Good Luck with the rebuild! I sure hope I can marry that well.
If you are just going to throw away the roundhouse and turntable, would you be interested in giving them away? I'm down in the Coatesville area, so they would not need to be shipped.
Regards,
I thought about that....I even received a few offers for some cash. I like cash.
Truth be told, I am not sure how easy it will be to just get both of them out. Since everything is covered in ballast, it is all glued extremely solid together with Elmers white glue. The wood ties used by Gargraves and ROSS only help to make the bond better to the plywood top. It was not built to come apart. Plus, I really liked to use a lot of drywall screws to hold everything together. The screw heads are buried beneath the ballast and unless you scrape off all the ballast, it is almost impossible to figure out where they are. If you can find them, the heads are filled with dried glue and rubber dust that needs to be picked out. I already tried to remove some Gargraves and ROSS (thinking I could reuse) but it did not go too well. I tried to soak the ballast first, all that did was create a sticky mess of rubber ballast....the wood ties held firm to the plywood top. I tried the "dry" approach using a wide putty knife and that split the wood ties in half. I tried cutting the switches and some track out by removing as much ballast as I could. That did not work.
I am not sure how familiar you are with the OLD Bowser turntables. I bought mine long before ROSS or Millhouse made theirs. Even before Diamond and their concrete pit walls. I need to say that the Bowser 32" turntable is basically a piece of junk. I worked a long time to get it to function properly and look like it does. They were supplied with a large plywood wheel mounted beneath the table that turned the bridge using a very small electric motor with rubber washers around the shaft pushing against the outside of the wheel. At best, it was a very bad design for these large turntables. I replaced all of that with a 12VDC TV antenna rotor mounted directly to the bridge that I wrote about on the forum many years ago. That made it rotate better but it was never exactly "centered" in the pit from the first day I bought it and that always made it tough to make sure you had the lead tracks aligned with the "right" side of the bridge for a smooth transition of the locomotive driving across the gap.
The Roundhouse is also a very old original Korber kit. The roundhouse walls are glued together and to the plywood top with epoxy. All the interior wood framing from the Korber kit is also glued to the table top. Maybe with a lot of coaxing, it may just lift off. I already tried that but honestly did not give it too much effort as it looked like it was going to break.
Possibly with a reciprocating saw and metal cutting blade two "big" chunks could be salvaged. But then you would lose all the lead tracks going into the roundhouse because they would have to be cut in half. So far, nothing is broken but I could not guarantee that to be the case trying to remove them. I also need to make sure that the rest of the layout in the center area just will not fall down with that section cut out as I would not want anybody to get hurt.
Together, it is close to a 6'x8' section of layout. You would need a pickup or full size SUV to haul it, cutting tools and a buddy to help you out. I no longer do any heavy lifting.
I do not think the turntable and roundhouse can be removed together and carried upstairs in one piece. The section would have to be carried up the basement steps, thru my kitchen and out the back door. I have a driveway down the side of my house so once you get outside it is easy. I have no outside basement entrance. What will restrict everything is a 90 degree corner thru two door openings going into the train room. It is tight.
I did hire a crew to just come in and gut the room back to the walls all in a day. They are licensed and insured. That is going to happen next month.
Not trying to be difficult as I would love someone to be able to use them, just stating the facts that the effort may not equal the gain.
Donald
