I have a similar arrangement to that shown by Dan in his pics. My version is different in so far as I used exterior doorway thresholds. These are always hardwood and ideally shaped. Mine were free as they were from demolition dumpsters!
I had an article in GR where someone used aluminum doorway thresholds as well. I can’t remember which issue, at the moment.
-Kevin.
Devon,
I used my table saw to rip the composite. It cuts quite easily using a carbide blade of at least 80 teeth. It does not cut like wood where a ripping blade is necessary, there is no grain to deal with, so a cross cut blade is fine. There is no problem with melting. It does produce a large amount of “charged” saw dust that sticks to everything and I strongly recommend wearing a NOISH approved N95 dust mask. My dust collection system could not keep up with the heavier saw dust that the composite creates. You get a lot of “overthrow” from the blade where normal dry wood could be sucked down by the vac. system. I did have a short piece brake that I hadn’t heated thoroughly I should have made a bending jig to control the part better. Heating has to be done with care as you can char the composite. I’ll try and heat bend a full thickness piece, on its face, and see how it works.
Thanks for resurrecting the pictures Dan. This is a good idea!
I did it the hard way, embedding rail into concrete…
Jon Radder said:
Thanks for resurrecting the pictures Dan. This is a good idea!
I did it the hard way, embedding rail into concrete…
Hard way? But it sure looks good! How well has it held up?
That looks great Jon and pretty much bullet proof. Thanks for sharing. After 5 years mine is holding up very well.
Bruce - It’s held up surprisingly well. Not sure if the walkway has sunk, or the garden is rising but there is always a pretty sharp vertical transition on the right side as seen in those shots. Enough to drag the front steps on a GP9 and break them off! My Fn3 stuff doesn’t care. One rail is now super rusty due to it having constant power for my building lights. Something to do with the acid in the concrete reacting with the DC current when wet. I have since powered that section down.
Jon Radder said:
Bruce - It’s held up surprisingly well. Not sure if the walkway has sunk, or the garden is rising but there is always a pretty sharp vertical transition on the right side as seen in those shots. Enough to drag the front steps on a GP9 and break them off! My Fn3 stuff doesn’t care. One rail is now super rusty due to it having constant power for my building lights. Something to do with the acid in the concrete reacting with the DC current when wet. I have since powered that section down.
Is this fixable? Perhaps extend the concrete so that the transition is smooth again?
Bruce Chandler said:
Jon Radder said:
Bruce - It’s held up surprisingly well. Not sure if the walkway has sunk, or the garden is rising but there is always a pretty sharp vertical transition on the right side as seen in those shots. Enough to drag the front steps on a GP9 and break them off! My Fn3 stuff doesn’t care. One rail is now super rusty due to it having constant power for my building lights. Something to do with the acid in the concrete reacting with the DC current when wet. I have since powered that section down.
Is this fixable? Perhaps extend the concrete so that the transition is smooth again?
As of last time trains ran across it (sometime during the summer of 2020) it wasn’t bad enough to cause issues. I have fixed it in the past by lifting both tracks to the right, and re-grading by removing some material. I’m not sure if that will happen again or not. I’m seriously considering abandoning the track on the ground, but that won’t leave me with much.