Building a Kitwood Hill Models 45ft Gallows Turntable

[Philip]

Great job on the rail! I would have butchered it doing it like that. I used a bending jig similar to fast tracks with N scale track

Philip

[deemery]

Great job on the rail! I would have butchered it doing it like that. I used a bending jig similar to fast tracks with N scale track

Philip

On mine, I first curved the rail with the Fast Tracks jig, and then used the 'inner' and 'outer' jigs to make sure the ring was in alignment.  That combination worked -very well-.

dave

[elwoodblues]

Great progress, Ron.  Its looking fab.

Cheers, Mark.

Thanks Mark.

[elwoodblues]

Great job on the rail! I would have butchered it doing it like that. I used a bending jig similar to fast tracks with N scale track

Philip

Thanks Philip, the rail installation went easier than I expected.

[elwoodblues]

Great job on the rail! I would have butchered it doing it like that. I used a bending jig similar to fast tracks with N scale track

Philip

On mine, I first curved the rail with the Fast Tracks jig, and then used the 'inner' and 'outer' jigs to make sure the ring was in alignment.  That combination worked -very well-.

dave

Dave, mine came pre-bent. 

[elwoodblues]

MOre progress today . . . . . .

Part 5 - Fitting the spring plungers



This was really quite easy.  The instructions state that this should be a press fit so that the spring plungers don't get damaged during installation that could effect their operation.  In order to do this I needed to ream out the two holes in order to achieve the "pressure fit".





The inside of the spider showing the spring plungers.  This is used to transfer power from the turntable to the turntable bridge using the supplied PCB ring supplied with the kit.





I decided now would be a good time to solder the leads to the plunger before it got really difficult after the gearbox gets installed.

[elwoodblues]

Part 6 - Gearbox and Motor Assembly.

Ok, this is where things get interesting. . . . . .



These are pictures taken from the instructions showing the gearbox and motor mount details.  The top plates and motor doesn't match with came with my kit.  The shaft on the motor I got had a gearbox with the shaft 90 degrees in relation of the motor.  Also included in the kit was a coupling but no gears.

After doing a dry run with the parts I have I found out (realized?) that my motor was a direct drive that attached directly to the turntable bridge shaft using the supplied coupling.  I'm guessing that this is a later change that didn't require any gears, which makes things a lot easier, but didn't make it into the instructions.





When rest fittings the pieces I found that they required a little too much force to seat them in the slots on the turntable base so I use a flat file to thin the tabs a wee bit.  These are the 2 side supports with gussets glued together.





The side supports glued in place.





The motor base plate blued to the side supports.

[elwoodblues]

There was a secondary motor support that the motor is attached to.





The coupling attaches to the motor shaft using 2 grub screws.  The coupling came machined to match the motor shaft and the turntable bridge shaft, which are different diameters.





The motor is attached to the "gear box" using 6 screws.  I haven't attached the motor yet.  It will probably be the last step to be done in the construction process.

[elwoodblues]

Part 7 - Bridge Structure Assembly

As usual the pieces were pre-stained and allowed to dry before assemble.  One thing I really like about alcohol based stain is that they dry quickly. 




construction starts with gluing the bridge shaft supports to the two bridge stringers along with the spacer pieces at each end of the bridge.  The instructions state "that is important to keep the bridge square at all times "neon flashing lights     OK, Maybe not the "neon flashing lights" but it was in bold test.  In order to do this I used some of my collections of 1-2-3 blocks to keep everything 90 degrees to each other.  I also used the PCB to make sure that it would fir where it is supposed to once the glue dried.





The weights removed once the glue had set.





The PCB removed  Now we are ready to install the bridge stringers.





The first to be install are the deep stringers, 2 per side.

[elwoodblues]

These 4 stringers are installed between the previous installed stringers.  These has a shallow center to allow for the wires from the rail.





The remaining stringers get installed along each end of the bridge (8 per end).





All the stringers installed.





The bridge was placed upside down on the bench and weights added to keep everything flat until the glue dried.





The last step is to add the 2 curved pieces that are installed at each end.





Test fitting the turntable bridge.  OK, so I kept my fingers crossed as this was the part that gave me the biggest problem when I scratchbuilt the last turntable I built.  It seemed I was worried for nothing as it spun around with no binding what-so ever.  Have I mentioned that I have been really impressed with the engineering of this kit?

Things will slow down at this point as It's back to work tomorrow.

Thanks for looking in.