint starting near the bottom of houses, so there will only be a small amount of peeling. I when ahead and covered the whole structure with this color because otherwise there could be an obvious difference if there is any bleed-through in the final paint. Plus it makes a good primer covering and allows me to confirm I got the putty into all the gaps between the windows.


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## tcrofton (Dec 25, 2018)

your narrative is an outstanding primer for those of us getting into the game.
I have read descriptions of several systems for hand laid track and yours is a tremendous addition.
Thanks for the excellent pictures too


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## tcrofton (Dec 25, 2018)

also, as a carpenter who builds full scale, your details on the scale house are spot on. I can't get people to do them in real life, now everything is phony. Old time carpenters used different thickness to express different elements of trim and you have that same look.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Thanks for the comments! I think the details may have been more accidental though, I used trim pieces that seemed to match the thickness of the window panes I had. I also forgot to add the trim along the peak of the roof (on the sides of the building).

Unfortunately the paint has become a disaster. Despite thinning the white paint by about 50% it still went on too thick and I lost some of the detail of the boards. I haven't tried 'peeling' the paint yet, that comes tonight, but I'm not too happy with how the finish looks. I should probably strip down the whole thing and try again with an air brush instead of a paint brush, but I'm running out of time before our next club meeting and still need to finish a lot of other details. I'll probably just have to call it 'good enough' for now.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Well maybe it's not as bad as I thought it was. I did the scrape test tonight and got some paint to peel. I need to work on my technique still, but it's actually looking pretty decent.










Of course this shot also shows how inconsistently the paint went on with the brush, but oh well. I think I'll go ahead and touch up the brown again and call it good. Oh yeah, and there's still the whole 'roof' thing to do...


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Well I *finally* got around to playing with the electronics last night. I'll have to work on the code a bit to tone down the sensitivity, because just leaning on the desk can apparently add 20 tons to a hopper.

The only difficult part was finding an appropriate library for the sensor board that actually worked. Once I started getting in some numbers then I was able to run through a bit of calibration. The first thing I noticed is that this board is actually all digital, it does not rely on the resolution of the controller's ADC ports. So when I said previously that I should be able to detect a difference of up to 0.02 ounce... yeah it blow WAY past that. So far I've seen the numbers swing between -200,000 to +200,000, which makes me think this board may have 24-bit resolution. Unfortunately every little breeze makes the numbers fluctuate, which isn't good for this setup. I think ideally I want to round to the nearest hundreds when displaying the scale pounds.

I played a bit with different outputs once I figured out how to scale the numbers. Measuring to the nearest ton didn't seem right so I went to the nearest pound. The adjustment ratio seems pretty good, I have an empty 2-bay hopper coming in at around 45,000 pounds (which was my baseline from the data printed on the car), and when I drop in 20 quarters (filling the car about 3/4) the weight goes up to 110,000.

One issue I'm still having is that occasionally I would add a quarter and the weight would go *down*. I don't know if the ends of the scale rails are catching on something or if there's another issue, but I was hoping it would be more consistent than that. Then again, it might be as simple as pulling the car off the scale and back on again?

So overall, it was a pretty productive evening getting the electronics in motion. Besides rounding the scale numbers I also need to add code to put the information up on the display, and then figure out a way to mount the electronics so they're kept out of the way.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

As far as I can tell, the weight sensor gives a different reading depending on which side of the track I push the car in from. My guess is it is the mechanical nature of how the sensor works? Anyway I think the fix for this issue would be to use two sensors, one at each end of the track, and add the values together.

I've made quite a few changes to the code, smoothing out the readings so it is generally stable now, plus frequent recalibrations whenever it looks like the scale track is empty. It's still not great, but it certainly shows the potential for making a working track scale.










The display is showing the calculated HO-scale weight along with the actual ounces of the car. This of course could also be shown in metric. It is still a bit off and I probably need to recalculate the adjustment ratio, but it is pretty much functional at this point. The actual weight of the car should be 6.70oz. I'm not sure if you can see in this picture, but along the top of the display it is also showing the current temperature and humidity, since I happened to already have that sensor hooked up to this processor. Not really needed here, but hey, it adds that extra touch. 

I also finished painting the scale house today, and got the styrene glued together for the roof. I should be able to glue the house down to the display now and finish up the scenery around it. I received some extras for christmas, including some Woodland Scenics field grass and some tools and supplies to put around the building. With any luck I can finish up all that this week, because the club contest is next week. Ack!


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

looks real good, an excellent job!


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I still have to get the processor mounted to the display, but at least it's finally working.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

have you calculated the shortest, and the longest cars that you could weigh with this ... assuming you have others cars hooked on to both sides ?


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Well the longest car would have the end wheel centers of less than 5", which is the length of the floating track sections. In my situation, the scale will be used specifically for weighing incoming coal cars (which are about 37 scale feet in length), and those have the knuckle coupler centers at just about 5". So the coal cars could be weighed in line pretty quickly. For shorter cars, you would have to shift only that car over to the scale track and keep the other cars on the mainline, which of course would greatly increase the time required to weigh a whole train. Longer cars could be weighed inline, but there is less room for error in making sure they are fully on the scale. With the coal cars I have about an inch of slop so it won't require pinpoint accuracy.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

if the coal cars are the main ones, an inch is enough slop, 

are you going to leave the real world [ounces] weight on , at least initially ?


