I've been quiet for the last little bit, but with good reason. In my last blog post I mentioned that I wanted to get some turntables onto my layout and Gene (epumph) gave me an excellent link to the 2 Guyz and Sum Trainz site. A How-To article on how to convert a ho-hum Atlas turntable into something more. (Here is the link Gene gave me: http://www.2guyzandsumtrains.com/Content/pa=showpage/pid=11.html , thanks again.)
Anyway, after one false start, which took up some little time as I was fairly well along with it, I have been working away on my second try at a turntable etc.
Here's a picture of my first attempt:
It looks good, but.... I want to have a stationary bottom. It can be done either way, however, it's just a little more difficult. My problem was that I wanted to change the diameter of the pit itself. Once I got as far as all this, I found that there were small differences in the radius as you went around the pit. These small differences, unfortunately translated into bigger problems when it came to lining up the bridge and having it rotate. So I started again....
This time I decided to make the pit itself seperate from the Atlas turntable so that if there were problems, I still had the Atlas turntable to fall back on. I cut the pit out of wood this time and glued it on the layout table top. I then built up the bottom with some card to get the right depth. I lined the pit walls with styrene, painted them up and added a single rail in the pit bottom. Then I put ballast in the bottom. The bridge will be turn from under the table on a 1/2 inch dowel.
I will post pictures once I figure out why I cannot seem to upload photos anymore.
Til then, keep the shiney side up...
Cheers,
Jim R
