A Learning Adventure in the Workshop

My son and I repaint a caboose

My son Mason and I repainted a full-size P&LE bobber caboose for a friend that is involved with the park.  The caboose and a small Porter steam locomotive are on display at the local "Riverfront Park" in Sewickley.  An easy job as the paint was not yet in bad shape.  This caboose and the Porter locomotive displayed next to it were moved to the park last year when they lost their home at Station Square in Pittsburgh.  The locomotive needs work on its black paint also, and we will be back to take care of that in a week or two.

A Close Call

I had a close call last night.

I was turning the interior of a green 19" mulberry wood end-grain bowl when suddenly the shaft of my 1/2" Crown brand bowl gouge split from its hardwood handle and kicked back toward my face.  My face and left hand got hit with shards of wood from the handle, leaving some scratches, but otherwise I am OK...Thankfully I was wearing safety glasses (I always do) and so my eyes were protected.  The tool's metal shaft is OK, just the handle broke.

I am not sure if I had a bad catch on the bowl (I don't think so), or if the handle was cracked when I started and the turning caused the split to occur.  Since the bowl is undamaged and the lathe did not hesitate, I don't think that I had a bad catch.  When I have had a catch before, it has always caused damage to the work piece...

Well, it scared me enough that I will now purchase a face-shield for my woodturning rather than just safety glasses...and again remind myself that woodworking should not be done when you are tired. 

Now I need to fix the handle on my bowl gouge.

Garden Railroad Wiring Complete

Completed the permanent wiring for the garden railroad as described in the previous post over the weekend.  It all worked out as planned.

Picture above is of the control box on the inside of the garage wall (just inside from the layout).  It is an old tool box that has been fitted with the MTS unit and the transformer inside for extra protection.  The 2-foot piece of track is used to place an engine on for reprogramming.  The power strip powers the  layout on and off with one switch.

Had a little trouble with what turned out to be a bad piece of wire, but otherwise went easily.

Photo below is of an outdoor phone-style jack next to the operator's bench.  All the operator needs to do is connect the phone-style cable off of the handheld MTS controller and the layout is ready to run.  Unplug at the end of the day and the layout is weather-proof.

Progress on the CNC Wood Lathe Project

I'm not happy with the way the initial rails turned out for my CNC wood lathe-mill project. The long rails are held to the short cross-rails with screws and nuts and small L-brackets. I just can't seem to get them to hold together as tightly as I would like, and I am afraid the vibration of the final machine will shake the screw/nut combinations apart too quickly.

So, I've scrapped the original design and I've begun making a new design for the side pieces of the railbed using plywood. I laminated the hardwood-plywood up to 1" thick, and then I used the hollow-chisel mortiser to cut 1" square openings for the long square rails. Seems like it will work, but we'll see tonight. I'm still working out the best way to secure the rails to the plywood ends with the adjustable-accuracy and a minimum of movement that I want. I'm over-building the rails a bit because my plan is to modify John Kleinbauer's design (after I have it working as John did) to allow for several different tools to ride on the tool-sled. Also, I intend to install a 3rd stepper motor on the lathe's axis through the lathe's hollow handwheel to allow for rotary motion. Will it work??? Maybe...I am sure it can be done, the question is whether "I" can do it. I'm a woodworker, not a machinist. Software to operate the rotary motion may be the hard part. Rube Goldberg, watch out!

I also made the anti-backlash nut according to John K's instructions, and I really like his design. It is simple, sturdy and I think it will work very well. I made it out of the plastic from an old router table insert that I had laying around that doesn't fit my current router table. The antibacklash-nut is ready to be mounted to the rail assembly as soon as I complete the new rails.

The stepper motors and Economy FET-3 controller board arrived from Stepperworld.com over the weekend and the parts look good. Now I need to get the old computer that I have stored somewhere in the basement functional again to drive it. According to all I have read, any old computer will do, no real computing power needed. This is good, because the old computer that I intend to use is at least 8 years old, maybe more. It hasn't even been turned on in at least 3 years.

