My Japan in NH with uni-track

[cteno4]

 

whats the grade on 5 inches in 12 ft length?   I just had a construction idea....

 

 

 

thats 3.5%. grade is pretty easy to calculate its

 

[rise inches] / [run inches]  x 100 to = percent grade

 

so 5 / 144 x 100 = 3.5%

 

that would not be so horrible for most trains to do, just try to let your transition happen over a bit of a distance and dont go from level to 3.5% right away or you will have issues. you can use thin chipboard (cardboard) to make a slow ramp and gently take it from level to 3.5% in a foot or two would really help. just have to watch as with unitrak as the track will want to do a kink vertically at one of the joints.

 

as i think ken suggested, test test test! good you are trying to mock it up before doing any major construction. thats the beauty of unitrak rig up a little shelf temporarily and cut up a bunch of cardboard and tape and you can mock all this up to see how the trains will run on it.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

I would say, if you don't want it to be transparent you can always use those carton "boxes/rolls" that one can buy to store papers. They come round or square with round angles with white plastic leads to close the both sides. They are quite inexpensive. Don't know how to describe those better but I'm sure you know what I mean.

 

sure but then its a bit hard to know what train is in the tube! idea behind the clear tube is to be able to see the train and display it on the wall, but have it protected from dust, uv, etc. i need to look into the price of having a nice plex wall frame done like 4'w x 3'h x 3" deep. this would protect about a dozen trains, but i fear that may cost $150-200, so almost the cost of individual tubes would but would give a better appearance than a bunch of tubes would. but you would need to pull down the big case face when putting trains in/out of it. with the tubes you just grab them off the wall rack.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[ease]

where in the US does one purchase the clear square tubes mentioned above? 

[cteno4]

ease,

 

if you want acrylic square tubing that is sturdy then the max i have found is 2" ID with 0.125" walls at usplastics. there may be some other sources i think i found a few others a couple years back when i was nooding on this. its $5/foot and they only sell 6' sections, so not the best size, but could make shorter tubes for 2-4 car trains.

 

http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=24428&catid=440

 

the picture does not look all that great though, but at times they use odd bits of a smaller size for some of the picts. i certainly would buy a single length to test before investing in any quantity.

 

2" ID is about the min to fit a train with the pantographs down and some unitrak. affixing the unitrak will take a bit of fiddling by screwing it from the bottom, you would need to make a jig that would hold the track in place while you screwed from the bottom, but doable. alternatively there may be enough room for a thin strip of wood that you could glue the track to and then glue this into the bottom of the tube or screw it in. might look nice to have a wood base under the track. would cost about $30 with track for a 4' square tube case.

 

train safe makes these with a tall rectangular tube. very nice, but a 4' tube is $85, ouch! but that includes the track as well...

 

http://www.train-safe.de/index_en.php?section=13

http://shop.19zoll.com/200/cgi-bin/shop.dll?SESSIONID=0959698937600479&sprachdir=../en/&AnbieterID=4

 

they also make the clamshell train safe you can run a train onto the special track with a base, then you clamshell the case around the train and connects with base. foam inserts hold the train tight. one of our club members got one years ago and i had it for a while but it was a pain to use and never got into using it. they are uber expensive and you cant see you train but the idea is to never have to put them into the boxes when you got to a show...

 

http://www.train-safe.de/index_en.php?section=17

 

cheers

 

jeff