Traction Poles street lights and bits and pieces

[tramcar trev]

Some pics of my newly made traction poles and streetlights ( I may have mentioned elsewhere) anyway the pics speak a 1000 words, show the silicone molds to make the pole bases that are actually cast in resin onto the brass tube and the Pole Finials that are cast and glued on, note the wire in the casings of the finials, this serves 2 purposes, 1) it reinforces the object and hopefully will help maintainn the errr homogenous integrity ie stop is breaking and 2) fare easier to grab the wire and pull the resin casting out of the mold...
This is representative of the firts batch and I have changed the design slightly for the remainders.
I think they look ok and being soldered up from brass tube, etch primed and painted with epoxy enamel should last outdoors for a while... As can be seen I made a simple wooden jig to hold the bits to drill all the holes in alignment....

 

[hornbeam]

Fantastic- really nice work. Ill be making some poles up soon ( a much more basic version) any ideas on a good place for cheap brass tube? I may even consider wood, or is that a daft idea?

 

[nicebutdim]

They are excellent! Very talented man there indeed!

 

[mike]

this is awinspireing work, fantastic, i wish i had the talllent to make things like this, truly a master craftsman!

 

[trammayo]

Very nice work Trev.This is going to be a brilliant layout. Can't wait for more!

I made my first two (and the only two!) out of mild steel. They are three section. I didn't have a lathe at the time so it took some drilling to fit ech section together! One is still planted on the railway - even though (at the moment) I have abandoned my tramway plans. It rust quite nicely!

Mick

 

[tramcar trev]

Fantastic- really nice work. Ill be making some poles up soon ( a much more basic version) any ideas on a good place for cheap brass tube? I may even consider wood, or is that a daft idea?

Well there is a long story about buying the brass tube, it's expensive and my second version uses only 5/16, 9/32 and 1/4, cost me about $AU 30 for the 3 lengths each 3'0" long and I can make 8 poles 320mm tall, the cross tree is actually 2% x 1/8" plumbers self fluxing Silver solder - yes even with the 2% silver its way cheaper than brass, the brass wire came from a beading shop, made in Tiawan its cheap too, don't buy it at a hobby shop....

I contemplated wood dowel for a while after seeing some nicley detailed wooden poles but as my layout will be outdoors 3/8" dowel would last about 6 weeks, but for an inside layout wood would be ok, more your traditonals set up with span wires between the poles holding the ears holding the trolley wire.
These are not that hard to make the rings are copper wire roled around a mandrel and cut into circles and soldered on to the poles. Also I am making simple straight poles from 10mm aluminium tube with a resin base and a finial on top and they will have a simple cross tree with a single wire bracing it deleting all the fancy scroll work and will be used in the err interurban route and single track sections.
I think the little details make the whole thing come to life....
Having tackled this bit next project is to make up some colour light staff boxes that will have bi colour red/green leds embedded in them.....
but to answwer your question Cobber - no I cant find brass tube cheap anywhere, my advice is to rumage through the supplies your hobby shop has and look for old stock , thats what I did...

 

[themole]

Nice traction poles, Trev, B&Q in UK, and Castorama in France, sell metal tube in their metal section rack. Alyn