To keep them straight in my head, I'm calling the CNC Lathe attachment that I am currently making the "Mark 2" as the "Mark 1" was the machine that I built last year with unsatisfactory results (too much vibration and wiggle in the cutter head). The "Mark 1" was not CNC, it used a fixed template for guidance. The "Mark 2" is largely a clone of John K's Wood Turtle CNC. After I have the Mark 2 operational to the point that John K took it, I will build a new tool sled for it of my own design. This will be the "Mark 3" and is my ultimate goal.

Garden Railroad Wiring Plan

Now that the garden railroad has its first function loop of track installed, I need to formalize the installation of the track power and control system.

I want to require very little equipment to have to be taken into the house after a train operation session. So, all of the equipment needs to be protected from the rain and from theft.

I am using the LGB MTS system for track power and control, and none of the parts of this system (except the trains and track) are weather-proof. So my plan is to install the transformer, control box and associated wiring into the garage that adjoins the outdoor railroad. This way when the garage is closed, the system is secure and dry.

I will run the power wires from the LGB system in the garage through a small hole that I will drill in the wall of the garage (I am very lucky that my wife doesn't get nervous when I say things like this!) to permanently attach the power wires to the outdoor track. The transformer in the garage will be permanently plugged-in to an elecrical outlet in the garage via a powerstrip with a switch on it so that the railroad can be easily turned on and off.

I will then run telephone cord from the LGB MTS box in the garage through the hole in the garage-siding, underground out to a fence post near the seating area in front of the garden railroad (phone cord is what LGB uses to attach their handset controls to the base station). I will mount a standard phone jack in a weather proof outlet box on the post. This way, all the train operator needs to do is unplug the handset from the phone jack on the fence and carry it inside at the end of the day. Everything else stays outside and is dry and secure.

This is the "plan" anyway.  Maybe this weekend I will install everything listed above.

Bill Logan's Garden Railroad Trackbed Method Modified

My son and I installed the first complete loop of garden railroad roadbed and track over the weekend. Bill Logan's flexible trackbed method works great (see early construction picture above)! I am going to paint the white part of the trackbed a dark rust color in the coming week.

I made one significant change to Bill's method. I could not find the recycled HDPE (high-density polyethelyne) material that he uses locally, so I searched Home Depot for a comparable product and found a product called "Never-Rot". It is sold as a white, expanded PVC-based trim material for houses made by Royal Mouldings. It is sold in many profiles and sizes and the basic rectangle 1"x2"x12' size is perfect for the side rails in Bill Logan's system...no cutting required! I used pressure-treated pine porch-rail stakes for the middle blocks (also Home Depot). They are cut into 1.5" lengths and screwed in place just as Bill did. I also used these stakes as the "stringers" that elevate the trackbed off of the ground.

Total cost is less than $2.00 per foot of finished trackbed (excluding the cost of track).

The whole system works great, and the rails can be flexed to any radius curve without cracking. Installs VERY quickly. I'd like to see someone try this method for an indoor "overhead" system. Maybe I will someday.

I will post more photos as I refine the installation. See photos of my simple trackbed construction jig in previous post.

Changing Gears and Garden Railroad Breaks Ground

I temporarily converted the woodshop into a metal/machine shop over the 4th of July weekend for the lathe milling attachment project and the garden railroad trackbed. These projects are a little off-topic for this blog, but they are both being produced in my "shop" so they will be included in this blog.

We began to break ground on the new garden railroad. As you can see on the Sanfilippo.info site, we had a garden railroad at our old home, but since we move 3 years ago the railroad has been in storage while more high-priority projects were completed (we run mostly LGB equipment).  I intend to start small and get a loop of outdoor track running, and then grow from there.

The test pieces of flexible trackbed that I made a few weeks ago were installed and work great (based on Bill Logan's design). Stable, flexible...looking good. I now need to make another 60 feet or so of trackbed in the shop before we can hit the yard again. We are probably two weeks or so from running the trains on the new trackbed...I'd say a target date would be the weekend of July 30th.

Additionally, I began to cut the metal rails for the lathe-attachment milling machine. They are made out of 1" square tubing from Home Depot. The tubes cut easily with a metal cutting blade in the reciprocating saw and then they are ground smooth on the grinder. Overall the rail frame will be 36" long and about 6" wide at the base.

Finally, my son and I painted the Adirondack chairs and put them in the yard, they look good.

Three projects going at once!  (not counting the desks that are on hold for the moment)....I like it like that.