Here is my solution to solve many problems... I'm getting married on April 16th, of 2005, and of course my fiancée thinks I spend too much time on my hobby. Between travel for work, building N and Z turnouts, developing Z photo-etched brass models, working on my N scale empire with my brother, and now this monster Z scale layout, I guess I can see her point. So I had a dilemma, how am I supposed to handlay over 14,000 ties in the basement and yet spend time with the soon-to-be spouse? Also, after a few attempts of handlaying track on various materials such as different thicknesses of plywood and cardboard/picture backerboard, I was not pleased with the warping/twisting effects of the glues/matte mediums on them. Heck, I'm only handlaying 14,000+ ties! I am not going to have my work destroyed by humidity controlled, Z-scale Plate technotics! Another factor was that I drew the entire layout (Yep, every single tie!) in AutoCAD. I needed to print the trackage onto sheets and then fix them to what ever material I was going to use. This brought up the problem with roadbed. Z scale has very limited manufacturers of scale roadbed. One choice was cork, but I would have gone bankrupt with the amount needed for this project. Besides how would I transfer my detailed tie layout sheets onto roadbed easily? My first thought was to use 1" foam board insulation, which I planned to use for scenery anyhow. But this can be a real pain to carve roadbed out of. I finally decided to use Elmers 3/16" rigid foamboard, the same stuff used in many 3D architectural models. This has a nice solid surface to attach my printouts onto with 3M Super 77 spray glue (this won't warp the paper, like white glue!). And it is a very stable material, in which waterbased adhesives (for ballasting and painting) will not warp it. Humidity also does not affect it. I can trim it down with a razorblade on a 45 degree angle to simulate roadbed. It has a solid backing that will glue down to my foam insulation perfectly. And best of all I can cut it down to smaller portable sections, so I can handlay my track upstairs and near my fiancee!! What a perfect material! I'll be posting more as I go...
Excellent Solution Eric. Congratulations on your engagement too! I did a little Superelevation with the turns on my Z Bend modules. I'll post it so you can see what it looks like.
Eric- Do you have any good tips for laying out the ties in AutoCAD? I love the idea of printing out every tie, but are you just inserting blocks of ties, or is there a good command for getting them to lay out along a centerline automatically?
Thank Robert and Boxcab E50! Mike, The only blocks I use in AutoCAD are the turnouts. I drew a tie using a closed polyline and use the array command. Straight track is simple enough to use a rectangular array with a offset. Curved track takes a bit more trial and error work with the polar array. First you must pick the centerpoint of your arc (curved centerline) and then play with the total number of items and angle to fill values. If you zoom in close enough before doing an array, you can get pretty close with the array preview. I then take a distance from the intersection of the centerline and tie. If needed I adjust my numbers according and repeat the process until it looks good. I'll admin, my curved track isn't exact. But I don't think anyone will measure all of the ties! It's really easy to get caught up in trying to get all the ties perfectly placed, just remember the actual size of the track! Easement curves are generated the same way, they just have 3 arcs, and thus, 3 arrays are needed. I hope this helps!
Thanks, Eric. I was hoping for the magic command as always, but your method is probably the easiest. I understand Eric is using his AutoCAD turnout templates for his business venture, but does anyone else know of a library of AutoCAD templates for turnouts? It would save me some time if I didn't have to draw them again.
Mike: Try http://www.handlaidtrack.com/ They have some Z scale Tie Templates that may be useful. Hope that helped.
Thanks, Chris. The handlaidtrack templates are a great resource. I currently use them for laying turnouts at the work bench. I was hoping for CAD files that I could play with as part of trackplanning in AutoCAD.
