ACHB 1-9 Building a Walthers 90' Manual (non-motorized) Turntable. Full tutorial (and review).
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- čas přidán 12. 09. 2024
- I assemble a new Walthers 90' manual turntable. This has no motor, but it does have power to the rails. I quickly discovered that the instructions are poorly written, so I created a tutorial of how I assembled the turntable. I also review the original instructions as I go along.
Overall, the turntable kit is a reasonable product, but good instructions would make it a lot better!
I needed a turntable on the lower level of my layout to turn my steam locomotives around, and my old small Atlas turntable just wasn't big enough.
I am planning, designing, and building a new double deck, HO scale, layout wrapped around the room, with a helix.
The construction of a new HO scale model railway in a newly expanded room. Freelance modelling the 1970's, inspired by the Algoma Central Railway. Through this series I am hoping to show you how to plan and build a model train layout (or at least, how I do it).
I've found over the years that the problem with instructions is that they are typically written by people who've assembled the item several times, when they write the instructions afterwards they miss steps because they've assumed some steps are clear to us which they're not as we have not their experience in building said item.
Boy, that's a jumble of words, I hope you get the gist of the what I'm trying to say?
Another good video, and no, it's not too long.
Geoff
With the turntable, it almost seemed like the instructions were written by two different people. One started building it from the bottom up, the other from the top down. Then they combined the instructions from each person - but didn’t coordinate anything… Probably not how it happened, but kinda felt like it.
Thank you for taking the time to demonstrate this assembly. Walthers has always had a bad reputation for terrible assembly instructions. Excellent video.
Thanks
That was incredibly helpful. I have one of those turn tables as well and will be building it out later this year. Also, I was in a Model Train store in Seattle and they had the motorizing kit for a great price and I will be adding that to my turntable so I can control it with either my LCC or a manual switch controller (left/right and go buttons).
Glad to hear that my rambling was actually helpful! Thanks for the comment, and good luck!
I've custom built a few turntables for my railroads over the years and I've solved the powering of the turntable track using an article that appeared in an old model railroader magazine. If you purchase a two conductor phone plug with the matching panel mount it will work perfectly. Mount the panel plug in the pit exactly in the center. Then mount the male phono plug in the base of the rotating bridge and solder a wire from each track to the terminals on the plug. Now you have a removable bridge that works and rotates beautifully.
Good idea. I have plenty of those in a box somewhere… I used to own a sound production business, so I have lots of old audio connectors of all shapes and sizes laying around. If I ever need to build another one…
Rotates on the phono plug or use some sort of flat thrust needle bearing underneath?
Thank you for the warnings about the poor instructions and an excellent series of build videos. The other problem I see with this turntable is that unless a switch is used to reverse the polarity of the rails on the deck there will be a short circuit when the turntable turns 180 degrees and an engine with multiple pickups is in contact with the rails on the turntable and the layout. Perhaps this is mentioned in the instructions, but it may be something that you could add if you do a video on the actual installation of the turntable. The Bachmann one I examined gets its power for the deck from contacts between each incoming track and the deck so this does not happen. I know you would pick this up before any problems happened, but a novice with little electrical knowledge may inadvertently damage their new DCC system which as I understand it has less tolerance for short circuits.
I have the turntable "installed" in my layout, but I haven't finished the tracks around it - or the wiring - yet. Good idea, I'll do that as part of a future video. For now, I'm going to keep it simple and put a polarity reversing toggle switch between the power switch and the turntable track.
Before ANY assembly the first step really should be paint/weather the pit, the bridge and the underside of the walkway- as you know, you won't be able to dissemble to paint later! I found the plastic wheels for the bogeys unusable due to the molding seams- they were never going to be the exact same diameter after sanding, and never did roll smoothly when tested. I upgraded to ball bearings. My pit had some 'grab' as I spun my bridge around, so a block of wood and sandpaper fitted with a bolt as an axle, spun around and sanded that pit smooth (the molded rail too). Now it operates as smooth as glass.
Glad you got yours working smoothly. Mine isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it will do the job.
Well done... I don't know how this came up on my feed but twas enjoyable all the same. I haven't modeled in eons but still enjoy seeing the work of others. It's been so long, in fact, that I didn't realize Walthers was even producing a turntable kit of any sort. It doesn't look bad at all but it's not the first time I can recall running across directions that had to be interpreted before building. One would think that in this modern day and age that communication would have improved, eh? Nice production, as well... I used to work in both radio and production/voice-overs long ago for 12 or 13 years and after reading the comments, now I understand why the production value is far better. Thanks for sharing this and hope to see more in the future.
