The Home Machinist!

I made a good score during lunch today, I dropped into the local metal vendor near work, and they had a chunk of this very fine expanded metal mesh in aluminum that was all bent up from shipping. I want to say it's .035" thick and has 5/16" long expanded metal "diamonds" in it, i...

I made a new post BClemens, so we don't thread jack the slip switch thread anymore.

Simple question for everyone, what is your method for grading your RR's right of way?

Weed cloth?
Gravel type and size?
What kind of environment?
Tie type?

I've seen this on Youtube, and it looked like a disaster. The track would certainly settle in softer spots, and I think the plastic will hold water against the ties and accelerate rot. My plan for my 12" gage ROW is: Clear and grade the dirt Lay down weed cloth, there is a woven tarp type stuff...

Makinsmoke has a very good point, it's all about the drainage. Using a "clear" ballast *below* and between the ties in the key. Also you can read up on "uncle Larry's wood stain recipe" and variants of it, that may work better on regular lumber instead of buying treated. I have a...

That's pretty amazing that It ran that long without needing any maintenance or repairs. You'd think the firebox would need to be cleaned out in that much time. Likely ball bearings in everything? Or it was pretty sloppy by the time the run was done.

Not much info out there, I did a google image search, and only saw one image with flags(white ones in picture above), and several that stuck American flags on there of course.

Here is the revised drawing with more meat around the top, I also increased the radius's at the triangular openings.

You're right, some of them are pretty stiff. I don't think it's an issue on the locomotive as it will have a constant weight, but I may loosen up the bores in the riding car and the bulkhead flat cars so they track better when empty.

turnout.jpg I drew up a turnout last night. This has a 40' radius in the curved portion, then I straightened it out as soon as I could so the pivot point is further from the frog than is usual. The reason for this, is that when you have a curve one way, you need to have a straight portion following...

Something I may look into...a ways down the road, is having some caps CNC lathed that will fit over the end of the axles and collar on the flanged bearings, simulating an "updated" roller style bearing cap. This could be well greased and would keep the rust at bay.

I'd say we are all good then:) Those are basically the same thing I'm using, I'd bet that those are self-aligning, but have permanently set in rust so they probably won't move much anymore. I added some meat to the top of the arches and sent the drawing file off for pricing, we'll see what they come...