Noah's T-Trak Module

[cteno4]

Lol, I was thinking of those car centric, Internet focused, DVD and video game loving parents where your rotten creative, problem solving, hands on activity will seem a prevision! You should be ashamed of yourself!

 

;-p

 

Jeff

[Staffy]

Very impressive results for a 9 year old, better than I could do!

 

How are you constructing the modules themselves please?

[tossedman]

Here's the kind of modules we built. Easy. http://ttrak.wikidot.com/1x3s

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

Great simple design and less fiddly than the standard ply box! Insetting the ends is also nice as you get two nice little inset handle places to better grab a module by.

 

I did some tests like this and it worked really well. I used birch ply for the front and back to cut down on weight and cost as well (you can then use the lowest grade for the hidden crosspieces. Also made the cross pieces 1/4" thinner than the sides so bolts could be screwed all the way in and the box just sits on the table. Also brought the front and back sides up to the top of the module so the front and back edge of the top piece is hidden. Makes for a cleaner front fascia, especially if you stain and finish the fascia, which I personally think is the best solution for it visually rather than painting,

 

I later went to the thin modules so never did a production run of these, but will next time the club wants some more if they don't want thin modules. It's a lot simpler to cut out and assemble and fewer pieces!

 

My thin modules are actually just like yours only 1" high and I rabit joint the ply top into the front and back to get a really clean front, back and top.

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

I chose these modules because they were easier for a nine (now ten) year old to help put together,  I had a bunch of 1X3s lying around and 1X3s are easier to nail together than thin plywood. Also, you don't need to add any blocks of wood for the T-nuts. I did use baltic birch plywood though as it's so much nicer than the stuff you can get at Home Depot.

 

When I win the lottery and buy a laser cutter I'll make plywood boxes.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited June 7, 2016 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

i think even all 1x3 they are better modules than the standard ply box! those inset ends are nice and just like you say very simple to build!

 

jeff

[tossedman]

Here's a module "kit". I cut out all the pieces and Noah gets to put them together (with a bit of help).

 

Here's one I've been playing with. Noah mentioned he wants to make some tram modules. Here's the first mockup. That's Unitram track and grey foam core. The foam core's about 1.5 mm too low so I'll shim it up with some styrene.

 

 

Another view.

 

 

We'll either have to make some transition modules or create a whole t-trak tram layout.  Still haven't made any corner modules yet too.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by tossedman

[Densha]

You need some catenary poles to finish it up: http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10123780

[tossedman]

Good point. We've got some LED street lights to add as well.

[Staffy]

Im amazed how quick your constructing these, Ive been working on my first one for 2 weeks!

[tossedman]

Yeah, that last one has about a half hours labour into it. Cut two pieces of foam core an put them on either side or the tracks. Plunked down some buildings and cars. Nothing's glued down, just messing around with some ideas. I've got some rub on road markings I want to add as well. The box was already built.

Edited June 8, 2016 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

Great street cars happening!

 

With these roads you can always just print them out and lay them down. Let's you play with a lot of ideas. Did my Ttrak 25mm like this. Can even get a tad of texture if you use rougher papers.

 

With regular unitrak you can make easy street track with the 3/16" foam up against the roadbed and then a thin bit of hard photo board on top that up against the track and your paper road on top of that. Then between the tracks just use a hunk of 1/4" 060 stryene strip (and road printed paper on top) and that is just the right height and nestles perfectly between the spikes.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[TimWay4]

i don't seem able to see any of the pictures in this thread and i would very much like to see them, can anyone help?

[tossedman]

Sounds like an issue for a moderator.

[cteno4]

Hmm Martijn may need to look at this. I see them on the iPad, but the enlarge picture window is broken funny with the title bar at the bottom of the screen!

 

These are embedded photos from todd's server.

 

Tim, what are you using for a browser and ISP?

 

Jeff

Edited June 8, 2016 by cteno4

[Staffy]

It's cutting the ply to size which is the most difficult part for me. The diy sheds board cutting machine struggle to cut square never mind to the mm.

[tossedman]

Todd,

 

Great street cars happening!

 

With these roads you can always just print them out and lay them down. Let's you play with a lot of ideas. Did my Ttrak 25mm like this. Can even get a tad of texture if you use rougher papers.

 

With regular unitrak you can make easy street track with the 3/16" foam up against the roadbed and then a thin bit of hard photo board on top that up against the track and your paper road on top of that. Then between the tracks just use a hunk of 1/4" 060 stryene strip (and road printed paper on top) and that is just the right height and nestles perfectly between the spikes.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

 

Printing! That thought hadn't entered my mind. Maybe I'll give that a try. Wouldn't take much to whip up some lines and arrows in Adobe Illustrator.

 

Thanks for the idea Jeff.

 

Todd

[tossedman]

It's cutting the ply to size which is the most difficult part for me. The diy sheds board cutting machine struggle to cut square never mind to the mm.

 

Staffy, go get yourself a cheap circular saw and a straight edge and cut your own. You can get them used for next to nothing.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[katoftw]

Cutting takes practice also.  I found my cutting go better over time.

[tossedman]

It does indeed take practice. I use a 12" speed square to guide the saw. Makes easy straight cuts.

 

See here.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[cteno4]

Staffy,

 

look for a small circular saw to start out with, even rechargeable ryobi will be a lot easier to handle for small cuts that a big one. Even those little 4.25" moulding circular saws are even easier to manipulate and can easily get thru 1x3 and 3/16" 4-5mm ply using a square or rip guide like todd uses. For doing longer cuts just clamp a hunk of 1x3 onto the ply, square it up with a square, and use it as a guide to make nice clean cuts (you can buy fancy rip guides like this if you get doing more that are a little easier to use).

 

The larger, heavy circular saws can get quite hard to control cutting little bits!

 

Like soldering it's not hard to learn and get decent at, just takes some practice, so just do a bunch of little chop offs to get the hang of it! Amazing amount of things can be built with a circular saw and a hand drill!

 

Jeff

Edited June 8, 2016 by cteno4

[Staffy]

Thanks gents, off sourcing a circular saw now!

[TimWay4]

Hi cteno I don't know my ISP as I only use the Internet on breaks at work, but i've tried Chrome, IE and Firefox and the image didn't work on any.

[Martijn Meerts]

Hmm.. Not seeing anything that's wrong really, could you try copy-pasting the following link into a new tab and see if you can access the image directly?

http://www.tossedman.com/images/BTrainShorty/ttrak6.jpg

[kvp]

The response headers for the url http://www.tossedman.com/images/BTrainShorty/ttrak6.jpg are the following:

 

HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Server: nginx/1.10.1

Date: Thu, 09 Jun 2016 15:00:52 GMT

Content-Type: image/jpeg

Transfer-Encoding: chunked

Connection: keep-alive

Last-Modified: Wed, 08 Jun 2016 00:08:18 GMT

Accept-Ranges: bytes

Vary: Accept-Encoding

Content-Encoding: gzip

 

Btw. these simplified ttrak frames look nice and the street scene is great! I would keep it as a permanent module. (you can convert between the two spacings by adding the conversion tracks between two ttrak modules and these short pieces could be held up by the two modules with the unijoiners only)