New layout ... track being laid, everything going fine ... one set of points ends up directly over a cross-member supporting the benchwork! Seep point motor can't reach!!!
b*&$)&£s !!!
Just thought I'd share that with you all ... :-(
Sounds like time for a lineside hut!!!
if it's any comfort... it happens to the best :o/
Linn Westcott invented L-girder benchwork just to avoid this problem. You just unscrew the cross member from underneath, shift it a inch or two one way or the other, fasten it in its new position, and bingo - all clear!
Much lighter, too.
I had that problem on one of mine too. I just chopped away at the cross member until it just about reached. I then put in additional cross members to strengthen the original cross member. That is perhaps the only motor I have not had to re-attach after being yanked at by an un-ruly toddler:-)
Ian
On 09/10/2005 14:06, Chris Wilson wrote,
If I hadn't just sold them I might have pointed you at the Tortoise adapter plates I was selling! They are still worth looking at, as they are a fairly universal design. Go to
When I designed my current layout, I of course made sure that no cross members were going to clash with any turnouts. I felt ever so smug, until I found that I'd put dropper wires right where nearby turnout motors needed to fit!
Ian Cornish wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@eclipse.net.uk:
That's what I've just done, fortunately as it was also a support for a baseboard join I'd laid it "flat" rather than edge on so I only had to take out 1/4" or so, but what a PITA, flat on my back using a tenon saw upside down.
I'm lucky, I didn't have to do that.
Paul Boyd wrote in news:4349386f$0$49804$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader04.plus.net:
Tortoise? What am I, made of money? :-)
Yeah, one of the layouts at the club uses them, very nice.
Ah well, now it's my turn to be smug. :-)
Welcome to my world :-)
Wolf Kirchmeir wrote in news:Sfa2f.97$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com:
I looked at L girder construction but decided to stay with a more traditional construction method because ...
My layout doesn't have to be transportable - made to measure for the garage. I have to be able to stand on it, or at least put all my weight on it at times. I don't have any valleys/rivers/docks etc to model.
Nice system though for a transportable layout though.
On 09/10/2005 17:10, Chris Wilson wrote,
Ah - but the adapter plates are cheap, and you don't have to use Tortoise motors with them!
On 09/10/2005 17:10, Chris Wilson wrote,
Just a quick PS, now that I'm not buying any more, but if you search on eBay for "switch machine" and look for US sellers, you ought to be able to get them for between £6 to £8 each, including shipping, but don't forget the possibility of import duties.
Paul Boyd wrote in news:43495c6c$0$15074$ snipped-for-privacy@ptn-nntp-reader02.plus.net:
Yeah, not to bad I suppose, next time around maybe, however back to the present I've just finished installing the previously purchased 23 Seep points motors required for the first stage of my layout.
I've already got a dozen Peco motors from my old layout that I've set aside for the staging area (that's stage 2) and when I eventually get around to stage 3 I won't hve space for Tortoise motors as stage 3 is 009 and sits on top of the staging area ... I'm nothing if not ambitious. :-)
... changing the subject slightly.
On my old layout it was kind of difficult to run anything longer than a two coach train. I've been doing test runs for the last week with the new layout and (as planned) a six coach train sits very comfortably on all three through platforms (the third was a bay but I converted it during teh track laying into a loop ... and if all goes to plan, once stage 1 is finished I reckon a 12 coach diverted express wouldn't look to out of place as it thunders past.
Just had to point out that somethings have turned out ok.
L-girder is strong enough for this, if it's supported the same way as any other benchwork (train-table) that one must lean or stand on. It's not the table or frame work that determines whether the benchwork will support you, it's the structure that holds it up.
If you must, er, walk on the train table, I suspect it's too wide. That's a bad idea IME. You may have no problems now, but as your joints get older, you will find it an increasing pain, even if the rest of you manages to stave off aging. :-)
Doesn't matter one way or the other, actually. If you need space below the track for rivers etc, you just support the roadbed (trackboards) on taller risers (vertical members fastened to the crossmembers. The track should be elevated and inch or two above the table top in any case, since even on level ground (rare though it is) real railroads elevated their track a few feet above the surroundings.
Er, Chris, L-girder is _not_ transportable. It doesn't resist twisting, since the cross members are fastened on top of the girders, not between them. A transportable layout must have a rigid base - ie, some variation on the egg-crate principle of crossbraced longitudinal and transverse members. (Actually, one of the best bases for a transportable layout section is an old hollow-core door: flat, light, and rigid.)
I'm not sure what you understand by L-girder benchwork, since your comments don't in my experience apply to what I understand by L-girder benchwork.
