Turntable progress

Hello,

today, we made major progress on the turntable. Last weekend, Martin delivered the wood parts for the turntable pit as promised. We sanded the parts and checked them for correct measurement. We found out, that the angle of the quarter circles was not perfect. We made a jig and cut them to correct length. We also made a temporary table on which we can build the turntable.

The wooden table also allowed us to secure parts with screws and to keep everything aligned during construction. Once the lower ring was fixed, we glues and screwed the upper ring on top with a 20cm overlap on one side. Next we made the center plate with the pivot point and added 4 spokes to keep everything together. I made the hardware, while my dad cut the plywood stripes to size.

We also pre-drilled the holes for the outer ring. We added M6 threated inserts at all places, where we need to remove screws to take the turntable apart.

To keep the turntable bridge on the right level and to make it easy to turn the table with a locomotive on it, we added small rollers. Once the pivot bolt was in place, we could make some test turns.

Once the pit was complete so far, we continued work on the bridge. After cutting two grooves with the router, we added rail heads from 20x4mm steel bar.

We cut pockets between the rails for slide bolts that will be used to lock the turntable at the connecting tracks.

At least two photos of the whole turntable so far. Only the connecting tracks are missing to get the whole thing done.