WELCOME

[The Gauge]

Hi,
On behalf of everyone at The Gauge I'd like to welcome you to the Technical Q & A forum. The Gauge belongs to its members and we look forward to hearing your comments about improving the board. If you would like a new forum added, then please ask. However, all new forums will be on a trial basis to see how popular they become. There is nothing worse than having too many forums with too few posts. If you think we should change the names of the forums to something that relates to railroading, all you have to do is "holler", e.g. should we change the name of the "General Talk" section to "The Dining Car"?, and so on.
We will be adding a links section in the near future, so look out for that. We hope to be a valuable resource for the model railway community, and hope you enjoy making new friends at The Gauge.

All the best for now,
Dave Hagan,
The Gauge.

 

[watash]

I'm new here, but where is everybody? Are you going to have a "How To" forum with illustrations and or photos? For instance, I am in process of building an HO railroad with a 33 stall roundhouse, 134 foot turntable kit from Diamond Scale, a main line, short line, and logging line. Here is a photo of the roundhouse so far:

[This message has been edited by watash (edited 12-18-2000).]

 

[The Gauge]

WOW watash, thats a monster picture, very impressive. To answer your Q's "where is everybody", well The Gauge is a new born baby, not even 24 hours old yet, so we need time to grow, we're very glad your on board.
Why not use this technical forum as the "How To" forum. As soon as we grow a bit we,ll take another look at it.

Welcome aboard watash
The Gauge

 

[watash]

Here is a shot of the turntable under construction. Also note the casters on all table legs. More "How To" about the construction in later posts.
(Photo doesn't want to come up on post. The first one did OK, but it was too large, so I tried rotating this one, and try to get the size down a little. It isn't as easy here as on trainboard.com, and I can't figure out why just yet. Since I can't delete this, I guess you'll just have to wait with baited breath til I solve the problem!

[This message has been edited by watash (edited 12-27-2000).]

 

[Dave Hagan]

Hmm, dont know why thats not showing up. Have you checked the spelling?

 

[watash]

spelling checked OK. Photo was 712KB so is big like the one above. I went into Photo Delux Adobe, and re-sized both photos down to 94KB & 91KB while they were .pdd files, then saved them as .jpg files. Neither will come up here, but work great on E-Mails. They also work great on the trainboard.com, where they are both on view now. Sorry.

 

[shamus]

For another "How to", anyone who is interested in scratcbuilding structures, might like to take a look at my website, I have an article on scratchbuilding.
http://www.badger-creek.co.uk

 

[watash]

Yeah Shamus, I visited your Rail empire, and saw a write up about it also! Great job! I am not so sure I'll live long enough to do scenery too. I'm just hoping to see all the engines I have been saving, get a chance to run on my turntable. I'm getting so long in the tooth, my wife now calls me FANG!

 

[shamus]

Hi Watash
Thanks for looking at my website.
That Roundhouse id HUGE, how long did it take to make??

 

[watash]

Hi Shamus, we just got back from visiting our son over the hollidays. The roundhouse is not finished yet. It took several years of daydreaming about what I wanted. I have fifty steam engines that I know of. (Some of my dad's may still be packed in boxes I haven't opened since he died in 1983, so maybe more.) The room I had decided to use was mt office when I was a consulting design engineer, so now that I have retired, I have turned it into the layout room. There is a useable 12 x 16 feet which dictated the size of the roundhouse, that is my main interest. At 55 stalls, the roundhouse would almost become a complete circle, so I cut it back to 33 stalls and it is still 7 feet in diameter. I have yet to make the stall doors, and the opening mechanism for them. Because the far side stalls will be just 4" from as far as I can reach, I designed a mechanism to raise the roof so I can reach in to "jiggle" an engine that may not want to back out under its own power, (as sometimes happens). Those parts are all done except the face plate. The turntable and pit is a Diamond Scale precision detail kit, 134 foot to handle the articulated steamers I have. There is a photo of it on trainboard.com, that I have been trying to post here, but wont work for some reason, its 71KB. It is about ready to install. Then I'll lay in all the stall tracks. Then the wiring nightmare! Ha! The roundhouse building only took about three weeks, to get to the point of the photo. Every piece was layed out on my computer full scale, plotted, cut out and glued to a board stock, and the required quantity was cut to shape on a cabinet maker's table saw. the sides and roof were painted before assembly. Simple, see?

 

[shamus]

Hi Watash
You are as bad as me, I use my computer to draw out scale plans before I start to scratchbuild a new model for the layout.
Always building something, I would go insane, if I didn't have my little logging empire to play with.
Happy New Year to you and the family.

 

[watash]

Thanks Shamus, my new layout will have logging up in the mountains. I have designed remote controlled cranes up there so I can load and unload logs when I'm tired of "watching a train go round and round".

From the valley floor at the roundhouse, it is a 1% grade up to the main line,(min 30"radius) which connects to a short line that goes 2.5% up to another yard and 4% on up to the logging camps. There are cranes at the yards too. Occasionally I'll have to run one of the steam rotary snow plows to get up in the high country, but that's fun too!

 

[shamus]

Hi Watash,
you said

I have designed remote controlled cranes up there so I can load and unload logs when I'm tired of "watching a train go round and round".

Now that interests me, remote controlled cranes? send a pic or sketch how you did it, I would be interested in making my own.

[This message has been edited by shamus (edited 12-29-2000).]

 

[BobMcD]

Watash and Shamus,

What computer software do you use to lay out structure plans on your computer for printing? That sounds like an interesting approach, especially as there is a tiny water works building a couple of miles from our house that my wife thinks would make a wonderful building for the layout.

Bob

 

[shamus]

Hi BobMcD
My computer software is Freehand9. With this program I draw trackplans and all my scratchbuilt structure starters then print them out first on paper.
fh9 is quite an easy proggy to learn, but like all proggies, it's what suits you.
Best wishes for the new year.

 

[watash]

Bob and Shamus, I use AutoCad then I have an ink plotter for drawings full scale up to 24" x 36" which serves all my present needs.

All photos of my cranes were burned in a fire years ago, but I will take some of the ones I'll build on this new layout. When I open the box with the old drawings, I'll try to post some here. If they wont come up here, I'll post them on the trainboard.com ,they always come up there. I don't like DCC, but you can buy one for that for a little over $300.00 now.

------------------
watash

 

[shamus]

Hi watash
If you are talking about uploading a drawing here, from your cad proggy, what file extention does it save in? you might have to export it out as a gif or jpg because of file size.
If you already have it in either gif or jpg and are having a problem uploading here. Let me know, and I'll explain how to do it.

This pic is from my freehand9