WellThatDiddntGoToWell
Active Member
No that's not a typo. Everything of mine literally goes on her work bench and much to her annoyance or in this case, nearly off it as this particular project nears completion. I don't have a shed, unless one in 1/29 counts so I just use the next best thing!
Fed up with the rising costs of LGB turnouts (quite down at the back) and a couple of burnt buys. One brand new and suffering quality control issues just after they were taken over and a secondhand one from a well known retailer, that I can only say was under described! I jumped in at the deep end and have had ago at building my own.
A rather badly light, dust, smoothy maker and kitchen sink filled picture!
The catalyst for this was discovering Paul Abram's (Iden) turnout build's in G1 and the photo and descriptive process on his website. "So how has it gone?" I hear you ask. "ThatDiddntGoToWell" is not a name I have chosen lightly. My father used to call me The Master of Disaster and if I said I don't know why, I would be lying.
Ok, due to the intended placing of this turnout it had to match what was already established at the other end, an R/H LGB R3 (1500mm or 22.5%) and thus came the 1st headache. I needed a L/H and I didn't have any of those to work from so a couple of sheets of A4 were stuck together, a crayon rubbing of the rails taken, the paper was then flipped over and that gave me a barely visible plan to work from. The 2nd headache came when I needed parts and gauges. The rail I used is Tenmille G, the main chairs and slide chairs also came from them but they don't make bridge chairs, so I had to improvise a solution for that. As far as I'm aware, no one makes gauges for the varying G profile's so I bought 2 G1 gauges from Cliff Barker and filled them to what I needed. These did the job but the downside is they fall over every couple of seconds so if anyone knows where I can get some proper ones, I would be grateful.
Headache number 3. I made the blades almost 15mm too long (barely visible plan) and it was only after rebating the stock rails and fine tuning the blades that I discovered the error, which resulted in the straight blade ripping through during shaping. I made another blade but the same thing happened again. At this point crunch time had come, it was either bin the stock rails and blades or find a solution. To replace these parts would have defeated the exercise of cost cutting so a plan of make do and mend was instigated. BODGER ALERT i.e a big wad of solder was applied to the offending area.
Next up, how to make it throw. At present everything is manual and I had a couple of early days LGB R1's (tighter than tight radius) laying about with manual switches. I took 2 Tenmille sleepers, cut the ends off and fitted one switch via these, a piece of PCB and brass dress pins.
So, does it work? Whilst I wont win any awards for accuracy and finish, yes it does. Am I truly happy with it? Yes & no. Yes that it works, was cost saving by almost £60 and no due to the big wad of solder, and owing to the nature of elasticated LGB products (remembering I needed to make a match), there is some erratic sleeper spacing that to me stands out a mile.
I have learned a lot from this first attempt. Like the Wife gets very angry if she cant use her smoothy maker due to a hobby she hates with a passion, taking up her precious work bench space. Brass is not pure brass if it sticks to a magnet. A standard G Scale Aristocraft Class 66 has the deepest flanges I have ever come across and causes major problems in the frog filling department. Measure, measure, measure. But most of all, I can do it and be grateful that any further build will be to a minimum of 2500mm.
Dean
Fed up with the rising costs of LGB turnouts (quite down at the back) and a couple of burnt buys. One brand new and suffering quality control issues just after they were taken over and a secondhand one from a well known retailer, that I can only say was under described! I jumped in at the deep end and have had ago at building my own.
A rather badly light, dust, smoothy maker and kitchen sink filled picture!
The catalyst for this was discovering Paul Abram's (Iden) turnout build's in G1 and the photo and descriptive process on his website. "So how has it gone?" I hear you ask. "ThatDiddntGoToWell" is not a name I have chosen lightly. My father used to call me The Master of Disaster and if I said I don't know why, I would be lying.
Ok, due to the intended placing of this turnout it had to match what was already established at the other end, an R/H LGB R3 (1500mm or 22.5%) and thus came the 1st headache. I needed a L/H and I didn't have any of those to work from so a couple of sheets of A4 were stuck together, a crayon rubbing of the rails taken, the paper was then flipped over and that gave me a barely visible plan to work from. The 2nd headache came when I needed parts and gauges. The rail I used is Tenmille G, the main chairs and slide chairs also came from them but they don't make bridge chairs, so I had to improvise a solution for that. As far as I'm aware, no one makes gauges for the varying G profile's so I bought 2 G1 gauges from Cliff Barker and filled them to what I needed. These did the job but the downside is they fall over every couple of seconds so if anyone knows where I can get some proper ones, I would be grateful.
Headache number 3. I made the blades almost 15mm too long (barely visible plan) and it was only after rebating the stock rails and fine tuning the blades that I discovered the error, which resulted in the straight blade ripping through during shaping. I made another blade but the same thing happened again. At this point crunch time had come, it was either bin the stock rails and blades or find a solution. To replace these parts would have defeated the exercise of cost cutting so a plan of make do and mend was instigated. BODGER ALERT i.e a big wad of solder was applied to the offending area.
Next up, how to make it throw. At present everything is manual and I had a couple of early days LGB R1's (tighter than tight radius) laying about with manual switches. I took 2 Tenmille sleepers, cut the ends off and fitted one switch via these, a piece of PCB and brass dress pins.
So, does it work? Whilst I wont win any awards for accuracy and finish, yes it does. Am I truly happy with it? Yes & no. Yes that it works, was cost saving by almost £60 and no due to the big wad of solder, and owing to the nature of elasticated LGB products (remembering I needed to make a match), there is some erratic sleeper spacing that to me stands out a mile.
I have learned a lot from this first attempt. Like the Wife gets very angry if she cant use her smoothy maker due to a hobby she hates with a passion, taking up her precious work bench space. Brass is not pure brass if it sticks to a magnet. A standard G Scale Aristocraft Class 66 has the deepest flanges I have ever come across and causes major problems in the frog filling department. Measure, measure, measure. But most of all, I can do it and be grateful that any further build will be to a minimum of 2500mm.
Dean