Making A Simple Turntable

There are several things that a turntable needs to have. It needs a "pit". The pit must have a bottom and sides. It must be perfectly round. A turntable also needs a "bridge". The bridge should have a "track" on it for the engine, and should have a "pivot" in the center so it can rotate. It should also have a "ring rail" for the bridge to rest on at the ends. For a model turntable that we can use on our layouts, we also need to supply some form of "electricity" to the track on the bridge. In locating the turntable, it can be just about anywhere you like on your layout. However, the top of the pit needs to be even or level with the top surface of your layout.
My layout uses a base of lauan with one-inch builders foam glued to it. The top surface of the layout is the top of the builders foam. Thus, the pit is one inch deep and rests on the lauan base.

To make the pit, we will use speaker rings. These are pre-made rings for the audio industry used for mounting speakers in speaker cabinets. They are made of a wood composite type product and come in various size diameters. Most of the time they are about 3/4 inch thick. If you have a table saw and a steady hand, you can cut them down and make them thinner. The speaker rings are used to make the turntable pit and ring rail shelf. Since the ring rail shelf does not have to be perfectly round, you can use other materials if desired.

Here are what speaker rings look like. These have been cut down in thickness. To find them, do an Internet search on "speaker rings". There are several manufacturers that you can get them from. On the main picture of the turntable above, you can see the outline of the speaker rings on the layout top surface. (This outline will be hidden later by scenery.)

The turntable bridge is made from a block of wood. This wood block should be some type of hardwood but does not have to be Oak. I used Poplar. For the pivot, I used a 1/4 inch phone plug. The phone jack is mounted in the center of the pit. The phone plug also allows for the electrical connection from the track to the rest of the track wiring on the layout. The added benefit is that the bridge can be removed and worked on or repaired if necessary with no physical connection to the pit. The bridge is detailed out after the track and wiring is in place by using some bridge girders, stripwood planks, and brass railings. On a real turntable bridge, the ends have wheels that run on the ring rail. On my version, I used a couple of wood pieces painted black. These can't be seen from the top, and they help keep the bridge from turning too easy because they slide on the ring rail providing some small amount of friction.

Only two wires are needed to wire the phone jack to the layout track. These wires should go directly to either a reversing switch or a DCC auto reverser so the polarity of the bridge track can be changed as required as an engine is turned. The pit is also detailed. Plastic block sheeting is used for the sides. The ring rail sets on top of another speaker ring that has been cut down to 1/4 inch thick. The ring rail is actually made from a section of N Scale flextrack that has been cut in half. If you are careful, you can keep the ties attached to one rail of the track. Then you just form it to fit the pit. Ballast is then applied to the bottom of the pit and ring rail section.

Well, that's it. It really is a simple way to build a turntable.