I thought I posted this the other day. Must have clicked the wrong button. Anyway,

Like Norm Abrams always says, quote "Time for a little assembly."

Starting to assemble the pieces the router cutout. I set up the magnetic assembly board, magnets and 1-2-3 blocks and a machinist vise to keep everything square.





Next time somebody says you can't glue Plexiglas to steal with liquid glue, show them this picture. It removed easily by using an X-Acto flat blade knife.



All done. A nice version of the critter shed, only mirrored. Yup, I screwed up in assembling it. It'll still work. I just have to remember to do it right on the plywood version.



Yup, it was Friday the 13th when I did this and I'm sticking to that answer.



Up next is the plywood version of the shed. Hope I don't do that one mirrored either.

Until next time.

Bernd

Quote from: robert goslin on September 21, 2026, 05:31:18 PMLooks good Bernd.

Thanks Rob. Much appreciated.

QuoteYou've still got all those fancy tools.

I don't consider them fancy. To me they are just the tiny brother of the CNC machines I got to work on during my machine tool career. As a matter of fact I'm looking at adding a fourth one. My financier called this week and told me I had $10,000.00 coming my way. Nice to be at that age were the government says you need take out money from your 401K.

I've been looking at the Makera Carvera and the Makera Carvera Air. The Carvera has an automatic tool changer where the Carvera Air is a manual tool changer. There is a fourth axis and it can do PCB boards, something I did also for model railroad items by hand. Plus it has a laser module for doing engravings. Among other things you can cut all sorts of non-ferrous metal, plastics, wood, resins and steel. Much more versatile than just a plain laser or a 3D printer due to the fact it can cut so many different types of material.

https://www.makera.com/products/carvera?variant=47673536086241

QuoteI remember that sketch that Frederic did.  Old RRL forum memories.

It was just the thing I was looking for on the quarry line.

More pics later tonight.

Bernd

Tom Wilson's mention of using a Cricut machine to do his building reminded me of the yearly Challenge Build that started the New Year and ended Tax Day, April 15th on the Railroad Line Forum. I had picked to do a scratch build project from the list of subjects. A sketch was done by a member, Frederic Testard. Another member used the sketch to make up drawings. He was kind enough to send me a set for my HOn30 quarry line to service the electric locomotives. I used a router/engraver CNC for a part of the structure that used a Cricut cutter holder. I did use a milling cutter to do some of the cutting. Before I got the Comgrow Robo router/engraver CNC I was looking at the Cricut. What I didn't like was that the software is Cloud based and you needed to be connected to the internet to use the software. A big turn-off for me in using CNC machines at home.

Fredrick's Sketch of the Critter Shed



In that set of plans there where two sheds with different dimensions. Plan "A" was a small version. Plan "B" was the larger version.



And George's drawings of the critter shed.



I redrew the drawings from George's larger version in CAD because I needed a DXF file for the CAM program. Once all that prework was done it was time to fire up the ROBO router and have at it.

I had built a rock bin from Plexiglas and I wanted to experiment with thinner Plexiglas. I had found some .120" thick Plexiglas I had laying around. I also had some .062" 3 ply Birch plywood. So, I'm making two critter sheds.



The walls of the engine shed came first.



Here I'm trying a technique I've seen on U-tube that guys use to hold things together. It's double-sided tape. I put a couple of strips down on the plywood, then peeled off the backing and placed it on the machine table.



This is what it looks like with the backing pulled off.



Next it is placed on the machine bed and the machine is homed and the "start button" is pushed.



One wall done.



One minor mistake and one major "could have been disastrous" mistake. The mistake is the window. Apparently, I didn't set the depth of cut right for the tabs on that particular window. More on this later. The "almost disastrous" is when the door was cut through. It came out and it got caught between the cutter and one of the sides. Those were a few seconds of pants pooping excitement. Luckily, it didn't break the cutter.





And 12 minutes later it's done. Now comes the fun part. Getting the parts off. I've never used double sided tape of this nature before. it's used to hold carpets down and boy does it stick to anything you apply it to. It was a major battle getting the parts off.



Next came the harrowing experience of removing the larger part of the sheet leaving the cut-out parts till last. I've never worked with such tenacious tape in my life. I now understand why one video I watched the guy swore he'd never use double sided tape again. There is another method to use that makes the use of painter's tape and CA glue with a hardening accelerator. I'll use that sometime in the future.

Here I'm carefully getting underneath the part to pry up the finished parts.



And here's the major disadvantage to using such sticky tape. Thin sections can get easily get broken trying to get them un-stuck. That part of the wall got broken off. It'll be glued back together again during assembly of all the walls.



Pulling this stuff was no fun.



The red arrows point to the "tabs" that were supposed to be left on the parts so they would not come flying out when cut through. Chalk that one up to "programmer error". Same goes for the window in the red square. The proper height for the tabs was not set correctly.



Next up was the Plexiglas version of the walls. Here it the first cut. A couple of seconds after I took the picture the cutter went "Bing". Yup, broke the cutter.



Third cutter was the charm.





All done. Those two cutters gave up their lives for the test run on Plexiglas on the ROBO router. I discovered that I was running the machine to slow. It did well at 8000 cutter RPM and 4 inches a minute feed rate. It sounded like the machine was going to blow up any minute. I expected the cutter to break at any moment too. This was pants pooping times two. It made it through. Now came the task of pulling the parts off the table. Yup, going to try the painter tape and CA glue the next time around.