But of course this doesn't address your original plaintive plea for sympathy: and I like the other posters in this thread have had exactly your experience with incompatible turnouts and crossbeams, so I sympathise, empathise, and generally and specifically share your pain, annoyance, irritation, and such. :-)
HTH
Here's a URL showing L Girder benchwork.
As Wolf stated, L girder is NOT portable. Transportable probably, but most definitely NOT portable.
-- Cheers Roger T.
Home of the Great Eastern Railway
Wolf Kirchmeir wrote in news:Phe2f.181$ snipped-for-privacy@news20.bellglobal.com:
...
If I put my hand on a flat surface I expect it to hold. Likewise my table is often my workbench and I use *big* hammers. As for the actual standing on, it's only really to change lightbulbs or grab timber from the overhead rack ... the actual floor space in my garage has now been reduced to a 2' x
11 1/2' walkway so I store timber by handing it from the roof ... trust me it works. Once the layout''s all scenic'd up I'll go back to using my step ladder but meanwhile one foot on the stool, the other on the table and Bob's my uncle.Nah, no reaching for that purpose ... the table is set at around 4' high - so I get lots of storage underneath and I don't have to crouch to far to view it at a "prototypical" eye level which means I do have to stretch sometimes ... to get in to the corners for instance, however I have a lightwieght homebuilt stool that I use to stand on and that gives me all the reach I need.
Well yes, I happen to think that it's versitility in dealing with differing scenic levels is it's best selling point for as you point out and I later reply ...
Should have put a smilie up there I was being a tad sarcastic (in the nicest possible way), as in why is lightness such a selling point for this system ... in fact apart from it's ability to handle different scenic levels it's only real selling pioint considering the extra work involved when as it turns out it is the least important design criteria in a system that isn't going anywhere. ;-)
That's fine if you have just the one point motor!
Chris Wilson wrote: [...]
Um, L-girder's main selling point is its versatility - if constructed as Linn Westcott specified, changes are very easy to make. NB that he insisted that all fastening of crossbeams _and_ track boards be from underneath, _never_ from above.
I personally found that L-girder was no more work that the box-frame method, just different. In some ways it was easier than a boxframe, since you need a good flat surface on which to assemble a box frame, and boxframes twist unless they are braced. (The flat top is actually a method of bracing the box frame, and IMO introduces too many scenicking problems.)
That layout is long gone, though. My present layout consists of a 16" x
12'6" shelf, a small yard scavenged in toto from the previous layout, and resting on 1x3 stringers supported by shelf brackets, the kind that click into metal standards fastened to the wall. There are four cross beams, just to maintain the spacing of the stringers. Over-built, since 1x2s would have been more than strong enough, but I wanted the depth to protect switch machines and such - which I haven't actually installed, since handthrows work just as well, and give a satisfying feel of hands on operation... :-)HTH
Why all this hacking into, destruction and weakening of the structural members of a board when there is such an easy solution to this problem ? My boards are 12mm ply with 12mm ply facias. The strength is obtained with two longitudenal dexion girders about 1 foot apart, however, it wouldn't really matter how the boards were constructed in the context of this dicussion. In my fiddle yard, I had the problem of a turnout being located directly above a girder. What I did was position a Seep point motor about 3-4 inches to the side of the turnout (inline with the tiebar) and allowed it to poke through the surface of the board. I then soldered some steel wire to the Seep arm and ran it in a slot in the cork surface under the turnout tie bar and then turning up through the normal tie bard point motor hole. It's very reliable and it didn't weaken the boards to do it!
It really worries me the number of clubs I have seen hacking into their board structures and weakening them just to fit point motors. It's even worse when the boards use that dreadful 'Sundeala' stuff which quite frankly, should never be sold for model railway use because the boards end up even weaker and warp at rates Captain Kirk would be proud of!
Graham Plowman
snipped-for-privacy@gppsoftware.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
You've built rock solid boards, so have I ... to the extent I can chop away at at least half of the supports (if I need to) without significantly weakening the structure. So I've choped half the depth awy from a cross- member ... big deal I can still stand onteh board (should I wish) directly over the weakened area without even a sign of sagging let alone collapse ...
... of course that may mean that I over engineered the thing in the first place but I did so intentionally. It's not a portable layout and never will be. I've got two young children who climb all over my garage (where my layout is) and it's safe for them to do so.
...
I'm sure it is very reliable but it's yet more added complexity and it is yet one more thing that may potentially fail; I much prefer to KISS unless I really have to do otherwise.
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