Montague Dock - 6 - The Dock

Some while back, March 23 the RM warehouse was installed, now it is time to get back to assembling the dock wall and surfacing, a job which was going to be heavy going, (11 feet long) and so slid onto the backburner.

Recently the heat waves in the UK have forced me to take refuge in the shed where the insulation keeps it cool, just topping up the temperature in there to 20-25C by opening the doors, somewhat better than the 30C+ plus that keeps rearing its ugly head, 3rd wave in the last 6 weeks.

Dock Walls

Anyway, the dock walls were 3D printed some while ago (ref 6.1) and initially primed with Expo light grey as individual parts prior to fixing in place.

So, finally fixed them in place, notches made in three capping stone strips for the ladders, glued with UHU to 3mm hardboard strips to allow for bridging the brackets supporting the 'water'.

The side wall sections interlock and the capping stones are offset by 50% of their length to try and have a semblance of one continuous wall.

Another coat of primer to blend them together, followed by some Amsterdam neutral grey, but even that marks easily, thought it would harden more, never mind.

The colouring is as the local limestone as seen in the railway cuttings and steep embankments around the railway.

With the walls and their capping stones in place it is time to finish off the surfacing by applying the top layer.

Dock Surface

This was viewed from multiple aspects about how to go about this, a number of issues make this difficult in 4mm scale, including

1. Some locos and rolling stock likely to be on the docks are of relatively coarse wheel standards, Dublo, Hornby, and British Trix and very coarse Tri-ang for Series 3 or Super 4 track. Most of my vintage rolling stock are fitted with either Dapol, Bachmann or contemporary Hornby wheel sets, especially old Tri-ang stock with variable B2B floating wheels.
2. The absence of available typical grooved rails used for road and dock tram ways.
3. The very large swing of point blades.
4. Road surfaces level with rails often results in over scale treads wider than the rail head making contact with them, if slightly higher wheels can be lifted sufficiently to cause a derailment as the flange rises too high, locos can lose electrical contact with the rails.
5. When the surfaces are close to the rail height they will be damaged by track cleaning rubbers or wagons

The track standard I have used throughout is Peco Code 100 Streamline, which allows all but a few locos to run without clipping the rail chairs, but thickness of flanges can still present a problem.

To circumvent this in other places e.g. Wagon Repair Works and level crossings I sit the between rails cobble or tarmac on the sleepers, off the chairs, so they are out of reach of 'narrow gauge' locos and rolling stock. Similarly, road approaches to the rails are spaced away from the chairs.

So this is the approach I am taking with laying the concrete surface of the docks, fill in between rails only partially applied to the points.

All track is laid on 3mm closed cell foam, on top of which is a 2mm layer of adhesive backed foam as used for cos-play clothing to provide an easy to apply layer the same thickness as the sleepers of Peco Code 100 track.

Although easy to apply the shiny surface of the 2mm sheet is only just adhered to by the concrete card when using UHU, this solvent based adhesive does not attack the surface of the plastic sheet, however it does appear to grip sufficiently for the task and does allow easy removal if I haven't cut the concrete card well enough.

I did try lifting this 2mm sheet off the 3mm sheet but the adhesive just rips the surface off the 3mm sheet badly and has to be replaced. So 'stuck'with it now.

Choice of Top Surface Material

Surface material, looking around on the web and response to my question on P1 MRC it looks as though concrete was the likely hard wearing surface for a dock such as the one being modeled here. Options

1. Use a fine modeling paste or DiY filler, texture and weather
2. Printed paper sheets
3. Printed card Sheets

Option 1 when done with care and suitable weathering probably looks best, but with so many points it looked high risk, and setting the level below the rail top is rather tricky, no, probably quite difficult.

Option 2, printed paper sheets have been okay for the oil terminal which is a relatively large rectangular area where the area was flat, not the case with the dock due to the foundation layers and next to the point switches where the z wire (instead of an omega loop) is attached.

Option 3, printed card, I used some of that for the cement works and it proved to be quite good around the warehouse loading bays and the access road into the works.

