#009 07 Clear Creek Timber Howe Truss Bridge - My Large Scale's Bridge

Here is a link to a large scale bridge construction article similar to what I'm building.

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/stevec/MLS-Topic-Article/MLSBridgeBuilding.pdf

#008 07 Clear Creek Timber Howe Truss Bridge - TIMBbeeerrrrrrr!

My friend Scott called me from Trainmaster Models today to tell me that my bridge materials had arrived.  Yippee!  I drove straight there after work.  It was quite a load!  My wife is going to have a cow when she found out how much I spent on wood!

That is a full scale $2 bill lying there on the table.  I used it because I don't have any real money in my wallet to show you how big the pile is.  Truss bridges in O scale eat up a lot of timber!!!  This is a $101 pile, btw...and I never said becoming an MMR is cheap.

These are for the tie runners and for other projects that I have going in the shop.  While I used to hold tru to Wayne Wesolowski's tip of buying 50% more wood than you need in order to build up a collection, I think I am going to drop that habit.  My hobby shop gets me anything I want in no more than seven days, and that is fast enough.

A pack of turnbuckles.  These are cored for .025 wire.  Buy the four you need, get another dozen free.  Oh well.

These are 1 1/2" nut/bolt/washer castings.  I'll need most of these, and will build up my stockpile with the rest.   These are cheap and I try to keep a supply on hand.

These are #1 nbw castings.  A little different than the ones below.  Actually these are washter castings.  You'd think they would spell it right on the package!

Next is a pile of 1/4 x 1/4 x 24" basswood timbers.

1/4 x 3/8 x 24" basswood timbers

3/8 x 2" x 24" basswood planks.  These will be ripped for the 18" base timbers.  Since wood is getting so expensive I might invest in a good mini saw and cut my own.

3/8 x 3/8 x 24" truss timbers.  We'll cut a lot of these!

There!  Now we'll start cutting.  This weekend my wife and I are going to take it easy and rest up for the baby.  I'll get a good start on the bridge.  Recently I found a picture of a similar pony truss bridge that has a reddish color to it, so I'll probably weather this one the same.  I've thought of using the gray color of the swamp timber as well.  I'll decide by tomorrow night.

Next stop...the saw!!!

#007 07 Clear Creek Timber Howe Truss Bridge - All Hands on Deck!

I.  Draw the deck.  This should be quick.  After the trusses and the base are assembled the next thing will be to add the deck.  This includes the outriggers, but not the track crossties.  We'll start by using Drawing #2.  The first thing is to remove all the underside timber and rods.  We won't need to see them.

All I really did is make one cross member with screws and duplicate it.  This prototype does NOT have equally laid timbers, so I did it by eye and not by measurement to give it some variety.  Then I drew in the three outrigger assemblies.  Done!

J. Draw the trackage.  We need three things here; the runners underneath, the crossties and the rail.  We'll make this one n30 gauge instead of n3 like the prototype so that we can use it on the layout.  This should be quick, too.

There!  All the drawings are done.  I'll print them off and check them thoroughly.  Still need to add some materials on this last one.  Probably a few other tweaks, but its getting late.