HOn3 Scratchbuilt Turntable

First off -- sorry there haven't been any new construction videos. It seems my tripod might have accidentally been taken by someone presuming it was theirs. No videos until I get that back. Also, this week is the first time I'm starting to think I won't be able to have a functional model by the November show.  It seems that every thing I do on the module leads to something else, which leads to something else, and so on.  There's so much to do and I don't want to rush it just to be at the show.

Having said all that, tonight I got a chance to start on the turntable for Montrose.  On the original SJC the turntable was a kitbash of an Atlas HO turntable and a narrow gauge turntable kit.  I decided instead of starting with a kit, I'd just start with the Atlas turntable and scratchbuilt it from there.

For reference, so you know where this is going, here's the original turntable...

The original.  That MDC 2-8-0 kit can still be found on ebay as well.

Ebay fortunately has a decent selection of "vintage" model railroad supplies, including several of the original pieces that the SJC used.  I managed to get a hold of one of these vintage Atlas turntables for $3.  It even came with the box!

The same turntable used on the SJC

The turntable is actually HO standard gauge.  The narrow gauge gallows-style is just built right on top of it.  I started off by soldering leads to the existing HO track then airbrushing a base coat of Pollyscale Aged Concrete followed by a light dusting of Pollyscale Rust.

Because of the way the turntable is designed the part where the handle should be raises up a bit, so I needed to raise the track height up so that the rails could clear this.  This was done with some basswood I had on hand.

Once in place I glued a piece of HOn3 flextrack to the top of the basswood and began expanding the platform out from there.

Checking for clearance

Taking a break to imagine what it might look like when done

The turntable platform is actually 3 layers.  The bottom layer, around 1/16" brings the rails up to clear obstacles.  The next 1/16" matches the tie height.  Then the final 1/16" is a layer over top of the ties to give it a finished look.  After a few hours I had the deck/platform complete:

The boxcab (which is waiting on it's decoder) wants to know
when the turntable will be done so it can get to work...

Next up is to build the gallows...