I have seen several others with conversions to their roundhouse facilitys. They are the ones that inspired me to have a go at it myself. I first took my 15 stall and extended the last four left hand stalls to hold my Big Boys, Challengers, Northerns and Berkshires. My origional extra six staller I added four shorter stalls on the left hand side for single diesels and small steam switchers. These Heljans were origionally molded in the orangeish brick sides with greenish roofs. After I finished both roundhouse conversions since all windows were installed I used scotch tape and a Exacto knife to cut around the outside of all windows for masking and regular 3M masking tape for the inside glass before primeing. I used a Binks # 15 touch up gun and sprayed Ditzler dark red lacquer primer completely covering all walls and roofs. I then mixed my own brick red base coat color and sprayed the sides and doors. Allowing them to dry for 1/2 hour before masking all the sides and then spraying the roofs black. They dryed completely within another 1/2 hour ready to unmask and put back on my layout. Heres a few pictures in my photo album: http://www.villagephotos.com/pubbrowse.asp?folder_id=1804508 Ernie
Wow! Nice. I re-worked my old Heljan turntable last summer to look more like something used by the C&O. I have my original roundhouse from the early 1970's on the workbench right now. I lost all the front smoke stacks, so I need to come up with something to replace them. I painted the roof flat black - I've been trying to decide how to paint the brick - mine was molded in a little darker color, but still should be re-painted.
That's a nice job , almost no glue drips on the nice dinner table !!! I recognize the Walthers turntable , I was doing some homework to try to fit one with my existing Heljan roundhouse ( my roof is black also ) . I downloaded the dimensions from Walthers and they install their roundhouse at only 2 inches from the pit and I was wondering if my calculation were right for the Heljan one , looking at your pictures I can see that I am OK !!! Many thanks !!
I have the same roundhouse and the same turntable. I bought the roundhouse used and built, 27 stalls including 5 long ones for the big locos. I am in the process of un-building it so I can lay the track right. I am also missing many exhaust stacks and I am modifying push pins for the job. Can one of you tell me what shade of green paint I would need to repaint some doors. And what distance did you determine between the turntable OD and the roundhouse doors? Thanks, SeanB.
The best way is to work with the center of the future or existing TT . Install your roundhouse on a sheet of paper ( big enough for the roundhouse and TT ) Find the center line of the last tracks on each end that goes in the roundhouse and then draft and extend these 2 lines until they meet , this should the center of the TT . You can now install your roundhouse on the paper , knowing the radius of the TT you will know how much is left for the distance between from the TT to the doors of the roundhouse . In short the distance from the exterior lip of the motorized Walthers TT to the doors is 6 7/8" for an Heljan kit !
