Jig

Well I finally finished the jig last week. Just to give a summary of how I constructed it. The longest time was spent figuring out how to make the jig. Since it is pretty small, I was trying to figure out how to drill the holes with my cordless drill. I would have preferred using a drill press, but I didn't want to purchase such an expensive device just for this purpose. So I came across a jeweler's precision hand drill from Lee Valley, which was perfect and it wasn't that expensive. You can see that I taped the drawing of the truss onto the wood and started drilling where the peg holes would go in order to hold the plastic in the correct shape without clamping. By the way, don't do what I did. Remember to put something underneath the piece of wood. I drilled right through the wood and into my cutting mat. Doh!

For the pegs, I used cylindrical tooth picks 5/64" in diameter. After drilling the holes, I cut the tooth picks in half and inserted them into the peg holes. The tooth picks weren't all the same dimension so I had to apply some scotch tape to make sure they fit tightly. I was pretty happy with the outcome. I'll probably use the same principle for all my jigs. I went to Michael's and purchased a sheet of birch plywood 12" x 24". It will be perfect for the bridge jig.

I was pretty excited to assemble my first truss. I thought I was careful in applying the solvent, but it still managed to seep to the underside of the truss. Of course, I didn't know this until I lifted the finished truss out of the jig. You can see the underside.

So I had to adjust my gluing technique by just applying a dab on the ends of the short plastic supports. This prevented excessive solvent from seeping all over, but it definitely took longer to put the truss together. However, I'm relieved that the results of my second attempt are decent enough that I can continue making the rest of the trusses. I held the truss above the platform to help me visualize how it would look. It's going to look great once it's completed.

Lastly, I reverted back to using the 1mm square plastic strips instead of the 1.5mm. The truss system held its shape perfectly unlike the 1.5mm square strips, which was much stiffer and didn't keep its curved shape as I hoped. It also looks like I'll only be able to make three to four arches each week.

Filler

Sorry about the lack of posts this past month. It's been difficult to find time to work on the layout with other commitments getting in the way. I thought I'd do a quick post today.

The DB logo is quite well known, but I didn't know that the name of the state corporation that controls the German railway system was DBAG until I started modeling. During reunification, West Germany's Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway) merged with its eastern counterpart, Deutsche Reichsbahn (German State Railway) back in 1994. The DB stands for Deutsche Bahn, but I only finally figured out what AG stood for today. In its expanded form, it is "Aktiengesellschaft,""which translates to "stock corporation". I always thought it was GmbH. Our German office uses the GmbH acronym. I guess it is equivalent to our Ltd, Corp and Inc which all indicate a corporation versus a partnership or private ownership.

I had often heard others refer to the old term "Bundesbahn", which initially confused me because I always thought it was just, "Bahn". As it turns out they were modeling in Era III / IV whereas I was only familiar with Era V. It took me a bit of time to sort out that confusion.

Oh I forgot to mention that I picked up the remainder of my track bumpers for the railway station. I have all ten of them now. I also received my shipment of curved turnouts, but I haven't had an opportunity to connect them to the track. I still need to build the benchwork this Spring. The drop in the Canadian dollar really made it more expensive. I wish I had bought them earlier in the Summer.