Friday, February 28, 2020

Building a curved steel trestle - Part 2

After starting the curved steel trestle back in October it has taken quite awhile for me to get back to finishing it.  Now that the lower track has been completed and the scenery around the back of the corner is almost complete, this bridge can be finished.

The bridge pieces were assembled and then painted with the air brush.  I had been using Floquil old silver for some of my bridges but finally had run out and of course the Floquil line is no longer available.  Turns out that Model Master aluminum is a very close match so that's what I used this time.


I had used Micro Engineering bridge track for the first time on the 200 ft BLMA through truss bridge.  Because that bridge was straight and access to the track would be restricted I chose to fully assemble and paint the track with it's guard rails and guard timbers before installing it on the bridge.  This time I did make up a section of bridge track with both ends having standard ties but am going to wait until after it is installed to add the guard rails and paint.

The bridge was weathered and installed on the layout.  Then the track was attached to the bridge with E6000 adhesive and held with small clamps while the adhesive set.  The position of the track on both ends of the bridge was held in place with map pins.
The guard timbers were attached to the track the same way they were on the 200 ft BLMA bridge but this time cut into shorter lengths to match the curvature of the track.

2 comments: