Alright, I’m finally making some good progress on handlaying my own turnouts. (HO, code 70 - why such small rail? Because I can!)
Here’s my strategy:
Build the frog/points on a piece of wood - not spiked onto the ties. I made the frog/points from non-weathered rail - everything else is weathered rail.
I filled the frog with solder, and cut the flanges out with a hacksaw. Although this filling/cutting is not required, I’m leaning towards using the points to route the power to the frog.
Although some say this is not “DCC friendly”, it requires less wiring, and is nicer mechanically - the frog and points are one solid piece.
Eric Brooman mentioned in MR that when he tore down his Utah Belt to move and build a new layout, he was able to save his points. I suspect this is due in part to them being one solid piece. If there were gaps in the rail between the points and frog, re-alignment would be much more difficult.
As long as my points don’t rub on wheels, there will be no shorting issues.
A couple other notes
I ballasted before laying any rail (come on, count the grains of ballast on the tops of the ties, I dare you [:p]) This is actually a big motivation for handlaying to me - ballasting is such a hassle, but ballasting bare ties is not.
The guard rails are epoxied in place, since there was no room for spikes between them and the stock rails.
Roadbed is Lauan plywood - takes spikes like a champ.
If you’ve got any handlaying tips, share them with me, as I’m very much in this “head space” right now!
I’ll also add this is my first time sharing any modeling on this forum, other than layout ideas for critique, so don’t hammer me too hard!
P.S., it’s much smoother than both the Atlas Mark IV and the Walthers/Shinohara turnout I bought a couple days ago when I was ready to go to the “dark side” and just buy my turnouts.
Wow! Really nice work so far!! [tup] Handlyaing turnouts is something I’ve been wanting to try for a while, but haven’t had the opportunity to do yet. Once I get my layout up and running, I’m thinking about switching out some of my Atlas customline #4’s with handlaid, since I don’t like the way the #4’s are built (the “straight” route rails actually jog out at an angle near the middle - very annoying when trying to line up a perfectly straight line of trackwork).
Thanks for sharing - your photos are very encouraging and are enticing me to give it a go! [:)]
Now that you have mastered the fear of handlaying track that comes from the dark side…[:)]
My last binge of handlaid track was done almost exactly as you have done. I’m in the process of moving - living in a furnished apartment while we decide what to do and where to live when I grow up. When I was at the HOn3 Symposium in Occidental a couple of weeks ago, Steve Hatch demonstrated for me a different method of constructing handlaid turnouts that I’m eager to try when I get relocated.
He laid out the turnout on paper by using a piece of flex track, and rubbing a piece of paper over the rails when set as desired for the 2 paths. This gave a paper tracing of the turnout with frog (where the rail traces crossed) and point locations (where the rail tracings merged). The paper template also had the custom frog angle already on it.
He created the frog by 1st bending a piece of rail to conform to the paper template for one frog rail and the closure rail on the same side of the turnout. He filed away some of the rail base and touched the head where the bend was. He then bent the rail back the other way to form both frog rails and the frog point, aligning the angles with the paper traces. The dressing of the rail base and head allowed the proper clearance at the frog point.
He then took a piece of rail and bent it to match the template for the wing rail/closure rail/point. The rail base and head were filed flush with the web on the outside of the point area. The inside rail head was dressed slightly at the point also. A third piece of rail was bent and filed to be the other wing rail/closure rail/point combination.
Laying all 3 pieces together with correct flangeway width at the frog, he flowed some .015" solder to just solder the base at the frog. He now had a one piece frog/closure rail/point assembly.
Steve builds his turnouts at the bench, I build my on site. I would next take th
Fred, thanks for the insight. I’m confused about your step 2 above - did your friend make the sharp poing of the frog out of one rail?
As for using a pencil and paper to trace over flextrack, Michael Tylick did this in an MR article in the early 90’s. It’s a great way to get smoothly curved turnouts.
With the experimentation I’ve done, I’m becoming a believer in straight frogs in the turnouts. So even if the turnout is curved, I’m thinking straight frogs are still the way to go. This enables you to align the wing rails with the frog points better, I think.
Only one thing wrong with your switches: they’re in HO instead of N - but I’ll forgive you for modeling in the wrong scale. If they were in N, however, there would be something else wrong with them: you would have them mounted in the wrong place - on your layout instead of mine.
Good job!!! Ha!!! Outstanding is the only way to describe your finished product!!! Your outlined technique is virtually identical to mine. You have to be extremely cautious in handlaying turnouts, however - next thing you know you’ll start thinking of numbers like #6.75 and #5.25 and whopping #9.125.
