Building a Kitwood Hill Models 45ft Gallows Turntable

[elwoodblues]

   

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[elwoodblues]

Here's my Kitwood with the scenery, enginehouse, etc:

This is for the yard switcher.  I want to build a small coal dock in that triangle at the bottom left of the photo, and add a water column on the other side of the turntable lead.

add  The thing to notice is the turntable pit.  The top of the pit matches the turntable deck, so rails sitting on the top of the pit align with rails on the turntable.  BUT that means you have to plan for that height when you set the turntable into position.  The thickness of the pit top is about the same as tie thickness, but that means the turntable pit's top sits that same height above the ground level that the track ties sit on.  If you look carefully, you can see how I handled that with the scenery. 
dave

Dave,

Thanks for the installation tips, was wondering how to do that.  Was going to wait till it was built to figure it out but your explanation will help a lot.

[elwoodblues]

Ron, enjoyed reading the story.
Good looking kit that should keep you busy for a while.

Risk, glad you enjoyed the story and you are right, it will keep me busy for awhile.

[Pennman]

Ron,

I have always liked this type of turntable. I have seen some
with a round rock wall inside the bottom cavity and weeds growing up the walls.
It appears that would be rather difficult to do in this build, as there isn't
much room. I'm sure you will do it justice. Carry onward.

Rich

[elwoodblues]

Let the build begin. . . .

Construction has started on the turntable build.  Because turntable builds have a bad rap this will be a step by step a la ACLTom.  So without further ado, lets begin.

Step 1 - building the spider




The pit bottom itself is composed of three pieces, shown here is the bottom of the pit.  You can see the scribes lines showing where thew spider support goes.





I figured that now would be a good time to stain them.  I used Hunterline's Tie Brown for the spider supports.





The instructions state that now would be a good time to "paint" the center of the pit where the spider goes so I figured that was good advice and stained it tie brown.





Using carpenters glue the spider supports were glued to the pit bottom and weights added on top of the spider supports till the glue dried.





The spider supports dried and ready for the next step.

[elwoodblues]

The next step will be adding the spider base.  This piece will be used to align the spider base.  It is the spindle that will transmit power to the rail.





Next step is to add the brass bushing.  This was a very tight fit and a jewelers hammer was used to coach it in place.  The spindle shaft was inserted through the bottom of the pit. This will be used to align the spider base.






The spider base glued in place.  I also stained this and the spider ring tie brown prior to installation.





Once the spider base was dry I cut out the inner ring and glued on the spider ring.





The inner blank of the spider ring was cut out and removed.  This completes the spider construction.





A close up of the spider ring.

[elwoodblues]

Step 2 - Assembling the Turntable Pit Bottom.




The kit pit floor comes with 90 degree corners but the instructions state that you can bevel the edges using a sanding drum in a Dremmel tool, so that's what I did.  





I figured that now would be a good time to add the ties for the pit rail while I could still place the outer ring flat on my workbench.  The kit comes with 25 PC ties (only 24 are required).  I glued them in place using 5-minute epoxy.  As you can see, they were glued in place at every second tie location.  As a side note, I prefer 5-minute epoxy over CA glue in this application as the wood will soak up a lot of the CA glue.   

DISCLAIMER: I think I got way to excited building this kit that I forgot to take pictures of the next steps. 





The kit came with a gazillion wooden ties.  OK, not a gazillion, but there were over 100 where only 25 were needed.  They were removed from the fret and stained before gluing in place.  Like the PC ties these were glued at every second tie.

This is where I missed taking photos.  Using the locator pins that come with the kit, I added glue to the underside of the middle pit bottom ring and glued this to the inner pit bottom.  Once dry I repeated this process to glue the outer ring with the ties to the middle rings.  You can see the locator pins at 3 o"clock and 9 o'clock.





The finished pit bottom.

Next up will be adding the ring rail.

Thanks for looking in.
 

[elwoodblues]

Ron,

I have always liked this type of turntable. I have seen some
with a round rock wall inside the bottom cavity and weeds growing up the walls.
It appears that would be rather difficult to do in this build, as there isn't
much room. I'm sure you will do it justice. Carry onward.

Rich

Rich,

I plan to use the wood walls that is supplied with the kit and I hope to add weeds growing up the walls if there is space for them.  I think that the weeds are a real possibility. 

[Rick]

Ron, you're off to a very good start.
Looks like a well designed kit.

[PRR Modeler]

Ron great progress. This is going to be awesome on your layout.

[Philip]

Great start Ron.

When you tighten the set screw on the spindle it will gall the aluminum shaft. After it is set (tightened) if you have to remove it it requires sanding. Just a heads up. Use caution.

Philip 

[deemery]

Look at the top two photos on Ron's post #20.  There's the printed circuit board rings (top photo), and then the base of the 'spider' on the second photo.  See the two holes on either side of the center post.  These two are the key to the power distribution.  The two holes line up to -2 different rings- on the PC Board.  

Later, Ron will show how the rest of the power distribution works.  But I wanted to highlight these pieces early in the build, because they're hidden later.   I'm still in awe at how well designed this kit is!

dave

[elwoodblues]

Ron, you're off to a very good start.
Looks like a well designed kit.

Thanks Rick,

It is a well designed kit with lots of photo's showing the construction sequence.  If I had one complaint, it's that there are no pictures of the frets showing what the pieces are.  I find this handy when I'm looking for a certain piece.  for this kit it's a very minor complaint.

[elwoodblues]

Ron great progress. This is going to be awesome on your layout.

Thanks Curt,  it will be front and center when you walk into the layout room.

[elwoodblues]

Look at the top two photos on Ron's post #20.  There's the printed circuit board rings (top photo), and then the base of the 'spider' on the second photo.  See the two holes on either side of the center post.  These two are the key to the power distribution.  The two holes line up to -2 different rings- on the PC Board. 

Later, Ron will show how the rest of the power distribution works.  But I wanted to highlight these pieces early in the build, because they're hidden later.  I'm still in awe at how well designed this kit is!

dave

Dave, you are giving away secrets. 

But your right, the 2 holes on either side of the center post is for power distribution to the turntable, but you already knew that.  I haven't installed them yet as they are installed later on in the construction sequence.  I to am impressed with how well this kit is designed, there is nothing left to chance.