California T-Trak

[serotta1972]

Changed the name from Bay Area to California T-Trak as the other member, Kiha66 (Sam) is now in Southern California.

 

A quick introduction - hopefully I'm not stealing someone else's club name but couldn't come up with anything else, maybe later.  Sam and I will attempt to build some modules and begin to have meet-ups at my office and hopefully get others involve as well.  We'll use this thread to document our work and progress.  We welcome all feedback as this will be very much a learning process and in the end have some nice modules to share with folks.

 

I'm working on building a yard / staging area and would prefer to use #6 turnouts rather than #4's and this is what I ran into.  I might have to settle with the #4's and read up on the necessary work to make it perform better.  I will use 2 triple deep modules to start and can always add center pieces to make it longer as the goal would be to accommodate a 16 car Shinkansen.

 

With the #6's, the ends didn't quite line up and are also not long enough.  Only the first track had the little overhang.  Will continue to fiddle with this and try to make it work.

 

With the #4's they fit perfectly and have slight overhang that is needed.

Edited August 4, 2018 by serotta1972
added intro

[cteno4]

Yeah when you start doing various odder ladders the spacing will go off on you. It can take some fiddling to get it just right for an order arangement as sometimes impossible for perfect Ttrak joints. One solution is to make a custom straight by cutting out some of the roadbed in the middle of a straight, sliding the two ends together and cutting rail to length. Then glue the two pieces of roadbed together with some epoxy.

 

also if it’s not the main lines and these are run as dedicated modules together, the yard tracks could just mismatch by a few mm on the ends (ie one sticking out on one module and the other inset a little on the other module).

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kiha66]

Awesome work Junior!  For the two middle tracks are you using s62 or s64s for the short straights at the end?  If its s62s switching to s64s will give you a little more distance.  I found a example diagram, seems the #6 switch and 718-15 curves need to use a few s64 length straights to bring them back to the 62mm unitrack standard.

[cteno4]

I was meaning to drag that diagram out to see if there was an easy answer! It’s a handy diagram! Good work kiha.

 

jeff

[serotta1972]

Cool, thanks Sam.  I will get some S64's, I think that will do the trick.  Yay, I will get to use the #6 turnouts and will 6 tracks in the yard.

 

 

[IST]

18 hours ago, serotta1972 said:

 Sam and I will attempt to build some modules and begin to have meet-ups at my office and hopefully get others involve as well.  We'll use this thread to document our work and progress.  We welcome all feedback as this will be very much a learning process and in the end have some nice modules to share with folks.

 

 

Great idea and I can't wait to see your progress!

[serotta1972]

IST, you and your gang there has been the inspiration. Also been reading past threads and  lots of great work has been done and shared.

[Kiha66]

First quick and dirty module is built, and the first track is being glued down.  These will be rural filler (and guinea pig) modules while the more robust kit modules will have the better scenery.  I'm securing the track with white glue, and then held down by a semester of engineering textbooks.

 

Edited February 22, 2018 by Kiha66

[IST]

As I see that Practical Electronics for Investors book is really practical.

[Kiha66]

4 minutes ago, IST said:

As I see that Practical Electronics for Investors book is really practical.

 

The most use I've gotten out of it all year!

[serotta1972]

I didn't realize textbooks still existed. :)  But very creative use and looking forward to see what happens after the books are taken off.   Are you using only glue Sam or will you be using screws or nails to fasten the ends.  I'm still debating and there's much discussion on preference.

[kvp]

6 hours ago, IST said:

As I see that Practical Electronics for Investors book is really practical.

That would be _inventors_, but it also sounds plausible with investors, especially for the Bay Area.  

[Kiha66]

9 hours ago, serotta1972 said:

I didn't realize textbooks still existed. :)  But very creative use and looking forward to see what happens after the books are taken off.   Are you using only glue Sam or will you be using screws or nails to fasten the ends.  I'm still debating and there's much discussion on preference.

 

I wasn't able to find any screws or nails, so I'm just using standard white glue.  So far the results are pretty promising, the first track is dry and feels very solid.  Making slow progress adding the second track today.  My now abundant collection of rerailers is comming in very handy.