A quick tape job using painters' tape to see what the finished engine shed part of the critter shed looks like.



That's it for now. More to come tomorrow night. I also have to find my pictures of the Cricut Kinfe holder I made for the Robo engraver/router.

Bernd

Back from the train show. Bought two kits and five water color pictures of the EBT.

Can't wait to get the mower. My John Deer tractor mower is getting hard to steer without power steering.

Bernd

Well I thought I'd stop in for a cup of coffee.

Speaking of mowing I purchased a new zero turn mower Thursday. A "Bad Boy" 62" deck with bagger. Never liked the quick turning of those mowers after trying out my brothers John Deer several years ago. I was all over the yard. Had a hard time going straight. These new mowers have much better hydraulic drives. Test drove the Bad Boy and was very impressed. Pick it up on the 30th of September. There goes my model railroad budget. 

Getting ready to go and help my train buddy Dan at Hemlock today and tomorrow. It's the Hemlock Train Fair. Next one will be the what used to be the Batavia show. It'll be here in the Rochester area at the Dome Arena in October.

Here's to a good day.

Bernd

Quote from: deemery on September 12, 2026, 08:42:13 PMI suspect that's right.  I wonder how long it takes his laser to do one of those wall panels, with the raster brick relief.  For me, processing time is not a business constraint, but it is time I would need to spend in the room with the laser while it does its thing.

dave

I've seen an industrial raster laser work. It doesn't take very long. The only thing that moves are the mirrors that direct the laser beam.

Bernd

This may answer your question.

The two main laser-engraving methods are:

Raster engraving – The laser moves back and forth line by line, like a printer, removing material to create images, text, and shaded designs. It's best for photographs and filled artwork.

Vector engraving – The laser follows paths defined by lines and curves, tracing the design directly. It's best for outlines, lettering, and precise cuts or marks.

I believe he probably uses raster engraving.

Bernd

Time for an update on this project. It's been close to four months of slow summer modeling with having to contend with being at Northern Command for summer activities. Then back to Central Command for 1:1 projects. I probably never mentioned of purchasing a new CNC router/engraver/mill. I purchased a Shapeoko Nomad3 last November. I don't have a picture of it on my laptop to show right now.

I'm on version 3 for the support structure for the rotary. Here's a picture of the first rotary assembly. All parts where cut out on the Sherline CNC.



Here's a video showing the rotary motion of the dumper.


 For some reason it wasn't tracking well on the magnets. One side would lift up. I wondered if I'll need to place the magnetic poles in the proper orientation, in other words all pole facing on one direction. I won't go into the why I think this.
 
So, I tore the old one apart. It looked like the outside diameter on the steel ring wasn't that round and had a few bumps on it. It was time to give the new CNC a test run on cutting 15gage (.056" thick) sheet steel. I also redrew the end-walls of both the metal and brass ones.

Here's the first one cut on the Nomad 3. Had a pucker moment when the outside diameter was cut. The cutter actually clipped the washer but didn't break the cutter. Guess my feed was slow enough to not break the cutter. It's a 1/16" dia. cutter.



The end result. Still haven't cut it out yet.



I got it all assembled again and it turned/spun/rolled, choose one, but that support structure was giving me alignment issues with the track. It "was" a piece to 2" X 4" cut out on the Bridgeport mill.

So while being bored to tears at Northern Command I started using my 3D CAD program, RS Design Spark Mechanical Explorer, to design one out of 6061 aluminum.

The old support structure.



And the 3D design to be built.




That's it for now.

Bernd

Hi Al. PM sent.

Bernd

Railroad Model Craftsman had drawings of the in the magazine many years ago.

Bernd

Rick,

Brought back some memories. My ex-wife and I rode the Silverton back 1978. We went out west to visit one of her school friends in Utah. Got to see the inside of the Tabernacle and Salt Lake. The round trip out and back home was all done with a 1977 VW Rabbit without air conditioning. Talk about a hot trip. Drove 24 straight hours from Colorado to Ohio and got to see the Arch in St. Louis at midnight on the way back east.

I'll have to see if I can find my slides of the ride on the train one of these days.

Bernd

Rob,

Try taking two magnets, one on top of the MDF and one on the bottom and then move them around. You'll see how they move jerky like. Probably much more so than your wheels or the bearings.

I'm wondering if those bearings will actually make it move smoother. Reason being is the surface area of the bearings. The MDF may be to soft and the magnets may pull down hard enough that the bearings might form a very small indent in the MDF and not roll. Try it on a piece of glass for comparison.

Bernd

QuoteThere is still some jerkiness but I thinks that's the movement of the chain going around the cogs , not the boat itself.  And I still need to add some weight to the back of the boat and stiffen the ropes holding the dinghy to stop it swinging.

The jerkiness comes from the magnet as the attraction distance widens and then narrows of the magnetic field. The the rollers might help some. A glass smooth surface under the rollers would help greatly.

Bernd

Quote from: KentuckySouthern on July 23, 2026, 09:58:59 AM

Philip, is there a link to the New Tracks video?

Yup. Here's the link.


Bernd

As I said on MRH, your power supply is causing that flicker. It isn't filtering out the AC component causing the LEDs to flicker. Us a pure filtered DC supply. Batteries supply the purest DC voltage possible.

Bernd