Yes, we are all glad to see the last of that. Beautiful to look at, but a little is quite enough unless one is a skier! 
"HONGZ" stands for HO scale, N scale, G scale, and Z scale.
Post your non-O scale stuff here!
Quite a solid looking roadbed!
Mark Boyce posted:Quite a solid looking roadbed!
Hi Mark,short of an earthquake that roadbed is goin nowhere ... When I pop my clogs and somebody else gets this house and garden I just hope they ain't vegetable growin enthusiasts. (Unless theres plants you can grow in concrete and stone )... ha ha 
Hey Davy! Good to hear from you! Your mason/stone work always amazes me no Styrofoam and plaster for you. You use the real deal! AWESOME!
Seacoast posted:Hey Davy! Good to hear from you! Your mason/stone work always amazes me no Styrofoam and plaster for you. You use the real deal! AWESOME!
Hi George, cheers, oh well heres a couple of pics taken at the end of play tonight. Once the cement's cured I'll get that narrow trough between the stones along the fence-side filled with soil and planted. That curve will probably be the first to get the track laid. watch this space 
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Looks great Davy! Plus how can you go wrong with a day with your grandson! Have a great time!
Hi Mike, sweltering hot here today, had some other garden chores to catch up with but got a bit more done. Started pinning fixing timbers on that curve. Pain in the butt and monotonous not to mention sore on the knees ! ,but makes the track laying much easier. Because the O gauge track is so much finer than G scale which I normally pin straight on to the timbers in the cement ,gettin the O gauge track up off the cement work makes for better ballasting. Bit of extra work but worth it. Givin it a coat of creosote as I go. 
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Looks good Davy! Don't forget to take time and sit and enjoy your wonderful backyard!
Hi Mike,will sit back and enjoy it when its finished and the trains are running.
Davy Mac posted:Hi Mike,will sit back and enjoy it when its finished and the trains are running.
Everything looks great! Looks like you have a fine looking, young apprentice engineer ready to start running some trains as well. Obviously studying track laying and ballast at thins point in his training. There is nothing better than kids or grand kids helping you! They also have some pretty darn good ideas about this stuff too!
Looks like you have a good helper. That section is starting to shape up nicely! You will be glad you made the extra effort!
Hi Guys, never got much done yesterday but made a start to laying track on that curve. Will need to take my time with this though. The O gauge track being much more flimsy than G scale is much more tricky to get sittin dead level. Been testing it with a B&O coach with 6 wheel trucks which is very track-sensitive. The least wee dip in the track and she's off the rails. So will need to get the track leveling just right. Especially on the curves.The ballast is granite quarry "dust" or as we call it in Scotland "quarry stoor". I reckon if the coach runs fine then the rest of my rolling stock should be OK....we'll see ! 
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Up early this mornin and got the outer track circuit laid and ballasted on that curve.Tested it with a French diesel loco ... running fine and no problems. So far so good. Now I'll need to lay the timbers for the inner circuit and get it tracked and ballsted too. Then I can complete the landscape work around that area and move on to other bits of the layout. 
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That’s great progress!
Davy, that just looks great! I hope the weather is still nice there and that you still have your little helper keeping you going!
mike g. posted:Davy, that just looks great! I hope the weather is still nice there and that you still have your little helper keeping you going!
Hi Mike, I'm afraid the wee helper is back at school, he was only with me because he was on holiday for a couple of days. However when the main summer holidays start in a couple of weeks no doubt he'll be with me a lot more,especially if I manage to get a circuit of track complete and a train running. Spent the afternoon edging my sittin area in that corner. Trough work all round for plants. Also did some stone step building at the other end of the layout at the access point. Weather's been great and is lookin good for another couple of weeks so fingers crossed the weather forecast is right. 
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You got some great work going on there Davy! Not only for the trains, but the garden is looking just as good! Nice stone work, I cant wait to see what's next! Can you do me a favor when you get a chance can you post a few pictures of your whole back yard again?
mike g. posted:You got some great work going on there Davy! Not only for the trains, but the garden is looking just as good! Nice stone work, I cant wait to see what's next! Can you do me a favor when you get a chance can you post a few pictures of your whole back yard again?
Hi Mike, I'll post some whole-garden pics soon. Theres a couple of places where I've decided it looks a bit bare of colour so I'm in the process of adding a few more stone troughs so that there will be even more colour next spring. The alpines are great, they've spread so well and hardly a weed gets a chance. Maintenance is so easy. A few plants gave up the ghost due to the severe winter weather we've had so they'll be replaced with hardier plants. 
Hi Guys, well quite a productive day yesterday. The left hand corner of the layout is almost complete ,now movin forward onto the back straight section and turntable area. Have to have access to the turntable pully mechanism for maintentance/ repair so have done the scenic work in such a way that I can still get at it. Took the stonework right to the edges but left a brick-wide trough. Loose bricks cover the trough then in turn will be covered by loose natural stones.
