# Contoocook



## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

Finally, a Plywood Pacific to call my very own...
I'm currently building my first real layout, a 4x8 in HO, called "Contoocook" (NH), designed by Lou Sassi and covered in his book "A Realistic HO Layout for Beginners".
The build started a couple weeks ago, around the beginning of October. I'm pretty antsy to complete the foundation and track laying phase, because I'm itching to commence scenery and structure building.
As far as structures go, the book calls for specific models by Walthers and Atlas. However, the further into the project I get, the more convinced I am that I want to try my hand at scratch building most of the structures.
I've never scratch built a dang thing, but I'm still gonna take a crack at it! 

At present, the right-of-way foundation crew just left the project, so there's nothing much fun to show, just a little progress.


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## broox (Apr 13, 2012)

Thats a good start to the benchwork :thumbsup:
It reminds me I should have done a little planning for our first table. 

Keep the updates flowing


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## Prospect193 (Nov 30, 2011)

Excellent cookie cutter bench work!!! 

Pat


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

I'm fascinated with the "cut plywood" layout terrain method. There's another thread here on the forum with a layout like that. The method is a bit unconventional, but it make perfect logical sense to me.

See this thread, here:

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?p=146850

TJ


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

Thanks for the encouraging words, I appreciate it!

Between work and family, there's not been a lot of progress, these last two weeks. Cookie cutter is complete and roadbed is down, and that's about it. One thing I decided to do is wire the turnout frogs to route power to them. Not because it's necessary - they're all Atlas Custom Line #4s and #6s with insulated frogs, but because it's an exercise in something I've never done before. To route power, you're supposed to place brass bus bars under a mounting lug cast into the frog. A screw is run down from the top through the lug and threaded into the bar. Great, except for two problems: I don't want a screw head sitting on top of the ties, and nobody seems to carry the Atlas part number anyway. 

My solution: Cut bus bars out of .032 brass sheet, modify some 2-56 screws, tap the frog's mounting lug, and screw the bus bars in from the bottom.
Whatta ya know... It worked.


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## Carl (Feb 19, 2012)

Looks like your have a lot of fun with the layout build. Thanks for the pictures.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Nice work on the frog wiring.

Glad to see you've used 7-ply plywood ... much more stable/strong than cheaper 5-ply stuff.

Cheers,

TJ


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## 93firebird (Dec 25, 2011)

very nice!:thumbsup: subscribed


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

How do you fix a "broken" turnout?

Last night I was going through all the turnouts prior to installation, giving them one last check for alignment, gauge, etc. A couple were slightly out of gauge at one end. Following searched internet advice, I firmly grasped the offending rails and gently (or so I thought), bent them back into gauge. Problem is, these are Atlas Custom Lines; the rails are only held in place by the plastic "spikes" molded into the ties. They snapped almost instantly. I had some PC board laying around, so I cut down some ties and soldered them to the rails. That seems to have done the trick. 

Are there any better ways to correct this problem? (other than to hand-lay the turnouts, or use Pecos) Seems like it would be fairly common among us ham-fisted types.


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

tjcruiser said:


> Nice work on the frog wiring.
> 
> Glad to see you've used 7-ply plywood ... much more stable/strong than cheaper 5-ply stuff.
> 
> ...


Thanks!

That's actually just piece of scrap ply that I have laying around when I need to hammer or solder something on my workbench. The layout's deck is cut from 5-ply 1/2 inch underlayment, which has proven to be perfectly fine.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Ohh ...

1/2" then, for the layout, huh? Thinner than I initially thought. As I said earlier, I'm rather intrigued by this whole "cut and bent plywood" layout method. Do keep us posted on your progress!

TJ


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

Progress is still agonizingly slow - I'd hoped to be slinging plaster by now. However, between work, family obligations and hurricanes, I'm not getting things done as quickly as I'd like. We are getting there though.

Finished laying roadbed and rasped spurs down to ground level. I misjudged curvature measurements in a couple places, but didn't realize it until I was knee-deep in flextrack and caulking, so I'll need to trim and retrofit roadbed in a couple places.

There are three bridges on this layout - one deck girder and two through girders. I had a heck of a time getting my head around how to lay track while planning to leave room for abutments and the bridges themselves (I don't have them built yet). I finally decided to just cut out the spans, then hot glue them back into place temporarily. Track isn't glued to these, so when the time comes, I can just pop them out and replace with a bridge. 
We'll see how that goes. 

Track is completely laid, But I still need to cut rail gaps to make power districts, I'll do that when I start soldering feeders. Speaking of feeders, I read a genius tip somewhere that said to drill all your feeder holes at once, and place a color-coded pin in each hole. As you solder a feeder, remove the pin. you'll be less likely to miss a feed or get polarity screwed up. 

Finally, I built a temporary platform for the booster. It's hinged and swings down for "easy access". The booster is held in place with velcro. Eventually, the terminal strips will be augmented by circuit breakers and/or block detection circuits. I really want to play around with signalling and automation, so I'll likely need a bigger mounting platform at some point.

Next up, I'll be building remote manual turnout controls and trying my hand at scratch building indicating switch stands that operate.
A little bit at a time, I guess.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

Very meticulous, tidy, and well organized throughout!

(Oh ... and don't worry about your timeline ... time itself slows down in HO scale!  )

TJ


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## norgale (Apr 4, 2011)

Why did you have to do the extra wiring to the frog? Is that something that needs to e done for a specific reason? havn't done any of that myself but maybe I should. Pete


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## spoil9 (Dec 24, 2008)

Looking good so far. Love how you're being so neat/ detailed with everything. 

Remember, half the fun of building a model RR is building the model RR.


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

norgale said:


> Why did you have to do the extra wiring to the frog? Is that something that needs to e done for a specific reason? havn't done any of that myself but maybe I should. Pete


The frog wiring was totally unnecessary. 
However, in the book that I'm building the layout from, Lou Sassi specifies that the frogs should be wired and lays out instuctions on how to do it (using Atlas parts), so I figured, what the heck, why not take a stab at it myself.

Though, it burned up five days that I could have put toward actually laying track!


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## fotoflojoe (Dec 31, 2011)

spoil9 said:


> Remember, half the fun of building a model RR is building the model RR.


True that! Thanks!


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