Thank you for teaching me a new word: obround. Cool!
You aren’t going to show us a picture of the backside of the plastic? We just have to guess how lousy it will look?
Haha! Thanks Jim.
The reason I put it that way is that many of the Precision Products sheets have slight undercutting on the back face, which would tear off material if used as a mold. The “coursed stone” type, however, seems to have enough draft to it for this purpose, at least in general.
I’m also planning on using a release agent, hopefully that’ll help.
I’ll probably use CementAll for casting the piers, maybe with gray pigment mixed in.
Here’s why I’m not putting the saw together and ripping wood: my wife’s yarn-dying class being held in the garage.
Can you find the Grizzly in the photo? 
Assembled and aligned the bandsaw today, all ready for action.
Thanks Jim, Sean and Jerry for the video links. The link Jer sent was particularly helpful.
The 3/4" blade I bought with the saw seems a bit too long; it won’t tension up and wants to eat away at internal bits. So I’ll fix that issue later and start with the stock 3/8" blade.
[edit] Jim, you’d mentioned a “thin” 3/4 blade. Is that a special thing?
That’s all I got today…
Cliff:
This is the “thin” 3/4" bandsaw blade I purchased for my grizzly.
It cuts like butter when new.
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Thanks Jim. I got a 1/2" thin blade yesterday, and will try that. The Grizzly tech also told me to go thru the tensioner setup process, since maybe someone at the factory goofed up in doing that.
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I always have trouble with the 3/8" blades, they tend to wander on me.
Slow… is the key … let the blade do the work …
I hear ya Bob. My 1/8" blades completely left town.
How many 3/8" blades do you have ?
Yes,
Behind the camera!
Crock pots, plastic table cloths and old school green and white lattice lawn chairs have invaded the SHARED space all in the name of yarn dying .
BTW what bandsaw do you have in the upper right hand corner of the picture?
Cliff, I realize that you’re headed in a different direction but I thought I’d show what I did for bridge abutments. I built my carcasses out of PVC decking boards and wrapped them with Precision Products stone sheets. I used Welder glue to affix the sheets to the PVC. This is how they looked after 15 years on the ground.
Needless to say, I’m impressed with the durability.
Doc
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That’s amazing Doc that the plastic lasted so well. I’d have sworn it would get pretty brittle eventually. So thanks for that data point.
I hadn’t heard of Welder glue, excellent.
Yep, that’s the new BS! I’m getting in a replacement part today, for a piece that got damaged in shipping. But should be ready to rip after that.
With the bandsaw now up and running, I had fun ripping all the cedar for this project.
The cut isn’t as clean as I expected, but it goes with the rough-sawn look for 1870’s trestle work in Nevada.
Then came finishing the deck jig:
While cleaning up the garage, I put up a sign that Hollywood gave me a couple years ago. Perfect for this space that is shared between my woodworking and my wife’s yarn dying… a space which sometimes one of us keeps clean. So thanks again Hollywood!
As for Amtrak suitability on the V&T… well, I figure if Rooster can go all steamish, I can loosen up a little as well. 
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Now that the other projects are starting to die down, I’m really looking forward to making some more progress on this.
Circumstances have given me time to think about the other two trestles I need. Much smaller, and (thank you Lord!) straight. I’d like to deal with these as part of the same overall project, we’ll see. Here’s their basic design at this point.
These are based on prototypes, near the Ophir mine in Virginia City, NV. Unfortunately, the proto’s were about 3x longer, so had that many more bents. But you know, I’m getting tired of history guilt, I have enough other avenues for that. So mine will be “more compact and efficient” than the prototypes were.
I’m also doing away with the handrails, because of a little thing called Leaves. However, the bent design, and that of the thru trusses & bracing & etc., are all based on the original, to the extent possible. I’m using the drawings of V&T historian Mike Collins, which were based on various historic documentation.
OK, one more admission, I’m not mortising all the posts into their headers and sills. Gotta draw the line somewhere (since I don’t know how to do it). I find the trusses interesting, in that the upper members are entirely under compression via the vertical rods, with no vertical timbers. I guess they kept tightening those rods when things sagged.
Another point of interest is the cordwood dump. I’ve only been able to find a few vague photos showing it, so this is a preliminary freelance attempt to satisfy what those photos do show. Still working on it, but wanted to post a snapshot of things.
Cheers,
000o> Cliffy
Trestles and bridges will look good when you get them complete, Cliff. BTW: “I don’t know how” is a poor excuse for not doing something 
With that said, using the mortises at this scale will serve no structural purpose and you would be the only person that knew they were there , so I agree with you on leaving them out.
Prime example of Devoning … Just build something already …