Homemade Hot Wire Foam Cutter

Having the day off of work today I decided to return to my problems of creating smooth foam elevations for my trains. I got some old scrap lumber, removed a shelf from a cheap cabinet we no longer use and started building a hot wire foam cutter.

The construction is obviously pretty simple. I used an eye bolt at the top to be able to adjust the wire tension, an eye screw below, a high E guitar string and my trickle charger set to 12v/2a.

It only took about an hour to construct and get ready. I connected the alligator clamps and fired it up. As expected, the wire got hot and wiggly, so I turned the charger off and adjusted the string tension. Fired it back up and it started to work cutting a few pieces of test foam.

The fly in the ointment was that 12v/2a eventually melted the wire. So I restrung more guitar wire and plugged it in and within a few seconds, the wire had melted. I will move up the the B string which is a little heavier gauge wire. If that does not work, I will have to find a way to reduce the amount of power or find some wire specifically designed to withstand heat.

After lunch, I will try the heavier wire and see how it goes.

update: I dropped the voltage down to 7.5 and that did the trick. For now anyway. I still may want to pick-up some nickel-chromium resistance wire if this is something I want to do beyond these few initial cuts.

Gunk, Goo, Funk

Having put my dreams of building foam risers aside for the moment, I decided to have a little fun and run some trains around my lone circle.  While I was running some of my newer locomotives, that I just learned had something called scale engines in them, I began to wonder if perhaps some of the cars the locomotives were pulling were contributing factors in the less than stellar performance.

The answer was of course, though I am not a giant fan of scale engines, some of my rolling stock was horrendous.

All of my rolling stock is around 30 years old. I am really sort of surprised I hadn't noticed the condition of some if it prior to tonight, but better late than never!

I decided the break out some tools to restore the wheels to their former glory. I grabbed some old dental tools I had laying around and my Dremel.

At first I tried to simply use the wire brush on the Dremel to whisk my troubles away, but the gunk was so thick it mostly just smeared it around. What I ended up doing was using one of the more flat bladed dental tools to lightly scrape up the years of goo and then finished them off with a quick go over on the Dremel.

We have not put in place a new train rule. No car goes on the track without wheel check and cleaning.

(Super Special Note: Always wear safety glasses when using a Dremel or other motorized tools! Ouch!)

Piles of Foam

I had this half-baked idea that I would go to Menards, pick up a 4x8 piece of foam insulation and within minutes have made a set of risers that would rival the Woodland Scenics product. That was the plan and it sure started out good!

I actually put some planning into this project, did some research and did a little math to plan a proper elevation percent, you know, rise over run!

I had purchased 2" foam and planned on using an extendable knife. The first problem I ran into was the knife blade was not long enough nor stable enough to make a good cut through the foam. So I then tried the cut on both sides and while it worked, it was problematic at best. I also tried the method of scoring one side halfway through and then simply breaking the piece away. This method actually was not horrible. It did leave the foam a bit uneven and in need of sanding.

Another lesson learned is having the proper working space is essential. I did not have a great space to do this work and as a result, worked on the basement floor in a cramped space.

You can see that my first cuts had large missing chunks. In a few subsequent cuts I did manage to get a set pretty close, but still in need of some large amount of sanding to smooth out some wavy spots and given enough time, I probably could get a working set of risers.

In the end, the cost of making your own risers will get very close to, and in my case, surpass the cost of simply purchasing a set of professionally made risers. This is obviously a personal choice and those who really enjoy the working with their hands and have the time and talent, making your own is not impossible. For me, I have a pile of foam that will make great mountains and other structures, but probably not a set of risers!

Railway Equipment Register

Since our family has decided to get back into N scale trains, we have been doing a lot of reading and poking around at all things trains. One thing I thought was intriguing from a historical perspective was reading some of the old Railway Equipment Registers.

Since I also like to take pictures and tinker with web sites, I decided to put together our own Railway Equipment Register which can be viewed here:

Frohne Family Railroad Co.

My hope is to keep it updated when we purchase any new train locomotives or cars.

Our next project for our railway is building a set of foam risers for our middle run. Yes. I could purchase pre-made risers from Woodland Scenics, but I am going to give some foam construction a try and see what happens. Either way, it will be messy fun!

Laying some Track

A pile of nails and a tack hammer got a workout this morning. We laid the flex track, code 80 on our single outside circle. It was fairly frustrating using the nails as I mangled a few of the plastic ties, had rail lines shift when hammering and generally a pain!

This photo captures my frustration with laying much of the track. I started out simply nailing the nails in part way and then went back with a nail set and drove them fully in. I had 2 areas where it was really difficult to join track. One in a corner where the rail joiners left a nice derail spot and the last piece of track ended up with a bunch of small bends that I will need to fix in the future, but for now, we have trains.

Dragging the derailed cars around the curve. I did manage to "fix" the bad spot by aligning the track a bit more. One section was more straight into a curve than it should have been, which derailed a few cars. Bend, nail, Dremel and it was better.

In the end, we all had some fun taking turns running the trains. Many of our locomotives that had sat for over 30 years didn't work, but we had 2 of 10 working. We also had 2 newer locomotives that severely under performed. I an not sure why, maybe the low profile wheels on code 80 track? Anyway, it was fun!

Classic Outside Oval

Tonight we laid out our lone outside circle. It will eventually include a turnout switch into the town. There will also be an inside bow tie loop that crisscrosses in an over under. The bow tie loop will also have turnouts that lead into the town.
We used Midwest #23019 cork roadbed. It installed very nice, though the installers left a few wiggly lines!

The perfect curve...

Mukwonago Wisconsin

These pictures were taken by my father at an unknown time, but it appears by the type of photo paper, 1940 to 1950's.

I found these when I was looking for our N scale trains. These pictures were well before my time, but it speaks a little to my father being drawn to trains and railroads.

I am presuming these were taken in Mukwonago, Wisconsin and any information would be apprecitated.

It Begins...

I have recently been bitten by the bug to setup an N scale model railroad. It is probably because my brother and I grew up with a very nice layout when we were younger. It was something we shared with our father and what little I recall, it was fun!

My children are just getting to the age where they would be interested in helping my wife and I build this and probably enjoy running the trains along the way.

So I dug out all of my brother and my trains, scrounged up some 4x8 plywood and will commence building this thing. The bench work is mostly done, but I am having some table warble issues. So I may have to solve that if it affects things very much.

I have decided to stick to DC and not jump into DCC at this time. So I ordered a new MRC Tech 4 model 200 to start out with. I am planning on a dual track layout, so hopefully this will be enough power.

Next up. Planning the perfect route, cork roadbed and locomotive TLC (they have been sitting for the better part of 30 years!)