• Welcome to The Forum for Gauge 3 Model Trains.
 
The Gauge 3 Society       2.1/2 inch Gauge Association       Cookies and privacy HOW TO JOIN: to request forum membership please click here

Gauge 3 Society members must be logged in to view the Society section
  G3 Clubroom

Welcome to the G3 Clubroom. This is the friendly online forum where members share ideas and inspiration, suggestions and advice, modelling tips, pictures and drawings, and general chat about our fine hobby of Gauge 3 railway modelling. A warm welcome, and enjoy your visit here today.

Do Bananas make good track supports?!!

Started by John Candy, Jun 03 2013 14:34

« previous - next »

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

John Candy

After reading the good reports on recycled plastic posts for track support, I bought a batch of 80mmx80mm posts from Filcris.
Until yesterday, they were stored in the shade but I then began drill post holes and place several across the lawn (some are in shade, some semi-shade and the remainder in full Sun).

After a couple of hours of full Sun, those not shaded have become "banana" shaped.
Probelem appears to be uneven expansion.
The side facing the Sun expands, whereas shaded side does not!
Turn a post around and it begins to twist the opposite way ; place it in the shade and it eventually resumes original shape.

Have phoned Filcris but got the answering machine, so have sent an email.

Anyone else experiencing similar problems with these posts?
They apparently did a roaring trade at the Peterborough Show and "sold out", so there must be a lot others experiencing (or about to experience) a similar scenario!

John.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

John Candy

Chris from Filcris phoned in response to email and offered (unprompted) to collect posts and issue a full refund.
He confirmed these posts are susceptible to uneven expansion and not suitable for all applications.

I told him I may keep them for use in shaded areas of the garden (in particular supports for the terminal stations where they will be protected from Sun).

Situation was left that I would notify him of my decision and he would uplift and issue refund for some or all of the posts if I decide I do not want them.

Five Stars to Filcris for "customer care" but let this be a cautionary tale for others contemplating a "plastic" solution.

John.

P.S. Thank God I didn't fix the posts and lay track in the cooler weather or I would have faced the horror of a twisted railway and the problem of digging out posts set in concrete!
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

Traininvain

Would have loved to have seen the photos John!!!

Ian

454

Well I have set up Filcris products in my garden & must say that 50% is on the ground & 50% is on elevated.
The elevated will heat up more readily than the ground based material which seems more stable.

All my posts have been in the ground for over a year now & have had sub zero winter & summer heat extremes. None of my posts have bent like bananas. None of my posts are set in concrete they are just driven into the ground (about 2 feet) . Part of the elevated section has been backfilled with rubble & topsoil to be ground level. All my track is GRS brass on the plastic boards. The extremes of temperature with brass & plastic seems to be a workable combination.

Frosty nights followed by full (GB East Midlands) sunshine. The brass GRS track slides easily in the plastic sleeper sections. The brass rail joiners can slide easily also. Making expansion & contraction more of a mobile phenomenon. The stainless steel trial I undertook was less than satisfactory. The single sleepers are tight on the rail & the rail joiners are similarly tight & unyielding. The result can be buckled track when fixed to a plastic base.

On my 24 feet diameter GRS brass track circuit, a couple of minutes track inspection to check track gaps & rail joiner integrity is all that is needed before a running session. I do not recommend the use of stainless steel track with Filcris plastic. It could be a maintenance nightmare as the expansion rates seem incompatible.

I was influenced by use of GRS track after many years of experience of LGB plastic/brass track in the garden.
So far my choice seems to be just fine for me.

No bananas in Derby, sorry to disappoint the sceptics.

Dave
454

John Candy

Ian,

Sorry, no photos taken and the posts have all now straightened themselves now they are back in the shade!

Dave,

I have decided to keep my posts but only use in semi-shaded areas and beneath large surface boards (i.e. the teminal and junction stations) where any heat will be reflected or dissipated by the track bed.
My posts are 80mmx80mm and black (most smaller sizes sold by Filcris are brown) and the colour probably exacerbated the heat absorption problem.

I need to concrete my posts because it was a struggle, using an auger and a "post hole" lever contraption, to get down just 12 inches (problems with stones/roots/heavy soil) and the pivot mountings of the "Roughneck" hole digger "heavy duty - lifetime guarantee" have bent already (at one stage the pivot bolt flew across the lawn but fortunately had worked loose and not sheared as I first thought)!

Regards,
John.

My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

454

John,
My posts are brown colour together with the longitudinal stringers.
Now when the posts are in their raw form i.e. in 3 metre lengths for example they are very bendy even when cold.
When propped up against a wall they will not support their own weight. I noticed this after they had been delivered and shared your concern. They are supposed to be flexible that is why they are so useful. However when cut to size & positioned in a purposeful manner i.e. vertical & in the ground supporting the weight of the railway they do their job very well. I think it is to do with loading and the composition of the material. Similarly with the stringers, two stringers held parallel by cube blocks along the length around pre-formed curves is remarkable in it's strength. It is more flexible than timber in this application it scores highly. It seems to retain it's form & can be buried in landscaping without any treatment & forgotten, not like timber. The Filcris website illustrates this and I do not believe it has been misrepresented.