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good looking work there Davy! great idea to leave them loose in case you have to do some repairs! I like your turn table so much I have been thinking about building one for my indoor layout, we will see down the road!
Shaping up very nicely! I really like the stone work and the way you have done the little pockets of pea gravel with the plants in them. Nice looking plants too! It is all looking great!
Hi Guys thanks for the thumbs up !. Didn't get so much done yesterday as I had other must-dos to deal with ,however I covered the bricks over the turntable workings with some stones and also got the last stone step cemented in at the access from the patio at the other end of the layout. You can see in the second pic where the G scale line runs to the side of the steps next to the wee hut and underneath the O gauge track bed. Hoping to get a fair bit done today. Fingers crossed ! 
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Hi Guys ,well spent this mornin sortin out the turntable centre. Again its a situation where access for maintenance or repair might be required so I bricked around the hole where the spindle is situated leaving room to get my hands in if required .Then I made a timber cover from two bits of board pinned together with a central notch cut out for the spindle. Its already pressure treated timber, but I gave it a coat of creosote for good measure. Rough and ready joinery work to say the least but easily enough pulled apart if need be for maintenance. Put some dabs of cement at each side.Once this sets it will hold the frame in place. Then I'll fill the turntable well with fine granite chips covering the timber frame as well. Another job almost done ! 
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The turntable area is looking great!! Are you going to cover the turntable itself with something or lay the track right on it?
Looking good Davy! I too would like to know what your plan is for the turn table!
Hi Mark and Mike, the bridge of the turntable will be fitted with a timber top,bolted in place thru the 6 holes you can see drilled in the metal bridge. Then the track will be laid on top. I'm hoping to fit some kinda copper brushes or maybe small wheel fittings or somesuch soldered to the rails on the bridge that will make electrical contact with the two on/off roads . I have a couple of ideas but I'll worry about that when the time comes. I've actually got the turntable well half filled with granite chips and am about to head to the builders merchants for another couple of bags as I've run out of them. As I write this a heavy thunderstorm has just broken.First rain we've had here for weeks , Good news is its only here for this evening and then we're back to nice weather again.... fine wi me !!
That should look great!
👍 well done! Davy you should start a YouTube channel.
Hi Guys, just finished filling the turntable well with 6mm granite chips. Thats all I'll have time for today as I'm piping at a wedding this afternoon. Another clammy hot day here ,not used to this muggy weather . Still at least the sun's shinin !! 
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Been lurking around your thread lately Davey. Everything is looking great. Love the details you are putting in- which is not easy when working with rock, brick, and concrete. Creosote? Really? That stuff's been banned in the States for decades.
Some how the weather gods have things mixed up. I live in NY and we usually have great weather this time of year but this year its been raining more than sunny. Been feeling more like we are in the UK than the US.
keep up the good work and keep posting lots of photos.
Bob
Nice work Davy! Have fun at the wedding today!
RSJB18 posted:Been lurking around your thread lately Davey. Everything is looking great. Love the details you are putting in- which is not easy when working with rock, brick, and concrete. Creosote? Really? That stuff's been banned in the States for decades.
Some how the weather gods have things mixed up. I live in NY and we usually have great weather this time of year but this year its been raining more than sunny. Been feeling more like we are in the UK than the US.
keep up the good work and keep posting lots of photos.
Bob
Creosote! Yes, when I read Davy's comment I thought I hadn't seen creosote in years! I didn't know it was actually banned, but no surprise. If some folk had their way everything would be banned here! 
The turntable pit looks great that way, Davy!
Keep playing those pipes!! Both mine and my wife's folks immigrated here from Scotland generations ago, but we still like hearing the pipes. Maybe it's in the blood!
Davy
The turntable is fascinating to me. I want one badly on my build but just can't get the engineering process clear in my head yet.
Seems fairly simple but yet NOT.
But I'm cutting and pasting every picture you post on yours in a attempt to figure it out.
You build is really looking good over there.
Larry
Larry Sr. posted:Davy
The turntable is fascinating to me. I want one badly on my build but just can't get the engineering process clear in my head yet.
Seems fairly simple but yet NOT.
But I'm cutting and pasting every picture you post on yours in a attempt to figure it out.
You build is really looking good over there.
Larry
Hi Larry, the turntable ain't rocket science. The mechanism is simple enough. If you have a local scrap yard nearby /car/bus breakers yard ,go buy an old water pump mechanism or even a suitable axle end .Get a welder to weld a bridge on it (has to be level and centred of course) , All you need after that is an old rubber washing machine belt and a way to tension it and a handle to turn it.. I now have two turntables in my garden ,one on the G scale line and the one on the O gauge line. I'll dig out some old pics .Are you talkin about for the garden ? or inside ?
