Cutting radii

Please, let me state right off the bat that often one person will find something easy, while another will find it impossible. I cannot repair even the simplest thing on an automobile, yet I can build a four-car garage. I’m certainly a terrible modeler. I’m going to repeat that with emphasis, I’M A TERRIBLE MODELER.

Having said that… 

I  recently read somewhere where the layout builder bought a CNC machine to cut the radius pieces for his helix. (I’m certain this was not the ONLY reason why he bought this tool). His justification was he wanted the wood perfectly round, and not jagged like when using a jig saw.

Believe me, I never miss an opportunity to buy a new tool for my shop, but this logic is a little flawed. 

I have no doubt that the above layout will be head and shoulders above anything I accomplish, but a simple, straight, piece of plywood, any thickness, will allow you to cut perfect radius pieces.

You mount your router at one end, on the center line, and measure from the bit what ever distance you want your radius to be, drive a nail or screw at that point, your pivot, and start cutting. Perfect every time. 

I’ve often done this with a skill saw. It’s LOUD when cutting tight radii, but easily accomplished.

I’ve cut huge radii, and tiny, using these methods. Out in a field. Not a CNC machine in sight. 

Benchwork is not rocket science, it’s rock science*


*This is a saying from my work implying that something is so simple cave men could accomplish it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wingedfoot Paper Part 2: Pulpwood

 On AIR1 a large, centrally located industry, was Wingedfoot Paper. As Jon Cure is fond of saying, a paper mill is the perfect Model Railroad industry. The major raw material is wood pulp. In 1952  pulpwood, cut and stacked like cord wood, was shipped to mills in a variety of cars. Nearly any car you can name was used, or modified in such a way as to become, a pulpwood hauler. Generally pulpwood was not valuable enough to travel far. The collection of pulpwood racks I have,  needs a great deal of repainting and re-lettering.  I just don’t think it’s likely to see Atlantic Coast Line cars hauling pulpwood into central WV! I have been toying with the idea of repainting cars from distant foreign roads and just adding a simplified lettering, using the premise that they are not for interchange. We’ll see. [4/19/22 this afternoon I went through the box of pulpwood cars. I think with only a few exceptions I’m going to have to repaint these flats and letter them for the AIR....
Read more

Freight House Operations: LCL and Freight Houses

 LCL is a huge source of revenue, car loading, and tonnage for railroads of the steam era. By the end of WWII numbers dropped fast, mainly due to trucks and roads. But to be honest LCL continued to be a big part of railroading. Today all that UPS traffic is LCL. There has been a lot of discussion of late about how to implement LCL  on a model railroad. My feeling is I do not want to perform a function by simply standing and counting off the seconds, pretending to off load LCL packages. What I did on AIR1 was to print up Waybills that simulated packages of LCL.  The peddler car was placed in the consist of a local, the car card for the peddler car had multiple bills in it, and as the local got to each depot, the train crew would check their LCL bills to check for a set out. You did not set out the car, you set out the BILL.  I extended this procedure for REA packages, US Mail, passengers, and now I plan to add this function for loaded milk cans, but more on all that l...
Read more

Freight House Operations: LCL from Foreign Road Freight Houses

 On AIR 1 while WM , N&W, CRR, and VGN trains had trackage rights over some or all of the layout, there were no freight houses for these foreign roads. Often in towns served by two or more competing lines one will find a freight house for each of these roads. In Winchester, VA the freight houses for the PRR and the B&O still stand today. On AIR 2 I do not plan model the extensive trackage rights as on the first layout. I plan to have these foreign roads to come on to the layout via either a short run of their track, visibly modeled, terminating at an interchange point, or simply a transfer from an off layout staging yard. In short fairly limited presence. However at each of these interchange points there should be some foreign road structures in their colors to give strong visual clues that these tracks do indeed belong to someone else. In a few cases, WM and N&W  for sure, some of these foreign road structures will be a freight house. Again, relying on the Kalmbac...
Read more