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Yeah, I can actually see that being useful for adding new cars. The precision on this sensor is incredible, much better than the kitchen scales I'm currently using. Of course I don't really need to be that exact when adding weight to new cars, but if I can record a solid two decimal digits then that information may be useful later on because I'll have grades approaching 3% and I'll be able to let the computer calculate if a string of cars needs multiple locos to move it over the hill.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I finished up the roof of the scale house tonight. Went for the brown paper bag method which was fairly easy and certainly cheap.  Basically You take a piece of brown paper and add black and light gray streaks (I used 'lamp black' and 'thunder gray'). I diluted a drop of each acrylic color with six drops of water, dipped my brush and wiped off most of it. It's almost like dry-brushing except here you want to create small streaks that will stand out. After that dried for a bit I decided I wanted a richer brown color so I made a wash of 'earth brown' that was heavily diluted in water, and soaked the whole page with it.










You can see here where I was cutting strips from the bottom of the sheet. For HO you want strips about 1/4" wide. Then you cut slits half-way through the strip to give individual shingles. Since the bottom of the roof can show underneath the first row of shingles I painted the bottom of the roof flat black to represent the underlayment. Now starting from the bottom of the roof, glue down a strip making sure the cut half of the strip (your shingles) are not glued. Then glue another strip over the first one, overlapping at least half way. Continue up to the peak of the roof.










I cheated on the cap of the roof and simply folded a strip in half, then glued it over the top. A proper roof would have individual shingles overlapping from one end to the other, but this works for anyone not using a close-up camera.  As you work your way up, you can take a pair of tweezers and grab each of the shingles, giving it a twist one way or the other, or pulling it up like it's not laying flat. This ensures the shingles aren't glued down, and it makes each shingle stand out distinctly so that even without a camera you can see the detail and the flat paper gains some relief.

The stove pipe was made with some 3/32" styrene tubing. I glued this to the roof first, then worked around it as I laid down the shingles. I think I'll use some black chalk and add a dusting of soot on the shingles near the pipe and around the top of the pipe. I actually have some wood stoves to put inside the building, but I don't know if I'll have time to add that before next week.

This weekend I'll get the 'glass' in the windows, hot-glue the building to the diorama base, and try to finish up the scenery around it. I also need to add the steps, which will just be bits of styrene. And there will be a wooden platform between the face of the building and the beams of the scale track (this is what houses and protects the sensitive scale mechanism).


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## Magic (Jan 28, 2014)

Nice job on the roof, looks vary real.
The whole building looks great.

Magic


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

Finally closing in on the home stretch... You can't tell from the pics, but I got the glass glued into all the windows tonight, and the mechanical cover in front of the building has been finished. To finish the ground cover I placed the building where it should go, drew a line around it, then laid down scotch tape over the lines. I used a knife to cut the tape to fit the inside of the building, removing the excess. Then I laid down the rest of the ground cover. Once dry I was able to lift the tape, removing all the ground cover that got 'inside' the building walls, leaving me with a clean area for the building.

The scale house and two barrels were hot-glued in place, then I used a couple spots of hot glue on the peak of the roof to hold the roof to the building (as a temporary hold, I'll come back and work on an interior later). The water tank was hot glued to its stand, then the stand was superglued to the base. I finished by cleaning up the stray glue strands with tweezers.



















I still need to make the steps for the scale house, then I think I'm finished.










I did get the electronics mounted today, but I didn't get a pic of that. The display is fitted inside the gap in the center of the stand. I want to recalibrate the software one more time before Thursday, but otherwise I think I'm pretty much ready for the contest.


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I finished up the steps last night, and built the all-important sign.  I don't know why I like that sign so much, but I had to have it in my model. Basically I just wrote the text into a word processor a number of times at various font sizes and printed the page at maximum resolution until I found something that worked. The one I settled on is only a font size of 3pt and bold, but it is *just* large enough to be read.










The steps were a bit of a challenge themselves. Cutting the slots for the steps to sit in took a couple tries, and then holding the pieces in place long enough for the glue to grab... yeah that was fun. However I'm really liking this brown oxide paint for giving an old-wood look to the styrene. The steps and the scale cover in front of the house were both painted with light coats, and the trim of the house was painted with a heavier coat of the same color. It seems you can get a lot of variation out of it.










I think I'm pretty much done with it now, unless I get some time tonight to add some grasses. I've been thinking about the points on those turnouts though. The lack of spacing for the wheels has really been nagging at me, and I'm not sure that I would have clearance to split cars between the lines even if I made the points really short. However another idea occurred to me that would be completely appropriate for the time period... a stub turnout! I've been wanting to try one anyway, and that would eliminate the problem of the points pinching the car wheels. So I'll have to keep that in mind when I'm ready to build the scale for the actual layout.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

looks good, a fine job !


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## Shdwdrgn (Dec 23, 2014)

I'm happy with it as my first attempt for a lot of different aspects. I think the one thing that really stands out as a disappointment was trying to stick down the foam grass to the board. Hairspray was terrible. I also tried a mix of thinned white glue, which seems to work better but took a lot more effort and wasted foam to get it to work.

For now I have to put this aside. I'm getting my own 3D printer shortly (holy cow the prices have come down!) and I need to clean up some space for it.


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