Building a Kitwood Hill Models 45ft Gallows Turntable

[elwoodblues]

It turned out great!

Thanks Philip.

[friscomike]

Howdy Ron,

Wow, just WoW.  Thanks again for the chronicle.

Have fun,
mike

[elwoodblues]

Howdy Ron,

Wow, just WoW.  Thanks again for the chronicle.

Have fun,
mike

Your welcome Mike, glad you enjoyed the ride.

[elwoodblues]

Part 17 - Planting the Turntable

Now that the turntable is complete, the next step is to plant the turntable into it's new home.





The home for thew turntable is located in the town of Mara, the eastern end of the railroad.  As luck would have it the existing turntable hole is too big for the new turntable.  The turntable that was there is now planted in Lac La Hache (west end staging).





The "X's" are the areas to be cut out.





The access pieces of foam cut out ready for the replacement piece.





Because the new opening is an odd size with only 1-90 degree angle I made a template to mark the replacement foam piece.





The completed template.





The replacement piece id form marked and ready for cutting.  While the original foam used with I built the modules was 2" thick, I decided to use 1" foam for the replacement piece.  It will be easier to cut the circle in the 1" thick foam.  The thickness will be sufficient to hold the weight of the turntable with a locomotive on it without deflecting.

In case anyone is wondering the washer was for the camera, for some reason without it the camera wouldn't auto focus.

[elwoodblues]

The new piece of foam cut to size.  The million dollar question is, will it fit? 





Well it didn't quite fit, I could have forced it into place using brute force and an item of mass destruction, but that would have been too easy.    Actually all it needed was to trim a very thin piece along one side and it fit like a glove.

To figure out where to make the hole for the turntable I needed to mark the centerline of the approach track to the turntable.





With the centerline established It was time to mark the circle.  To draw out the circle I used the 438th largest compass in the world.  Ok, it was a 12" compass that woodworkers use.  Instead of using a pencil, I used an x-acto knife with a no. 11 blade to mark the hole.





Once the circle was marked out I made multiple passes with a thin box cutter knife until the hole was cut out.  This was then glued into place using polyurethane construction adhesive that is safe for foam use.





After some fine tuning trimming the hole the turntable slipped into place.





As you can see, there was a small issue with the height alignment of the rails.  Getting off the turntable probably isn't an issue, but you would need one heck of a running start to get onto the turntable. 

[elwoodblues]

Wood spacers of the correct height was used to elevate the turntable to the proper height.





As you can see, the turntable rails are at the correct height.




The finished product.

This now concludes the turntable build.  I do plan to add ballast/dirt/weeds to the pit but I don't know when that will be done so when I get to it I'll record it on my layout thread.

I would also like to thank everyone for the comments and suggestions, the comments kept me motivated and the suggestions really helped a lot.

Thanks for looking in.

[Rick]

WOW Ron, great job of cutting out the old foam and fitting the new piece.
Get the height right was creative too.
Looks great!

[PRR Modeler]

Excellent job Ron. Please post a video of it in use when you get to that point.

[Larry C]

Ron great job on the TT surgery. It's usually quite daunting cutting into the foam of an established area on your layout; at least it was for me. Looks excellent and hopefully it works as good as it looks.

[friscomike]

Howdy Ron,

Congratulations on the installation of the turntable.  It looks terrific.  Thanks for taking the time to show your process for the build and installation.

Have fun,
mike

[Philip]

Looks great Ron.

Are you going to make some pushers for it? I made mine and found out it's better to add them after the scenery is attached.

[deemery]

Looks great Ron.

Are you going to make some pushers for it? I made mine and found out it's better to add them after the scenery is attached.

What I did was to remove the TT drive, so I can easily remove the bridge when working in that area.  Eventually, I'll go back and re-install the drive.  And I do need to add pushers on mine; I realized when I was positioning my coal dock that I needed to make room for those to swing and clear the dock.

dave