Building a Kitwood Hill Models 45ft Gallows Turntable

[Jerry]

Ron it looks natural a great job!

You can build one for me anytime !!

Jerry

[elwoodblues]

Ron it looks natural a great job!

You can build one for me anytime !!

Jerry

Thanks Jerry,

I'm actually impressed that I started and completed the kit in one go. 

[elwoodblues]

Part 15 - Putting it all together.





Last part of finishing the bridge is to solder the wires from the bridge rails to the turning plate.  I cut the wires as short as possible leaving a little slack as this will need to be stuffed into the center box  (That is my technical term for it ),





The turning plate in it's final location.  The instructions state that this should not be glued in place as it will make it very difficult to remove if you ever need to service it.  In my typical fashion I ignored this and glued in in anyway.     I glued it with Arleene's tacky glue as it remains pliable.





Next step is to install the bridge to the pit.  The instructions call for two washers to be installed over the shaft, not sure while they are needed, but I believe that they are for the next step.





Next up is the coupling.  This is bored out to match the two different shaft sizes between the motor shaft and the turning plate flange.  I turned the turntable upside down to install the coupling to the turning plate shaft.  This gives enough pressure on the plungers to seat on the turning plate rings.





Next step is to install the motor.  This was easily done by installing the shaft into the coupling and tighten the 2 grub screws.  Note that there is a flat part on the motor shaft so I made sure that one of the grub screws was tightened onto the flat part of the shaft.





Last step is to screw the motor plate to the motor mounting assembly with the supplied screws.

This completed the build.

[elwoodblues]

Part 16 - The finished product and final thoughts.

Thought I would start with a couple of pictures of the finished kit.








Final Thoughts

Building turntables always bring challenges due to the exacting nature they need to be built to.  I was prepared for a slow and exacting process with lots of filing and sanding required.

This kit was very well thought out and very well designed will all aligning aids included (well most of them in my case).  No "special" tools are required to build it. Anyone with the basic selection of tools can build it.  The "fancy" tools help but are not required.  This kit can be built with wood glue, an exacto knife, sandpaper and clamps.  I was surprised with how little sanding that was required as 95% of the sanding was sanding where the pasts were separated from the carrier sheet.

The only issue I had was that the track alignment jigs were not included in the kit as the instructions stated that they were in the "gear" bag whish wasn't in the kit.  The motor that came with the kit is a direct drive so the gears were not included (the gear box is part of the motor).  The only issue I had was really self-inflected.  I had an issue with the motor mount assembly as the parts I had in the kit for this dis not match the instructions, so I spent some time figuring it out.  I found out later that at the back of the instructions there was a section for the "MK4 replacement motor arrangement" that showed the construction sequence for the parts that are in the kit.  I guess the lesson here is to read "ALL" of the instructions before starting.  My usual way of doing things is to partially read the instructions and then start.

I must say this was a really fun build and would recommend this kit regardless of skill level to anyone wanting a gallows turntable.

While the build portion of this project is done I still need to ballast the pit and plant it on the layout.  I'll show that portion on this thread so that it will be a complete start to finish thread.

Thanks for looking in.

[Jerry]

Ron just an outstanding job.  Great tutorial also.

Jerry

[robert goslin]

Looks great Ron, and sounds like you enjoyed doing this kit.
You said you worked some things out for yourself, but eventually found the instructions on how to do it with particular motor you were given. Did the way you did it line up with those instructions ?

Looking forward to you finishing off the pit area.

Your very detailed tutorial would be a big help to anyone building it.

[deemery]

Building that kit was a pleasure, and it was fun to re-live that experience through your build thread.

dave

[Rick]

Ron, take a bow, that looks excellent!
It will look even better when you ballast the pi.
Great job!

[PRR Modeler]

Truly an outstanding job building the TT Ron

[elwoodblues]

Ron just an outstanding job.  Great tutorial also.

Jerry

Thanks Jerry, I had fun documenting the build. I looked at it as part of the build process. 

[elwoodblues]

Looks great Ron, and sounds like you enjoyed doing this kit.
You said you worked some things out for yourself, but eventually found the instructions on how to do it with particular motor you were given. Did the way you did it line up with those instructions ?

Looking forward to you finishing off the pit area.

Your very detailed tutorial would be a big help to anyone building it.

Thanks Rob, I did enjoy the build and yes the way I did the motor aligned with the instructions.

[elwoodblues]

Building that kit was a pleasure, and it was fun to re-live that experience through your build thread.

dave

Dave, glad you enjoyed re-living the experience.

[elwoodblues]

Ron, take a bow, that looks excellent!
It will look even better when you ballast the pi.
Great job!

Thanks Rick, I'm looking forward to installing the turntable.

[elwoodblues]

Truly an outstanding job building the TT Ron

Thanks Curt.