The posts in the ground were easy for me, across the lawn. However, my ground is clay & it was an effort but bashing  them in with a big sledge hammer worked. What I realised after when I decided to reposition due to needing bigger radius curve they are very difficult to extract. The easiest way to extract is to find a friendly 4x4 offroader with a high lift jack and use it's 4ton vertical pull. This extraction is more surgically invasive when concreted-in as those who have tried removing concreted-in posts will know very well. So I was pleased that it came out without much ceremony.

My advice for the plastic boards is a separate issue. I made the mistake of using black because it was cheaper. I should in hindsight have used brown boards & paid a bit more. They do absorb a lot of heat in the sunshine & I have noticed that they do expand. That is why I have selected brass rail because that seems to expand also. I do not know what the  thermal coefficients of linear expansion are for the respective materials. I do not care about the numbers as  I have conducted tests them with (1)  :) black plastic & brass rail & (2)  :(  black plastic & stainless steel. (3)  :-\ Not conducted was a similar test using brown board. My assumption would be that brass rail would be ideal & that the brown board would not absorb heat as readily as the black so expansion would be less evident. I leave this for others to report.

A solution to combat the expansion problem as I see it is not to lay full boards longitudinally but to use transverse plank shapes along the stringers. This I have not tried but have seen it later after I had built my circuit.

The service at Filcris was excellent in that they precision cut my boards using CAD & a router producing 20 off with a curved form 9 inches wide with a mid line radius of exactly 12 feet & angled to form an 18 degree profile so a full single track G3 track circle could be laid quite precisely. This aided track laying considerably after the rails had been pre-bent accordingly.

It has been a year now & time will be the judge & jury of this material for our garden railway application.

If bananas appear in my garden, I will be eating them 8)

Dave
454

John Candy

Spent yesterday afternoon enlarging the post holes to provide footings for brick pillars at one metre intervals across the lawn and mixed 5cwt of concrete to fill the holes.

The pillars (24 inches above lawn level) will be surmounted by dual 4 x 2 timbers (spaced to span the width of the pillars) running the full length of the viaduct. The track will be set between the beams on a base to be located in a manner that will set the railhead below the side beams to assist in restraining derailments.
It is proposed to cast, in resin, simulated plate girder overlays for the timber beams which will "prettify" (is that a word?!) the appearance and increase the height to stop stock falling over the edge.

Definitely "overkill" for the weights it is likely to carry but it should be able to withstand "knocks" from lawn mowers, etc.

John.

P.S. The plastic posts have been relegated to terminus board supports on the North side of the house, where they will be in constant shade! 
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

454

http://youtu.be/VMtXdoJUJfI

My plastic Gauge 3 railway on much maligned (straight) banana supports that have been just fine in the past few days in the fine sunny weather full sun no shade (East Midlands UK). Never been any signs of banana bending in final installation. Running all day yesterday running many trains with a local visiting member. Gauge 3 GRS brass track on recycled black plastic boards. Notice no sign of over-engineering everything is just minimalistic, non concreted & kept simple, posts driven into lawn. Caravan steps are the climb over solution. King truss girder over garden path is my minimalistic bridge. Tunnel under raised garden shed built on timber decking.

Just a 24 feet diameter circle but great to sit & watch the trains go by during this lovely warm weather with a cold beer on the side  8)

Having fun  :)

Dave
454


AllWight


John Candy

Just to prove (that after 10 years of planning) something is actually happening!!!

The views are of the brick piers, built yesterday, to carry the high level line across the lawn .... piers are to be rendered in the cool of this evening and painted with Wilko "mid stone" masonry paint.

The brickwork gets almost too hot to touch in the afternoon and had to be constantly "misted" to prevent the mortar drying out while curing (probably accounts for the plastic problem).

The garden looks a bit like a building site at present, with excavations and material for the low level circuit all round.

John.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

John Candy

A couple more pics.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

Peaky 556

Looks great John, and will be a lovely setting.  Does SWMBO know what they are for?
:) Tim

John Candy

Yes and she helps with the digging and the bricklaying ........ even though the trains don't interest her in the slightest .... oh well, you can't have everything!

John.
My fellow Members, ask not what your Society can do for you, ask what you can do for your Society.

MikeWilliams

Looks good John.  So in your case - yes, we have no bananas today.  Sorry, couldn't resist that!

Mike

454

Wow John, those piers, didn't realise HS2 was going your way.

Dave
454