Bridge Work Continues

I had Friday day off to do a few things with the family and eventually got down to the shed on Friday afternoon.  I did a bit of plastering and set the girder piers in plaster to the correct height across the River opening.  I then took two lengths of code 70 rail and used some PC board sleepers to keep then at the correct track gauge.  I still have to cut the gaps on both the top and bottom of the PC board before I permanently fix this to the bridge.  Before this I will stain up some bridge transoms and glue these to the bridge after it is finally painted.  This task is still a few weeks away.

 

On Saturday morning I added a bit of plaster to the northern face of the embankment of the Richmond River.  I then got a out my trusty paints and painted the white plaster on both sides of the bridge a base colour. I then hit the various piers with my trusty grey stain that I use on all my plaster and wooden items.  So the two main bridge piers and the four smaller piers on the southern side were all stained up.  I'm now out of stain so I will have to make up another batch for when I do the bridge transoms.

The overall view of the river crossing.

A drivers view as he approaches the bridge.

A closer up view as the driver is about to cross the main span.

Many years back I started on scratch building the northern span of this bridge from styrene.  It has been sitting in a half finished state for years.  Every time I pick it up, the bridge just feels too flimsy.  So I have now been turned off using this version of the bridge and will make another one. 

The half finished scratch built flimsy bridge section for the northern end.

I went looking around the shed to see what I had.  I came across two bridge girders that I had purchased at a buy and sell, again some time ago, that I think I will use in my next version of the bridge.  I will use some rectangular styrene shapes and some 'I' beam that I will scavenge from the original bridge.  I'm just short of the rectangular shapes.  Hopefully I will pick these up during the week at the hobby shop in town.

The trial fit of the bridge girders for the northern ends bridge.  You can also see my code 70 track with a couple of PC board sleepers keeping it in gauge.

 

My long awaited for Central Valley kit arrived on Friday at the local hobby shop but has not been unpacked as yet.  I will hopefully pick the kit up next Saturday.  That will enable me to spend some time next Sunday putting together some extra cross girders together.  I have six of them now but need another six to complete the bridge.  This will allow me to resume building the bridge so it can be completed before our Club's December meeting the date of our annual Christmas modelling competition.  So after girder fitting, it will be painting, adding a few detail plates where the various girders join and then add the screws to join the top and bottom structures.  This will be followed by fitting the stained bridge transoms.  Still plenty of work to do yet.