Thanks for the comments! The instructions for that were pretty ridiculous. It’s strange that they haven’t come up with better instructions. The downloadable instructions are identical. I’m hoping to get more done soon…
@@achb-railway You're quite welcome. They sound similar to some of the old exploded-view instructions from the '70's except worse, which IS rather ridiculous in this day and age. More shocking yet is that nobody at the company has caught that yet but Walthers does seem to have changed a lot since the days when everyone looked forward to the huge annual catalogues.
Huge help! Game saver. I have two of these kits and stalled in building kit #1 just for the poor instructions from Walthers. Thanks!
Always good to hear that I've helped somebody in some way!
For whatever it's worth. I really know what you went through. I've been there. I will never have a piece of equipment or anything else that is not already assembled. If they can't make it plug and play I don't want it. God Bless my friend.
Although the instructions were terrible, I still enjoyed building the kit. We're all different I guess! Building kits is one of the aspects of this hobby that I really enjoy. I have a stack of kits waiting to be built, both for structures and rolling stock. I actually prefer them...
Perfect video, Thanks! Subscribed
Thanks!
Excellent job on the the turntable, I installed the 110 ft version but it is motorized
I thought of getting the motor for it - briefly - but decided I really didn’t need it. How does yours work?
Mine works ok , does not always stop perfectly but I can move the bridge , just need to keep the clock wheel track clean
Verrry helpful, thanks!
You're welcome!
Thank you for doing the tutorial and addressing the lack of quality and complete instructions. I’m planning on building the 130 foot Walthers turntable in the future. You stated that you wrote directions in the past as part of your employment. Have you considered writing the directions for the turntable and sending them to Walthers? They obviously are aware of the deficiencies in their instructions but have decided not to correct them on their own but maybe they would review your directions and add them to the unit and your efforts will prevent the frustrations of future builders.
I haven’t really thought of doing that. I think it’s become a “feature” of Walthers kits. Decent kits with bad instructions. Maybe it just adds to the model building challenge!
🤬I have 130' turntable the instructions are no better. I'm right there with you🙃😕😭😋🥳
You would think that they could have someone try to build it - following the instructions - to see if they work. Apparently not.
I am going to subscribe your channel
Thank you! Just subscribed to your channel as well.
Thanks.good video
I bought 1 and it's a nightmare.
I can't get mine to spin I tried everything going in the garbage
But I ordered an other one.i need it. Canadian
Hopefully you can get it working!
I am struggling with that as well it binds in a section as there is a slight bow in the turn table base hoping once it gets installed that will fix it
@@littletoyfactory117 Mine seems to turn reasonably well once installed. The bench surface keeps it flat. Hopefully you get yours working well!
Can you talk about the orange sided coal or whatever it is with the gray roof?
I have one and been trying to fit it on my n scale railroad and have tried to look up information. I built it several years ago thinking it was cool.
Thank you
It's a model of a coal tower that was in Cheyenne I believe. Years ago - in Canada - one of our chains of grocery stores sold "store branded" HO model railroad sets, and some structures (usually right before Christmas). This was one of them that I picked up at a really good price - because it "looked cool". That was 25+ years ago when I was just getting back into model railroads. It was also sold by IHC (I think in N and HO). It doesn't really fit anything about my layout - it's way too big for the railroad I have - but for now I have it there until I come up with something else. Or maybe I'll just keep it there. A single, much smaller coaling tower would really make more sense.
@@achb-railway I have the N Scale version of it, I was impressed with the model but when I went to put in my layout I couldn't find any information on it. So I couldn't figure out if 7 railroad tracks went through it and what track was for the ash or if maybe a road for a semi dump truck hauled ash away or even hauled coal in for it?
If you have information, I would sure like to find out. Take care
From what I understand... 4 tracks went under the main part (under the chutes) to fill the locomotives. There were ash pits and some type of conveyer under those tracks. A fifth track went through the smaller "opening" under the structure - that's how they filled it. Coal cars would dump, and a conveyer hauled the coal up to fill the hoppers.
🤠🖐🚂
Thanks!
Did you find the instructions garbage. I have and built this tongue in cheek and actually got it motorized and working.
The instructions weren’t just terrible. They were wrong…
I assembled this kit, motorized it. My opinion is, this kits a pile of garbage, but then it comes from China. I did not follow them messed up instructions.
I think it will work ok as a manual turntable. I was wondering how it would work powered, or if it would flex too much.
@@achb-railway The motorization kit is terrible. I wound up pulling it off because it would always jam after about 15 degrees of rotation. Molded gear was warped as well, and heating it to straighten the warp only marginally improved performance.
@@Jan-hx9rw I kinda figured it would be something like that. The gear that comes with the turntable seems pretty flimsy.