So, option 3 was the way ahead, the product used is the Busch Concrete Slabs (H0 7412) which although is in relatively small sheets (210x148mm), pack of two, is easy to cut and lay, and for the cutting of many pieces I bought a modest A4 paper guillotine, the arm type not the wheel cutter type. The arm type allows for better positioning of the card and with care can be used to cut curves.





Laying the Concrete

These printed cards are printed as a series of rectangles which make cutting and laying easier, I did not see an example of such small rectangles in any photographs but they are the next best thing and probably my only hope of getting these docks scenically finished. Well, to a basic level of detail, I always intended a second pass to add more detail, but alas the years fly by and finishing everything to this level of detail is unlikely.

Starting with the row between track and the dock wall, I have endeavoured to keep all the track work parallel to the wall for neatness and to make cutting the card layer easier.

1. The wide border is trimmed off a new sheet.
2. The sheet is cut to fit between the track and the wall coping stones.
3. Cut outs required to navigate objects such as the rail and buffers for the travelling cranes are made.
4. Cut outs for the point switches are cut, all the points are hand operated in this dock via slider switches using wire in PTFE tube, electrical contacts set the live frog polarity*.

* It was a problem how to operate the points, the chosen arrangement places the switches on the dock surface, there they will be covered with cosmetic caps resembling crates or other cargo items. The raised boss on the ends of the blade ties are cut flush with the tie otherwise they foul the concrete card, the wire in tube connects to the centre of the blade tie so the raised bosses are not required.​

Cutting the sheets as shown gives me two full strips and a centre off cut which can be used between the rails.

But first all the major sections of concrete will be laid, then the remaining open areas followed by the sections between the rails.

The images below show the progress over the last few days, any minor gaps will be filled with weeds or covered with dockside clutter.

Once all the surface material has been laid, details such as mooring bollards, ladders and vertical timber baulks will be added to the wall and coping stones. And of course some 'water' for two small ships to float on.







Jim


References

6.1 Montague Dock Walls

https://platform1mrc.com/p1mrc/inde...le-of-an-oap-vs-3d-printers.6395/#post-106806

 

Thanks Ron, I am tackling it little and often now that I have finally got started on it.

Jim

 

A couple of days on, well into laying the largest pieces of concrete and accumulating off cuts that I sort into different shapes ready for use in small areas.

The Card

This Busch (H0 7412) card cuts, lays and butt joins well, it required a sizeable order of packs due to their small size but IMO they are worth it, the printed sheen is fairly low key and the weathered colouring not as dark as others I have come across that look more like asphalt.

Cutting

Sharp guillotine, craft knife and scissors (best for curves) are essential when cutting this card, but then, most of you probably know that anyway!

It is certainly easier cutting straight lines with the guillotine than using a craft knife and straight edge, it cuts in one stroke as opposed to two or three thus eliminating card movement between strokes and a poorly defined edge.

You may have noticed I don't use the finger guard, the blue plastic strip laying in the dock. In place it makes aligning the card to be cut difficult so I apply two rules.

1. Keep fingers holding the card on the table vertical, never horizontal!
2. Cut relatively slowly, makes for a more accurate cut and prevents finger tip removal.

Getting blood stains off of printed card is worse than getting it out of gloss oil paint on a door frame, experience!

This guillotine is proving to be very cost effective, recommended, bought via Amazon, link in ref. 6.2, certainly making the task of cutting all these card sheets much cleaner and accurate compared to using a knife and straight edge.

Edges

I was applying some grey to the cut edges with an alcohol based marker but it was too easy to put on too much and it would bleed onto the top surface, however the nature of a cut edge when kept to the printed join lines renders the cut almost invisible, that is, it looks like a printed slab joint so now I only occasionally darken the cut edge where the cut is away from a printed joint.

In fact the best result I have found is if you butt two cut edges up to each other and then slightly part them so the gap shadow emulates the printed grey joints elsewhere on the sheets. This assumes that the adhesive you are using allows some movement like UHU on the smooth 2mm foam. Otherwise the joint disappears and creates a discontinuity in the lay of the concrete, the aim is to make the whole area look as though it is made of one piece of printed card.

