Since getting back in the hobby a few years back I have not really made any mistakes of note. Until now.
I needed a bridge for a spot on a hill, on a curve, to span several inches. Couldn’t find a pre-built to fit the bill so I thought I’d build one. I bought some Micro Engineering girders of various sizes along with some laced girders, I-beams, channel steel and a few other bits. I guess I must be somewhat anal as I wanted all the proper cross bracing in place, even though no one could see the guts, I had to build it right.
I go to put it in place and low and behold the clearance was to low for the tracks below. I scratched my head to figure out where I had gone wrong. I had been on a rail bridge engineering sight and had determined the girders I had chosen were not heavy enough for the span after I had changed the position of the supports. The new girders, heavier girders were much higher, so thus the loss of clearance.
I spent a lot of time cutting and gluing all that internal support work (that would never be seen) and I must say it looks almost as good as my ready made Exact Rail span. Oh well the replacement is about 50% complete. I have plans to try and construct some grand spans down the road and these are good practice.
I keep asking myself why am I building the bracing that no one will ever see. Now where’s Lucy?
That’s a tough lesson, Brent, one which I essentially duplicated throughout the benchwork of my current layout build. I forgot to include the height of my outer 1X4 box frame members when cutting and installing the first twenty legs or so, and it wasn’t until I inverted the frames and began to screw them together that I felt something was odd about the height. The tops of the frames didn’t come up to the tape I had placed all around the perimeter of the hipped roof to indicate where the tops of the frames would be…IF I had cut the legs long enough. Once I recognized my error, it was too late to go back AFAIWC, so I just started whistling and carried on. No biggie, just a short layout 3.5" shorter. I even left all the tape markers on the walls for a few months to let the lesson sink in.
Nice car. Is that a Rapido? If so, I bought three to ride behind my Selkirk. I left Selkirk sitting on the bridge of the turntable after measuring it for you. Why couldn’t Walthers have built a 95’ turntable?
Beautiful work, Brent, You may consider yourself stupid, but I don’t.
I’m a “returnee” as well and believe in and have experienced the “learn more from mistakes than successes” axiom. I will guarantee you that you’ll build your future bridges more confidently and better than the one you referenced and that you’ll never, ever have a clearance problem again!
Everything in life is a learning experience. Been there a lot of times. Looks great on paper until it is put in practice only to find out something went wrong somewhere. Deal with the issue and persevere. Like the Marine corp motto. “Overcome and adapt”.
The old saying goes like this. When your up to your butt in alligators, you sometimes forget the main objective was to drain the swamp.
A slight change in grade and taller abutments would do alright and think about sinking the lower tracks to clear the bridge.
Because you know it’s there. And, after all, whose opinion is more important? And who is your harshest critic?
Tell you what. Run my Tichy flatcars over your bridge, and use a mirror or whatever to look up from below. You’ll see all the exquisite bridge work, and also the completely unseeable brake rods and lines under my flatcars. And we can say to each other, “Nice work.”
Crandell I guess I’ll never be alone in the OOPS! department.
Ya, it’s a Rapido coach. I have eleven of them. My BLI C&O 2-10-4 pulls them up my grades like nobodies business. I wonder how the Selkirk will do when I get one. A 100’ turntable would be good to have, though I don’t think we’ll ever see one. This one in Field looks like it was made specifically for the Selkirk.
Thanks for the support everyone. After my initial AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!! I was not that upset and had a good chuckle at my goof. I worked for the Government all my life, so it only makes sense that Government like operations carry on into my modeling.[(-D]
I like the fact I can share my tragedies as well as my triumphs with all of you. Hopefully there will be more of the latter down the road.[(-D]
A new bridge is well underway and this time it will do the job.
Mr. B
I think I will carry on with the unseen details. You are right when you say “we will know” No blocks of wood holding those girders together for me thanks. I installed a lot of detail inside my grain elevator when I built it and haven’t had the roof off since.[(-D]
Stupid is when you get tired of one turnout giving you problems after exhausting every way to fix it. so you “lose it” and reach in and yank it off the layout…only to realize it was soldered in a series with several others. (all hand laid). I know. I got to spend several hours correcting the whole mess. That’s stupid… Dan
Lucy no longer charges 5 cents, because of the internet , she is struggling to make ends meet, unlike those guys, she has a brick and mortor 2 x 4’s and plywood she has to maintain, so she has raised her fee to $5.00 (no discounts) and she cannot match pricing on the internet. Sadly her booth will probably close soon, like the hundreds of other LPS’s (local psychiatric shop) around the country. The profession is dying!
Nice Bridge Brent, it matters not that the detail cannot be seen, you know it’s there.
My other hobby is building 1/25 models, leaning heavily towards commercial/truck/equipment. Once a model is finished and on the shelves, the hoods seldom get opened. But still, I add detail under there, and do whatever is needed to make sure the hood opens and closes correctly.
Its partly the building process itself I do it for, and partly I like to know I had built an accurate model. Someday, I’ll save all the bother and just glue a hood shut. Someday. Enjoy the fact you built a beautifully detailed bridge. Dan
Nah, that ain’t stupid - it’s dedication to detail, with a little math error thrown in.
Here’s my definition of “stupid”: I put in about 7 hours’ worth of effort painting and lettering a caboose for my private shortline. Took extra time to make sure the decals were perfectly snug with no air pockets under them. The sun was getting a bit low in the sky, so I grabbed an aerosol can of Dullcote and stepped outside to spray it. As soon as I pressed the nozzle, my caboose body got a giant swath of gray primer on it![B)]
Lucky for me, the body shell plastic was unharmed by the paint and I was able to slowly peel that side clean over a 2-hour period.
