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When you handlay your track what kind of wood do you us for ties?
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And how do you make a curved turn out using parts from a straight turn out and a curved piece.?
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Is handlain track minus turn outs just lengths of flex track spiked to ties or something else?
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Wood is usually sugar pine or basswood - I use what comes in the bag of ties - I don’t cut my own.
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No idea, I would just make the curved turnout from rail.
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Handlaid is individual rails spiked to ties (some use pcb ties and solder every x number of ties). I spiked every tie but I only did small amounts. I also used Walther’s Goo one time and it worked fine. Others do every 5th or 6th tie for large layouts.
Except for the turnouts, you don’t save money handlaying ties and the better flex track has better detail as well. Unless you buy tie plates, scale spikes, etc., which can make handlaid more expensive. That said, there’s something very satisfying about running a train over track you have handlaid.
Enjoy
Paul
Medium balsa, stained with cloth dye.
I build turnouts in place. For curved turnouts, I put the stock rails in first, then assemble the frog between them - working with an NMRA gauge in one hand and two 3-point gauges riding the rails. What’s the frog number? Whatever you measure after you pull it up and straighten the curved rails (which defeats the whole purpose of building it in place.)
Handlaid ‘ordinary’ track is raw rail spiked to wood ties, with or without prototypical tie plates. Like specialwork, it requires attention to keep it either perfectly straight or smoothly curved, plus the requirement to keep it in gauge. When laying curves, the two-point side of a three point gauge goes on the outside rail.
While I have handlaid ‘ordinary’ track in the past, I now use appropriate flex track between my handlaid specialwork. Once painted and weathered, flex actually looks better than hand-laid, unless you can work with the precision of a micro-machinist. Also, in my case, my prototype had put in concrete ties - and I challenge anybody to hand-lay convincing-looking concrete tie track.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
so would it be easier to buy a curved turn out? or to make a 3 way turn out? or a curved one?
I know it will take a good bit of rail cutting to get it right along with soldering.
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I’ve always used commercially cut ties. Typically, those are cut from sugar pine, basswood, or (my favorite, but out of production) redwood. Ties are laid on Homasote, and ballast added. Then ties are sanded to ensure the track is level, the ties and ballast vacuumed, and the ties restained (redwood ties don’t need restaining).
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I prefer to lay my turnouts in place on the layout, so I typically use full length rail sections. By doing so, I avoid any unnecessary joints in a turnout or within a couple of inches of a turnout. A paper template is created by temporarily laying pieces of flex track in place for each route, and tracing over the rails. As I lay each piece of the turnout, I pre-fit and pre-bend the rail, then file it to the correct shape. Frogs, wing rails, closure rails, and points are made from 3 pieces of rail. The frog point is a single piece of rail, filed on the inside of the point until there is a hole in the web, and then the rail is folded back on itself (a trick Steve Hatch of Railway Engineering showed me). The 3 rail pieces forming the frog are soldered together and the frog/point assembly is spiked in place. Stock and guard rails are added next. Gaps are then cut in the closure rails, and possibly the frog rails. Feeders to the stock rails, points and frog, and a frog powering contact are added, and the turnout throw linkage installed. Call it good (or very good).
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Because I lay track in place, it is not the same as flex track. Ballasting ahead of laying rail presents a “railroad under construction” appearance without even having rail installed. Pre-bending any curved rail is essential to avoiding kinks at rail joints, and makes spiking very easy (don’t ask me how I know this!).
There are hand-layers who do their magic at the bench. Usually a few PC Board ties are soldered to the rails to hold things in alignment while transfe
what do you use for frogs, wheel guides, and the part that makes a turn out a tunrout.(I know not the name but it’s the part that moves.)
Now, let me preface this that I only handlay my bridge track…
That being said, I use balsa, since you can rarely find (at least I can rarely find) 10’ or so ties (HO scale), so I have to cut them by hand. It is really NOT that bad if you have a chopper II or such from NWSL. I then batch stain them, varying the stain a little to give the ties different colors (slighly). Finally, I apply a final dark ebony stain mixed with india ink. This gives a dark and sometime sooty/splotchy appearance I like…very grimy and I like that. Anyway, hope this helps… Sorry if not clear…still kinda a noob after only 2 years of doing this…
Here are the pic’s…
Hope this helps.
Brian
The guardrails (wheel guides across from the frog) and wing rails (parts that flare around the pointed part of the frog) are usually made from stock rail bent to shape and spiked in place, just like the real thing. The points (the part that makes a turnout a turnout) can be made from stock rail, too by filing the shape of the point. Many people make the frog, wing rails and points into one piece by soldering the whole thing together.
Check out NMRA Recommended Practices 12 and 13 series for more details:
If you go to the FastTracks web site you can download a video of how they use their assembly jigs to build a turnout. Even if you don’t want to use their stuff, you might find some things on the videos to help you out.
You can also download track templates for help in aligning turnouts, crossovers and other stuff.
Good luck and let us know your progress.
If you’re hand-laying things, filed pieces of rail (which you then solder to PCB ties).
I’d reccommend that if you aren’t going to buy a fasttracks jig, the book “Trackside and Lineside Detail” has Tony Koester’s method for building turnouts (recommended to me by Andy Sperandeo…haven’t gotten it yet though), some of the older MRR issues also have methods for building specialwork. I just got a few reprints of articles by Robert F. Cushman for building lap (3-way) turnouts. other than the ads for $0.15 items, there’s not much that has changed (or at least hasn’t changed significantly enough to throw me completely off)…
Oh good it is just normal rail . And I have some brass and code 83 that I can practice with. Along with the issue that has the article on how to build three way turnouts and onther one on hinge pinned turnouts.
WARNING! Brass rail behaves differently to Nickel Silver when soldering. You need to practice on the stuff you will be using.
There are many threads here on track laying… try a search.
You will need NMRA or similar gauges… get more than one of each as you frquently want to gauge at several points at once.
Blocks of hard wood cut very square are useful for holding things in place and/or down.
Blocks of metal are also good… thing to be aware of is that metal can act as a heat sink… sometimes you want this to stop heat spreading sometimes you don’t…
Blocks… all sorts of sizes up to 1.5" square… some are long and low… you will find out what works for you as you go.
Sometimes small spirit levels are useful.
Two good quality straight edges help a lot… one long and one short.
I use the vile steel banding used to retain loads like sheet steel and timber in industry (about 1" wide) on edge to draw out curves and as a working guide tool… if you can find a source get long lengths and cut them to working lengths as you find you need them. Make sure that you blunt the ends so you don’t get cut. Trust me!
Long pins of all sorts are also useful for locating things while you work.
Have a large pot of cold water on hand (where you won’t knock it over)… needed for cooling burnt fingers… trust me!
Think a lot about using a watchmakers pinvice or a dremel for driling pilot holes…
Just some quick thoughts.
[8D]