Orientation

In general I have laid the slabs lengthways along the dock as it would probably laid in that orientation. For some places the orientation is at right angles to minimise the number of small, in particular triangular sections. I think in practice this approach would be applied but how it would actually be laid would depend on the required strength of the surface, strength of the base material it is laid on and how often expansion gaps would be required. I'm not a civil engineer so I am trying to take an semi-educated guess based on the chosen concrete card format.

As the surface I am laying the card on is grey I do not need to darken the surface where small gaps in the cut edges would show the underlying material.

Looking Forward

Fun to come includes

1. Concrete around the track work within the warehouse loading bays.
2. How to at least partially fit concrete within the points.

Warehouse bays: the pillars are regular in size and pitch so I could probably cut parts in bulk and just insert them.

Pointwork: All of the simple points are of the same radius so a few templates cut from some off-cuts of aluminium to cut around may be the best option. The three way point, that will probably stay as part of the dock entry track and therefore ballasted.

Jim













References

6.2 Guillotine

Snyderline® Lever Cutter A4 Compact Metal Paper Cutter

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B083ZCNYNC?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1

 

Update - about 60% of dock surfaced except between the rails.

The bare area in the first image is where there will be a small coaling stage and watering point for the dock locos.











Jim

 

Update - concrete nearly done.

Areas between the tracks and warehouses done.

Between the rails completed except for the pointwork.

Have also applied the concrete inside the covered loading bays which I wasn't going to do but it looks much better that way.

All that is left to do of the concrete is fill in what I can of the pointwork for which I will make reversible cutting templates that can be used for creating the infill between the check rails of both the left and right hand points . Trying to fill in between the moving blades may be just too fiddly.




















Jim

 

Yes, a variety of options, I have also considered using fine light grey ballast, but as you say, it needs to be levelled to the sleepers especially where the blades sweep across the sleepers.

With this job I started with the biggest parts and gradually moved towards the smaller and more fiddly parts, nearly there, ideally specialist rail would have been preferable but wasn't an option.

Jim

 

Thanks, Jim

 

Hi Gormo, just seen your reply, it seems to have gone into the wrong part of the reply page.

Yes another option to consider, thanks, Jim

 

Done at last!

The points were 'concreted' in three stages.

1. the approaches between the check rails and the blades
2. the central area between the frog and the blade pivots
3. the spaces between the sleepers under the blades

1. To cut concrete card to fit between the check rails and the approach to the blades a piece of paper was formed into the space between the rails from which the shape required of the card was cut slightly undersize. This was the glued to an old credit card with Pritt Stick and the card cut and filed to match the paper template, the paper template was then peeled off what is now the plastic template.

This plastic template is suitable for both turnout tracks and left or right hand points depending on which way up the plastic template is placed on the concrete card, it was then drawn around with a 0.5mm propelling pencil and the concrete card cut. This is why it was created a little undersize.

The resulting concrete card shapes were then glued to the sleepers.

An example with the plastic template.




2. The central area was cut using the shape of the plastic template without the cut out for the check rails.

3. Many options to fill in between sleepers under the blades were considered including those from P1 members. In the end I decided to fill the gaps between these sleepers with 3.5mm wide strips of concrete card which are just tucked under the blades.

Further Examples








The end result is satisfactory to my 70yr old eyes.

Next, finishing off the dockside walls.

Jim

 

Thanks Gormo, Jim

 

Thanks Andy, your words about the prototype are very true and were considered some time ago, my work is a significant compromise between prototype and practicality, even laying the 'concrete' below the rail head level so that I could run vintage deep and thick flanged 'narrow' gauge stock and clean the rails as mentioned earlier in my thread.

As you say and illustrate, real tramway and dock rail profiles include a metal edge and even a base which acts as wall against the ingress of tarmac or concrete on the inboard side of the running rails which effectively creates a continuous check rail.

This type of rail profile was not available off the shelf and I do not have enough years left to custom build some 40ft of track plus 7 points in 4mm scale, so, I reluctantly opted for just using totally inappropriate sleepered track and doing what I could with it.

The size of my layout has meant that as the years fly by the level of detail has to be reduced if I am to have time to play with it, also, the older I get the more difficult it becomes to build it, see it and not break it, even during construction

Jim

 

7mm scale?

Jim