I thank whoever it was who recently mentioned hot gluing tortoises. It was a side thought in a recent threat, I cant find or remember which one. If this is a common practice, well, it’s now to me!
Here’s the “Made Easier” part:
I use a very long piece of .030 hard piano wire, bend a 90 degree about 1/4" long on one end. Insert the OTHER end FROM THE TOP, down through the hole in the turnout’s throw bar. The bend will keep it from dropping through. Now go below, make another 90 bend in the piano wire like the one on the Tortoise’s original one.
Now put that end of the wire in the Tortoise as the original one was, and you simply slide the whole thing up in to position, no trying to bulls eye that tiny hole from below the layout.
Test fit it for optimum position, and mark it with a felt marker. Then apply a generous glob of hot glue, and carefuly, quickly stick in in position. Then snip off the long piano wire above, and it’s ready for the next one. This works if you’re using screws, as well.
If you do use .030 piano wire, you have to enlarge the hole in the tortoise actuator accordingly.
If this idea is old news, I apologize. But if it helps someone, I wanted to share. And again, thank you, whoever mentione the hot glue idea! Dan
I use a pink foam base and WS foam roadbed, so I can’t mount a Tortoise machine directly to the subroadbed with screws. I use a small square of 1/4 inch plywood. It gets a hole below the throwbar. I then thread a 3 inch screw through the roadbed and foam. I typically use white glue to attach the wood square from below, and then hold it for a day ot two with that long screw and a wingnut or nut and washer. The white glue gives me time to adjust position. I’ve never had a problem with this mounting method.
Long time no post, but here’s a much easier and less permanent method: get the Tortoise drilling template – or easier print out your own and glue it to a sturdy piece of styrene or whatever. Use it to mark you holes from THE TOP, drill pilot holes all the way through from the top and bam, no guesswork under the layout. Invariably there will be a situation where you need to be a contortionist to screw the darn thing in from the bottom, but thats just part of model railroading, right?Make your piano wire armature a good 2" longer than necessary, and drop the turnout on top of it after the Tortoise is installed. I found a small parallel cutter that can trim the excess off after the turnout is in place (wear safety goggles, flying piano wire is nasty).
I just don’t see how hot glue can work effectively. When I use hot glue on projects, it seems to dry hard in 1/2 second. Using hot glue to align a Tortoise from under the layout seems next to impossible for me.
What I do is to manually center the points on the turnout and hold the points in place with a strip of masking tape. Then, from under the layout, I push the Tortoise upward so that the piano wire penetrates through the hole in the turnout and right up through the masking tape. Holding the Tortoise firmly in place with one hand, I mark the aligment holes on the Tortoise with a pencil.
Actually, I only mark two of the four alignment holes, one in the front and the other in the opposite side of the rear. Two screws are sufficient to firmly hold the Tortoise in place. Then, I drill pilot holes at the point of the two pencil marks and screw down the Tortoise. Back up above the layout, I use wire cutters to cut the piano wire flush with the turnout throwbar.
It took me longer to write this explanation than it does to install the Tortoise. My failure rate on the first try is zero.
I would only add two tips to Rich’s method. I center the points but hold them in place with two push pins. This eliminates the interference from the masking tape and allows light to shine down when you’re aligning the wire from below.
I place a square of double sided carpet tape on the Tortoise mounting surface before I align from below. This allows me to align the wire and j
Rich, the prep work is the key to making this work. By establishing and marking the position of the machine beforehand, and using the LONG piano wire already atached to the machine, and already threaded through the throwbar, it’s a quick matter of putting the HOT glue on the machine and sticking it up there. I have the glue gun on high temp.
Drum Guy. Welcome back to replying.[:)]
I should have mentioned that I’m working on a layout that has track and ballast permanently in place already, so drilling and such from the top is not an option. I’m replacing the few home made turnout control linkages I made that have given me some trouble, and some that are too far from the control panel for mechanical links.
If necessary, a firm twist will remove the machine, and the glue so far sticks to it, not the benchwork. Dan
I’ve successfully used double side Velcro , one side on the tortoise and the other on the underside of the mounting surface , I then twist back and forth test the throw of the turnout and when I’m happy i set into place with 4 screws.
It’s velcro, but with a finer, more sensitive relationship between the two mating sides. I’ve used both, and given the fact that screws are eventually used to secure the Tortoise to the subroadbed it may be inconsequential. But I’ve had left-overs of the pedal board tape so that’s I’ve put to use. And the stuff holds a pedal to the board with a great grip, and it is near impossible to remove the tape from the top of the pedal board or the bottom of the guitar effect pedal.
Great tip drilling the pilot holes from the top. I’ll try that on my next Tortoise installation. I’ve always tried to position the template from below and invariably, I have to reposition it. Maybe it will work better from the topside.