Are they made so that the tubes can be run through the base blocks and sawn off using the block/footing as a guide or must the tubes be pre-cut and just glued on top of the footing blocks? Trying to pre-plan the job as I have 2 150’ kits on order (1930s style). I searched online for an instruction sheet from Rix but haven’t found anything.
I’m leaving for a trip tomorrow, before they arrive so would appreciate knowing how the piers are shortened as above before I leave if at all possible.
Is the total height of the piers 6 inches prior to any cutting? I couldn’t find that info. anywhere either…
Yes, the tubes for the piers slide down into the footing. Very easy to adjust as needed, then glue.
It’s been awhile, but my guess is 6" is the max height the piers will accommodate. You could build an additional footing to act as a foundation for the kit to gain more height.
They’re completely adjustable, up or down. There is a flat bottom piece that can be glued on after the tubes are cut. I put mine together and “sized” them height wise upside down so the tubes stick out the bottom (allowing for the bottom thickness), then cut them flush with an exacto knife. there were some that I cut too short and I glued another flat larger piece of styrene on the bottom as a foundation.
Thanks M.! I guess I should have asked if the tubes slide all the way through the footing blocks.
i.e. do the blocks have holes all the way through them? Have you ever cut the footing block shorter rather than the tubes? I’m presuming the instruction sheet when it arrives is clear?
Thanks very much Mike and HO modern modeler. Now I can plan while I’m on the trip. The overpass will fit (form) a lift out over a hidden track (parallel to the track). I needed to try several height ideas to allow for hand clearance and now I can go do that tonight.
Building my two 150 ft. overpasses now. I need to decide whether to do two separate 21" sections and have them pull apart as separate lift outs on a block of foam OR if they’d hold up to handling better glued together into one 42" overpass.
Will the male/female street ends/girders and the rail pieces pull apart and go back together repeatedly without damage or would it be best to glue it all together (both overpasses) to begin with?
Think lifting (a 42"lift out above hidden track) it full length would be plenty light enough with the foam giving anti- flex support?
The instructions seem to indicate that one might prefer to glue the full length together lst but they aren’t addressing the lift out scenic module thang.
How long are yours if you lift them up and out sometimes?
If you are really worried about it coming apart from handling often, glue a 3/8 x 3/8,square pine,in between the concrete girders, or the steel girders, so they won’t be seen. [:)]
To get everything set square, it will be easier if there’s just a single length of over pass, all one piece. You can do them separately, but then you have to disguise the joint, a more difficult task, especially if it’s to be removed regularly.
Thanks. I didn’t realize at this stage of construction that there would be a gap if I try to keep the two sections separable. If that’s the case, no gap wins, doing it all 42" in one piece.
Capt. send them an e-mail, they will get right back to you and answer any question, Rick Rideout is the man to e-mail. He’ll have all the info for you.
As someone else advised earlier, you may want to consider adding additional stiffeners made out of wood along between a couple of the beams. I rarely move mine and I made sure to glue it thoroughly when built. However, if you plan to move yours regularly, having a couple of sticks to help keep things together concealed underneath would be good peace of mind. Use Goo, E-6000, or something similar over that length with two dissimilar materials to account for differential expansion rates and you should be good.
It will be easier to install these before you glue the crossbeam support for the top of the piers to the underside of the roadway beams.
Ok a report and a question (isn’t there always at least one?
I see to have a few extra parts left over. Do extra parts come in the 150’ overpass kits? (I used 2).
I have 7 completed piers with 3 holes ea. This calls for 21 columns/poles. I have 4 left over. I can see including extras as this it the part that may get cut to shorten them for installation on the layout. But… I also have 8 flat bottom pier pieces and 16 (!) flat 3 holed flat cover pieces for the pier foundation and support pieces left over.
ARE these extra parts or am I missing something in the instructions? My wife proof read them to be sure I wasn’t missing anything and we came to the same conclusion that they SEEM to be extra parts.
Can anyone clarify this for us? Mr. Beasley perhaps? I thought perhaps the bottoms of the foundation block assemblies might use the other solid plates to make a better mounting to the layout surface…?
Once I’m sure of what’s going on, I’ll start installation of the overpass on the layout.
I don’t have the instructions where I can immediately locate them to check and couldn’t find a copy online. I strongly suspect those are just extra pieces, maybe for stacking the bottom rectangular concerete piers up? So long as you have enough parts to do the piers the way you want, you should be good.
If I remember correctly, all the parts come on a couple identical sprues. If that was the case, then it was probably more cost effective for them to just give you the sprues then it would be for them to cut the exact number of parts you needed off the sprues and retain the remainder.
Okay, if you’re going to lose sleep over this…I don’t know which one of the kits you have, but I built the modern bridge and I know I had parts left over. But I used them for other things.
I also have two of the earlier style bridge kits, the ones with the green railings. For the three pier assemblies both kits have 8 identical sprues. The 9 posts require 18 half-pieces. There are 3 per sprue, for a total of 24. So you should have 6 halves left over per kit.
The three foundations are made up of 6 half pieces. There is 1 half piece per sprue or a total of 8 supplied. So that gives you 2 extra halves per kit.
6 of the top/bottom pieces with the 3 holes are required. I believe that each spue has 2, so that would be a total of 16, or 10 extra.
3 of the similar pieces without the holes are required. Each sprue has 1 for a total of 8. So there are 5 extra.
The support beams requires a total of 6 half pieces. With the 8 sprues you end up with 8 halves, or 2 extra.
I believe that all the different kits use the same pier parts, regardless of what the deck looks like (modern or early), so unless I miscounted you should have the same number of parts left over for each kit you built.
Rix sells individual bridge part kits, so the benefit of the extra parts is that you can buy some of the individual parts and combine them with your left over parts to either extend the bridge you have or build an aditional one, possibly of another style depending upon what deck parts you purchase.
Thanks Maxman. I can sleep now I did “move on” and started to plan the on layout install. I’ve received extra parts before with other (Walthers) kits but never such a wide array of parts counts, so it just seemed odd.
Now I know and so will others. Thanks for the specifics.
I did “move on” and started to plan the on layout install. I’ve received extra parts before with other (Walthers) kits but never such a wide array of parts counts, so it just seemed odd.