Martin White shows you how he built the telegraph poles for Tiverton Junction.
The telegraph poles at Tiverton Junction were a very conspicuous feature, and as the poles made by Ratio and others are too short and do not have enough arms, the only answer was to make our own.
Telegraph poles come in three sizes - small, medium and stout. Being so tall and carrying so many wires, the ones at T.J. were definitely the stout type, meaning that our poles would have to be a scale ten inches in diameter. I had previously used bamboo skewers as masts for model ships, and so I thought that they would be perfect for our posts. , They are also cheap! 100 cost me £1 in my local supermarket. I had to choose the skewers carefully as many of them were either curved or “damaged.”
The first job was to file the blunt end to look like an apex roof. I used a fairly course file to do this, and just a few strokes produced the effect I wanted. I did not worry too much about making it symmetrical, as I very much doubt that the real ones were.
If I had modelled the actual number of arms on the posts, they could have looked very “fussy” and would have probably been too tall when fitted on the layout. Therefore, I decided to have just two long arms and five shorter ones on the post.
To fit the arms to the posts, I cut seven slots using a Swiss needle file, with three or four passes of the file giving me a deep enough slot. To hold the post steady and to stop it rotating whilst I did this, I used a blob of “Blu Tack.” The first slot was about 6mm from the top of the post, with the gap between the slots being 4mm.
The arms themselves were made from 1mm square plastic rod (Plastruct PMS40 1mm x 1mm strip). An old Airfix telegraph pole had arms that were of 16mm long, and I used this length for the shorter arms. The longer arms I made 24mm long. I found that from 2 strips of rod I could get enough arms for 3 poles.
I put a drop of “Uhu” in each slot to fix the arms, which held them in place while I fitted the insulators.. However, “Uhu” proved not to be strong enough in the long run, so after the insulators had been fitted I put a dab of superglue on the joint
The insulators were made from 0.75mm half round plastic rod (Plastruct PMHR30 0.75mm half round strip). To make life easy, rather than fitting individual insulators, I put one rod across all seven arms, using “Plastic Weld” to fix it. There were four insulators on the short arms and six on the long ones. The result can be seen in the photograph 2. Once everything was set, I cut off the top half of the insulator between the arms, leaving about a 1.5mm stub behind. Photograph 3 shows the result. Any insulators that fell off at this time were re-glued back in position.
The telegraph poles at Tiverton Junction were a very conspicuous feature, and as the poles made by Ratio and others are too short and do not have enough arms, the only answer was to make our own.
Telegraph poles come in three sizes - small, medium and stout. Being so tall and carrying so many wires, the ones at T.J. were definitely the stout type, meaning that our poles would have to be a scale ten inches in diameter. I had previously used bamboo skewers as masts for model ships, and so I thought that they would be perfect for our posts. , They are also cheap! 100 cost me £1 in my local supermarket. I had to choose the skewers carefully as many of them were either curved or “damaged.”
The first job was to file the blunt end to look like an apex roof. I used a fairly course file to do this, and just a few strokes produced the effect I wanted. I did not worry too much about making it symmetrical, as I very much doubt that the real ones were.
If I had modelled the actual number of arms on the posts, they could have looked very “fussy” and would have probably been too tall when fitted on the layout. Therefore, I decided to have just two long arms and five shorter ones on the post.
To fit the arms to the posts, I cut seven slots using a Swiss needle file, with three or four passes of the file giving me a deep enough slot. To hold the post steady and to stop it rotating whilst I did this, I used a blob of “Blu Tack.” The first slot was about 6mm from the top of the post, with the gap between the slots being 4mm.
The arms themselves were made from 1mm square plastic rod (Plastruct PMS40 1mm x 1mm strip). An old Airfix telegraph pole had arms that were of 16mm long, and I used this length for the shorter arms. The longer arms I made 24mm long. I found that from 2 strips of rod I could get enough arms for 3 poles.
I put a drop of “Uhu” in each slot to fix the arms, which held them in place while I fitted the insulators.. However, “Uhu” proved not to be strong enough in the long run, so after the insulators had been fitted I put a dab of superglue on the joint
The insulators were made from 0.75mm half round plastic rod (Plastruct PMHR30 0.75mm half round strip). To make life easy, rather than fitting individual insulators, I put one rod across all seven arms, using “Plastic Weld” to fix it. There were four insulators on the short arms and six on the long ones. The result can be seen in the photograph 2. Once everything was set, I cut off the top half of the insulator between the arms, leaving about a 1.5mm stub behind. Photograph 3 shows the result. Any insulators that fell off at this time were re-glued back in position.
Photograph 1
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Photograph 2
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Photograph 3
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Photograph 4
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Once the glue had set hard, checking that everything was still firmly fixed, I primed the posts using “Halford’s” white plastic primer. When dry, I painted the posts and insulators in burnt umber acrylic paint, using two coats to get a good finish. I then picked out the insulators in white acrylic paint, with any overspill touched up with the umber.
I cut off the spike on the end of the skewer, as it was not needed and could have been “dangerous!”
The result is shown in photograph 4 and I think they look pretty good.
It would be possible to make smaller posts using plastic rod or thinner skewers. See photograph 4.
The glue and primer I used were my own personal choice, and other makes would be suitable.
I cut off the spike on the end of the skewer, as it was not needed and could have been “dangerous!”
The result is shown in photograph 4 and I think they look pretty good.
It would be possible to make smaller posts using plastic rod or thinner skewers. See photograph 4.
The glue and primer I used were my own personal choice, and other makes would be suitable.
