WEST ORTON

[Steve M]

Some very basic scenic foundation work on the lift up section.

2021-08-12_01-45-30 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

[bulleidboy]

That looks like a fair chunk of scenery to lift up - I hope the hinges are up to it? Although I don't use it, my lift-up section has dropped fractionally on one side. When built, you could not detect with your finger the joint in the rails, now there is a distinct bump in the track - a loco will go over it, but I'm going to have to fit a new thicker bolt (12mm replacing the ten), but having the section perfectly placed before drilling out a new hole.

[Steve M]

It’s not heavy at all Barry. The original flap was a piece of 9mm ply with a thin support frame - all I did was move the base under the supports and add the bridge level to to top of the support. The two river banks are polystyrene with a single layer of plaster bandage and the bridge abutments are hollow.
I will be adding a girder bridge to the track bed but that will be removable (held by magnets) so my midsize hinges should be up to the job.
When I get a chance, I’ll add a photo of how I support the lifting end to keep alignment.

[Steve M]

The ‘low detail’ lasercut bridge from WWS arrived this morning. I’ve only had time to test it’s location.
It has to be widened to span three tracks so the base grid has been sliced up. I’ll need to cut new top beams and offset the sides but it could look quite effective when finished. I do have to straighten the gentle curve that the bridge sits on, which could be interesting.

2021-08-13_12-54-40 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

[bulleidboy]

That looks great Steve - I agree it will look very effective when finished.

[cheshire lines]

Looking good so far.

[Chops]

Be still, my beating heart. Fabulous work. It appears to be part of a lift gate? Bridges are so fascinating, because without them, even a simple log over a stream, mankind would never have spread to the four corners of the globe.

[Steve M]

Yes Chops, is the hinged lift up section for the shed door.

Having to fit a triple track into a double bridge always meant I would have to do some ‘creative’ cutting, so after liberating the two edges of the base panel, I recreated the pattern of girders under the tracks in grey primer.
The technique is: paint the baseboard black, mask all the cross girders and spray grey. Unmask and wash the car while it dries. Mask the longitudinal beams, spray grey and wash the other car while it dries.

The result is a representation of the beams under the track ready for track laying.

2021-08-15_02-10-07 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

[RogerB]

Absolutely amazing attention to detail. Wonderful indeed. R-

[Walkingthedog]

Clever stuff.