That turnout looks very nice…congratulations. Have you filled the frog enough so that the wheel flanges ride on it between the frog point rails, or are the rails close enough, including your guardrails, to let the wheels stay up on the rail tops?
If you reply in the affirmative, may I suggest you try on your next turnout to place the guard rails closer to the points by another mm, both inner and outer guard rails, and NOT fill the space quite so much with solder. For the diversion you appear to have, about a #7.5 - 8, the frog angle and proximity to the gaurd rails should…should…permit the wheels to glide smoothly through the entire frog without using their flanges.
You might have to check wheelsets for gauge, yes, and make a few adjustments, but you will be pleased with the results, and save solder and time…I think.
rtpoteet, if I was in N-scale, I’d still be handlaying I think. It’s just so appealing to me.
Selector, I know what you’re referring to. My strategy is to not rely on the flanges to ride on anything. I made a 3D drawing here of some rails & wheelsets according to NMRA standards when I first was trying to understand this stuff a few months ago.
In theory, the wheel rides on top of the rails, and does not dip down into the frog. The outer diameter of the flange should never touch the frog.
I do believe, however, that there will always be some minor dipping - and (in theory) that should be due purely to the fact that the wheels are tapered, so as the wheel transfers from one rail in the frog to the other, it’s contacting further out on the wheel, and due to the taper of the wheel, the wheel has to drop a hair to make contact. (see picture below).
There was a long thread on wheels travelling through the frog a couple of months ago…
Those look very nice points. How do they run (don’t mean to be cynical… I’ve just built really good looking points that were demons in the past).
In your startegy you only really talk about frog and point construction. There’s several ways of doing this but the real thing puts a joint in each line between the frog and the blades. this allows for adjustment and for replacement of the bits that wear out first.
Personally i would go with the majority RR practice and make up all my frogs with both rails straight through (set at the appropriate angle). I like to do this on a work bench and have used jigs (made by my Father) when making a number of frogs the same size.
I have always gone the way that I was taught and put a flat s in the sides of the straight route rail, next step is to butt the angled end of the curved route rail into the flat - fill the back with solder as you have done - then cut the flangeway. This is repeated on the other side for the short rail to the blade.
Cutting the flangeways creates some stresses but does a brilliant job of testing wheteher you’ve soldered the job up effectively. I used to use a tool called a “back saw” that Eclipse ceased making years ago… the great thing with those saws was that you could get really thin blades with lots of teeth per inch.
You don’t say how you produce your blades… that would be really interesting.
You also don’t mention the sequence you lay the ails in… do you start with the straigh stock rail?
The way I did gaurd rails was to solder the gaurd rail to the stock rail from the bottom. That worked out about right for the clearance through the gaurd rail but that was with code 100 rail. I haven’t tried it yet with code 83.
Yes, indeed Steve Hatch (of Railway Engineering who makes turnouts and kits, http://www.railwayeng.com/rrhints.htm) folded that piece of code 55 into a sharp point right in front of my eyes - my jaw dropped after I thought about all the filing and fitting I had done in the past to try to make a sharp accurate frog point from 2 pieces of rail. It only takes a little filing of the rail base and head on the back side after you make the initial broad angle fold. After filing, when you fold the rail back on itself, the filed area provides relief where the 2 rail bases and heads would otherwise interfere with each other at the frog point. At some heavier rail, I imagine this technique would run into problems. But I’m sure it would work with code 70, and I would think with at least code 100.
I wouldn’t argue with anybody about using straight frogs only. They are easier and more prototypical. But that’s the nice thing about building your own - you get to choose.
For David Foster
An ordinary hacksaw blade is just the right width and set for HO NMRA standard flangeways. I used the blade without a handle to enable me to cut curved forgs if I wanted to.
Fred, that’s crazy talk! Very interesting - I’ll have to try that - bending a rail back on itself to create the frog. An interesting thing to note is it seems the rail wouldn’t end up quite straight, by definition, you’d be stressing it, and even though you inted to fold it in a perfect crease, you’d be bending the rail a tiny bit also. Maybe not much.
David Foster, I’ll post my procedure - hopefully later today.
It’s what I call the Tony Koester / Michael Tylick / Iian Rice method.
The MR articles I’ve been studying are:
Michael Tylick: MR Sept, 1989
Tony Koester: MR Dec, 1989
Iian Rice: MR, Feb, 2004
and I also got some great tips from the Fast Tracks website