[cteno4]

Kiha,

 

looking nice!

 

you might get some small M1.2 or 1.4 x 10mm screws to go in right near the ends of the modules. Folks have had great success gluing track down in Ttrak except at times the ends pop loose as they can take some torque sometimes pulling modules apart (I try to always do this with a slim flat head screw driver between the modules between the two tracks and twist) or the ends getting caught on something when being moved. Really depends on how much you plan on moving them as well!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

1 hour ago, Kiha66 said:

  My now abundant collection of rerailers is comming in very handy.

 

 

What exactly are those rerailers doing?

[Kiha66]

12 minutes ago, gavino200 said:

What exactly are those rerailers doing?

 

The side of the rerailer has notches that fit on the top of the rails.  These hold the rails to the kato doubletrack spacing while the glue dries so it will be parallel and at the right 33mm distance the whole way accross the module.

 

18 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

you might get some small M1.2 or 1.4 x 10mm screws to go in right near the ends of the modules. Folks have had great success gluing track down in Ttrak except at times the ends pop loose as they can take some torque sometimes pulling modules apart (I try to always do this with a slim flat head screw driver between the modules between the two tracks and twist) or the ends getting caught on something when being moved. Really depends on how much you plan on moving them as well!

 

Thanks Jeff!  I'll try to order some for my next module.  I just didn't know what to order the first time around, there really isn't much info on how to secure the track.  All I could find was some older posts suggesting a special brand of screws which seem to be out of stock everywhere.

Edited February 23, 2018 by Kiha66

[cteno4]

Sorry forgot to paste in the link for an example

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-M1-4-M1-7-M2-M2-6-Black-Steel-Phillips-Cross-Countersunk-Head-Tapping-Screws/173129189616?hash=item284f4dc8f0:m:m-jXReF42PZ4VgNux_eccrg

 

you can add these to the current ones, just drill a small hole near the end and cut a little v countersink in and add the screw. It just gives that extra strength to not pop the glue at the ends if they to take a whack.

 

are you going to make one of those long modules flipped over to do the bridges on?

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Kiha66]

Thanks Jeff!  Thats exactly what I needed!

 

10 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

are you going to make one of those long modules flipped over to do the bridges on?

 

Yep, I got the bridges in a lot of track at a show so I was planing to do a river module.  Originally I wanted to use kato's 124mm girder bridge, but even in bulk that would have been rather more expensive that I was hoping.  So the double track bridges will have to do.

[serotta1972]

Good stuff Sam.  I got the yard/staging area situated with the use of S64's and will be ordering the other modules.  At this rate maybe we can have a trial run even with bare modules just to see and run trains next month.  Man, it looks like we want to build very similar modules as I also would like a river with bridge module.

[Kiha66]

19 minutes ago, serotta1972 said:

Good stuff Sam.  I got the yard/staging area situated with the use of S64's and will be ordering the other modules.  At this rate maybe we can have a trial run even with bare modules just to see and run trains next month.  Man, it looks like we want to build very similar modules as I also would like a river with bridge module.

 

No worries Junior, I have another finished flat base to use before making the river scene.  The plate track arrived this evening too, so now all I'm waiting on is the station roads.

[cteno4]

Perfect as you can have the two large river modules back to back across from each other with the river running across the table!

 

jeff

[inobu]

What ever you need

 

https://www.mcmaster.com/#

 

Inobu

 

[cteno4]

Unfortunately McMaster and many sources don’t carry small screws long enough for this purpose (about 6mm max). With trainaids gone there are very few small, long track screw sources left.

 

jeff

[Kiha66]

The textbooks return!  The second line is being glued and I can start scenery work tomorrow hopefully. 

[inobu]

38 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Unfortunately McMaster and many sources don’t carry small screws long enough for this purpose (about 6mm max). With trainaids gone there are very few small, long track screw sources left.

 

jeff

I use the metal screws, pilot holes and wood glue. I drill pilot holes, dab the hole with glue and screw them in slow. 

 

I hate waiting weeks for stuff. I rather pay and get it done

 

Inobu

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by inobu