#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!!!