Black Bear Construction wooden Deck Truss bridge kit.

[barrymk]

For a few weeks now I've been building, off and on, a Black Bear Construction Deck Truss bridge kit.  The kit comprises quality stripwood, NBWs and piano wire.  It comes with extensive instructions and a superb plastic jig for the sides.  I've had to build trestles for the approaches with a jig I made based on plans by Malcolm Furlow and I've just finished building the deck itself today.  I only have now to install hundreds of NBWs, fit the iron truss roads to the bridge and install into the Rio Bozo gorge.  I took the shine off the piano wire with acid etchant and am currently waiting to see if I can get a sample to naturally corrode in a strong solution of sea salt before fitting. Although there were a couple of occasions when I thought I was losing the will to live (installing the inner, top angle braces was one) I'm really pleased with the result so far and definitely recommend Black Bear's products. 

Here's the spot it has to cross


The bits


80 foot trestle bent with 82 NBWs one one side alone


The bridge so far


I reckon another week or two before I can fit it and then get started on the river and waterfalls.

[Jerry]

Nice job so far.  The bents are perfect.

I just started to grain wood for one of his Trestle's in On30.  Your right there is a lot of NBW in these builds.

Keep us posted as it moves along.

Once again nice build Barry.

Jerry

[barrymk]

Thanks Jerry, not sure perfect is right but it's as good as my slapdash, impatient methodology allows! Now I have to work in 3 dimensions to figure how it all goes together and how to build/install foundations and connections between the truss bridge and trestles. Anyway, here's last night's progress.

Truss rods in! Yippee!




Deck added

[Dave K.]

Nice...like the use of piano wire.

[barrymk]

Cutting and fitting those truss rods was challenging to say the least! I'd never have scratchbuilt this so the kit was a godsend. I don't know why but wood kits try my patience much more than building from scratch.

[rrkreitler]

This is a great looking model. I really like the color. I am not familiar with these kits, did you color the wood or did it come that way?

The truss rods really add a nice level of detail. For me wood trestles are always a bit daunting at the outset and there tends to be a lot of fiddly bits (NBWs come to mind, trestles always have a bunch) but once you get through it, wooden trestles look great and really add to the scenery.

[barrymk]

Thanks Dave.  I distressed all the timber with a little tool I made from a piece of brass with a micro saw blade soldered to it. You put it in the vice and just draw the stripwood through. Then I sanded it lightly to get rid of the fuzz.  I coloured the wood with a 10% solution of black aniline dye in isopropyl.  This is like alcohol and india ink but I can't get alcohol based indian ink here.  You could stop there if you want an aged, silver looking wood but I brushed it then with my creosote solution, a dark brown aniline dye let down with isopropyl again.  It gives a faded creosote look slightly lighter than it appears in the photos.

[Jerry]

Barry like I said.  Perfect.  That is one nice looking build.

Jerry

[PHQRR]

Wow! Great looking bridge!

[barrymk]

Thanks Al

Here's the finished deck and truss bridge married together. Now for those pesky trestles and NBWs.

[Bntrainmaster]

Barry,
Very very nice looking bridge.  Love the color.

[barrymk]

Thank you Bart.  I tend to work as I go but this time I coloured all of the truss bridge pieces at the start.  Then I had to use different bits of whatever stripwood I had to augment it and coloured these as I needed them.  Mainly basswood here but the ties are red spruce pieces I bought a few years ago in a model shop here in England when basswood was hard to find. Luckily the lack of a totally uniform colour seems to have added to the appearance of a reasonably well maintained but old, wooden structure.