Rail Rack

[eTraxx]

Ok. Not up to Finescale standards .. BUT .. trying hard to boost the standards for my model railroading.

O scale Rail Racks - work in progress. That's Atlas Code 100 rail on the racks. Drilling the holes sucked. I broke at least four drills. I was going to use a Tichy pallet but the styrene was full of pits .. so I made one out of stripwood .. tie plates (rusty of course) to be both on it and around. The problem is .. after seeing Anders' Blacksmith shop I want to add .. stuff .. crate of spikes .. 55 gal barrel with trash ....

[lab-dad]

Looks like a darn good start to me!
Keep going!
Just dont get silly.

Try a little WD-40 when drilling, might help....
-Mj

[Hauk]

Great looking detail. Do you know why they stacked rail on different heights like that?

For the drilling, the section of the rail might be thin enough to use a starter drill.



Regards, Hauk

[Junior]

Looks really great to me and the barrel and the box shouldn´t be a problem for someone with your skills. If you really want to "Take it to Town" as they say in the U.K. you could add some nail holes in the pallet and some nails where the missing board was located. Easily done with some stranded wire (thin gauge).

Anders

[eTraxx]

Great looking detail. Do you know why they stacked rail on different heights like that?

For the drilling, the section of the rail might be thin enough to use a starter drill.



Regards, Hauk

Hauk. That was simply so they workers could remove it from the rack one piece of rail at a time. The rail rack I made was based on one from a book published in 1918. I wrote an article which shows others .. from a book published in 1903. I had David Eblen comment on the Southern Pacific ones. David had worked on the SP for 38 years and had never seen one. These days they just toss spare rail on the ground .. at best on a couple of ties. I think that in that early part of the 1900's .. the railroads were more apt to spend time and money on making things 'pretty'

Huh! That's an excellent suggestion. The first thing that came to mind was .. just how small can you get those? The holes I drilled in the rail were about .016-.022 in (ranged because I kept breaking the others!). Found that you can purchase a #000 Center Drill with a body Dia of .125" (That would work since it would fit the collet for my Proxxon mini-mil); a pilot Dia of .020" and pilot length of .030". Just measured the rail and the web is .030" ..

Well thanks! That would work perfectly - found that Sherlinedirect.com sells one for $9 (plus shipping). Ha. Amazon sells one .. for $2.30 .. but $6.92 shipping!

[eTraxx]

Made a tarp from Magic-Sculpt, weathered it and tossed on some tie plates. Let it dry overnight and spritz some matt on to cut down the sheen. Some more weathering/wash as later of course ..

[Jim Kottkamp]

It looks like you need better drill bits.  Let me suggest you get in contact with McMaster-Carr.  Just Google that name and you will enter an unreal world of tools of all kinds.  Type in Drill bits and it will bring up thousands for options (I'm not kidding).  I would recommend you use Tin (Titanium Nitride) coated drill bits.  There are 3 coatings harder than TiN coated, but I find TiN coatings work for most applications.  Even better call McMaster-Carr (number's on the web) and tell a representative what material you are drilling and they will provide a recommendation which will include the angle for the cutters on the end of the bit.  Their prices are not bad - especially considering you can use one bit instead of 2 or 3 to drill a hole.  Don't let small sizes bother you...they have just about everything.  Also I have TiN coated 0000 (.015"), 000 (.020"), 00 (.025) starter drills...I've had them for over a year.  Also get ready for FAST delivery.  I live in Virginia, McMaster-Car is in Chicago and I get what I order the next day via UPS ground!!!  They have to have a catapult right into the UPS shipping faciliaty!

[eTraxx]

Jim. Thanks for the suggestion. I have been to McMaster-Carr before but hadn't thought about them for drill bits. I'm there now .. what fun!

[Tom Neeson]

Fast?...They're beyond fast, I ordered some nuts and bolts or something (actually can't remember) and it
was sitting on the shop break table two hours later. They must have some type of courrier service, someone
told me a guy in a pickup truck dropped them off.

Tom