A thought ocurred to me while reading all the posts on handlaying trackwork. Nobody seems to have mentioned the base or worksurface needed to lay a good TO.
Does it not need to be absolutely flat? If you make it skewed, it will never operate reliably.
It needs to be fairly smooth. To start its best that it not have any vertical curves in it. The easiest situation is when its level crossways. You can build a switch on a grade but if you are a beginner, flatter, more level is better.
Think of it this way. You can build a switch anyplace you can install a commercial switch.
Dave H.
Bruce, I have two Fast Tracks #8 turnouts that I tweaked so that the through route continues at level or rises, and the diverging route descends. So, it can be done. The trick is to cut several of the longer PCB ties that are meant to support the earliest portions of the through and diverging routes so that each route can deviate from level. It can’t be much, mind you, but I have something close to 1.0% in deviation…which helps a lot.
Also, the turnouts will of course work best if they are level and fully supported under them, but you can fudge there as well. I would think quality engines and rolling stock will accept deviations from level in both yaw and attitude, providing their path through the turnout is not bumpy as well. So, you can lay the turnout on a slightly tilted surface with impunity in most cases…it just has to be a small amount, that’s all.
We can talk off line if it suits you better.
-Crandell
What I was getting at was not to build a turnout on a warped or propeller piece of wood.
it has become increasingly harder to find a good flat substructure on which to build our devices with a good degree of accuracy. I know, I am a perfectionist. I can’t help it.
This is where open grid benchwork (either L girder or butted grid) with risers shine. The girders and joists don’t have to be precisely level. The leveling takes place at the risers, or with the roadbed/subroadbed, or the final chance is by sanding the tie tops. Doesn’t matter whether you use spline or ribbon cut plywood for the roadbed - the principles are the same.
Put in the desired grade/level by carefully adjusting the risers. Then sand the top of the subroadbed and/or roadbed smooth and flat. Finally, sand the tie tops (restain as necessary) before spiking the rail. All these steps except the tie sanding should be done with manufactured track as well. Most model railroaders I know ended up sanding their cork roadbed smooth and flat before laying their flex track.
I don’t know of any of our common supporting materials - wood, plywood, cork, Homasote, foam - that don’t vary more than we would like in thickness and smoothness for our trackwork. We buy relatively cheap materials that in their normal use the typical variances don’t matter. If you want cabinet-grade benchwork and roadbed, it’s going to cost. You save by doing the finish work and material selection yourself instead of paying the mill and supplier to do it for you.
just my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
I haven’t tried it yet but I would think a piece of 1/8" luan plywood should work fairly well for a base. It’s soft enough to hold spikes yet solid enough for good support of the turnout.
Just my [2c].
Tom
Cabinet grade plywood is very flat.
Homasote spline is dead flat.
Dave H.
As resident handlaid specialwork (non)expert, this is what I’m using on my currently under construction [HOj (1:80) scale] double garage filler:
Bruce:
PERFECTION should be an attempted goal, not an end to itself.
Chuck,
Please share with us pictures of some of your specialty trackwork. We’ve all heard you talk about some of the trackwork you’ve done, but have never seen a pic of any of it. You know, a picture is worth a thousand words.
My experience handlaying track says that the flatter the better. Ditch the warped piece of subroadbed, you’ll never get anything other trouble out of it. I agree that things like homasote, which is my ideal for a roadbed for handlaying, will have variations in thickness. If you are using wooden ties some of this variation will be dealt with when you sand the ties smooth after gluing them to the homasote. You can always check for uneveness with a metal straight edge.
By flatter I mean even height across the length and width of the turnout, not necessarily perfectly level with no grade.
Okay, I must have gotten confused about something. Bruce, are you asking about handlaying in situ, as in right where it is needed on the layout, or are you asking about a surface suitable for building on at a work station?
In my case, I built them with jigs, and tweaked them and snipped what I had to once I placed them where they were to be used. I had made spline roadbed with MDF, and used a surform file to smooth that place. Still, as I alluded to before, those places still required a rise after the frog one way and a decline the other, and one of the two configured this way is actually on a curved spline that is on a downgrade of nearly 2%.
If you are worried about wobbly underpinnings, then use strips of cereal box cardboard as shims every 3/4" or so under each pair of rails. It is what I have done, and I also used semi-glued ballast in some places away from the points and throwbar to help stabilize the entire turnout, particularly around the frog. It works!
Prototype equipment has springyness built into all equipment. Even those heavy duty articulated engines have springs on the drivers with equalizers to get over roughened up track. However model locomotives are often built rigidbase, so a roughed up track aint a good thing.
I wasn’t perfect in my handlaying and ended up springing my Rivarrosi berkshire.
Makes me wish all model likes would do springing.
So yeh, try to have your build surface level and flat. However because of my specialwork, my stuff gets done in place where the trackwork is, not on the bench.
I do look for rail variations and if needed you might find me wedging in cardboard paper supports under the rail to correct things. Very minimal however as model rail hold shape better than the prototype with weight on it.
Unless you want to model that Penn Central beaten up trackage tho. Maybe its more interesting to watch a train running down the track weaving and leaning on all that bad track… 
Some day, when I get out of the stone age, I hope to have picture taking/posting technology. At present, I don’t even have a throwaway camera, and a scanner is one of those ‘maybe, someday’ projects.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
There are inexpensive webcams that plug into the USB port. I made sure mine had a physical focus and I can zoom in real close.
I use plywood as board.
another example:
Wolfgang
How do you file down the rail to achieve a sharp frog, especially for #8 and bigger?
I take the lazy way, but be carefully:
You see more at my site “How to scratchbuild turnouts”.
Wolfgang