Model Railway Forum

Thanks Steve I will have a peruse.

You just know the roof trusses are going to be spot on - setting the bar high again Steve?

Carl L wrote: ↑Thu Dec 01, 2022 9:02 pm You just know the roof trusses are going to be spot on - setting the bar high again Steve?

Patience Carl, patience.

A glue drying day today.

So I thought I would test a small lighting effect module bought last week. I have a bench regulated power supply but when I pressed the on switch there was a Big Bang and all the shed power shut down. A bit a fault finding and the power to the shed was restored but the regulated supply was totally dead.
A little disappointing as it’s only five months old, outside the Amazon returns window and no way to contact the supplier.

Back to the trusses and they are largely complete and will be ready for painting over the weekend. I may yet add corrugated sheets to the roof but can’t decide if I will just do the side facing away from the viewer or do both sides of the roof but make them removable.

And then there is the lighting.............

The engine shed roof is far from complete but I have at least got to the end of building the roof trusses.
What follows is a long (sorry) thread of how I approached the job - it’s the way I did it although I’m sure other methods are available.

I started by basing a design on an old GNR shed and made a prototype truss to suit the size of the shed on my layout. From this I made a couple of jigs to allow me to cut the various parts from plasticard mouldings and assemble each truss with a degree of uniformity.

20221122_115811 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

20221122_123517 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

20221122_125023 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

After cutting the parts for sixteen trusses, I started the build.
First step was to add a strip of plastic to the top of the lower crossbeam so that it would sit between the shed wall but supported by them.

20221122_115848 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Then place the outside main members in place, add a gusset plate to each end, and glue in place.

20221122_120214 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Add the smaller diagonal supports then flip the whole thing over and add more plates to each of the joints.

20221122_120501 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

20221122_120933 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

I then added the smaller cross beam and the two vertical supports.

20221122_124449 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

This was repeated for each of the trusses - assembling all sixteen only took two hours. Once the glue was completely dry (overnight) I added rivets to the corner gusset plates from the Railtec Transfers 3D printed range.

7C1C2EB1-21D8-4525-8726-F641E36E4BEB by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Having tested and trimmed each truss to fit a specific location in the roof, I tackled the problem of the ridge beam. Initially I thought to cut a piece to fit each gap but realised that keeping it straight across the length of the roof would be impossible. Instead, I carefully marked the I beam with the location of each truss and milled 1.5mm slots into which the plates at the apex of each truss would fit.

20221201_102107 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

I placed a strip of plasticard along the top of each wall to act as a wall plate, set the trusses in place then slotted in the ridge beam - not easy with only two hands.

20221201_124719 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr


20221201_124719 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Finally, I added two longitudinal strips to each side where the roofing sheets would have been fixed to.

20221203_100200 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

On to painting - first off, a coat of Halfords white primer.

20221203_103617 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Then an all over wash of black before some light rusting around the corner plates.

20221205_102456 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

In that last picture you can just see the first of the light fittings that I am making to hang from the roof along with the first trial of corrugated panels to keep the dust off.

A final shot for the time being. The other thing I forgot to mention is that the whole structure just lifts off to allow access for cleaning the track.
I also added an open web truss to the underside of the central beam to make it look more cluttered.

20221205_102252 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

20221205_102333 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr