I soldered a 16 gauge (IIRC) solid wire to the bolt. Kadee sells 0-80 tap and drill sets.
16 gauge is pretty hefty for that application. Maybe #22 would be more appropriate, of maybe smaller.
For turnouts controlled by Circuitron Tortoises, I wired it just like the instructions say… posts 1 and 8 are the incoming wires from the electrical switch. A wire goes from post 4 to the frog (often now there’s a metal tab attached to the frog with a place to attach a wire), and wires go from posts 2 and 3 to the stock rails. When the switch controlling the Tortoise is thrown, the polarity in the Tortoise is reversed and everything just works at the frog.
For hand-thrown turnouts, it’s the same except there’s no electrical switch. I use a hot willy. This is a screw driven into the plywood next to the points with a bent safety pin hinged on the screw and acting as a spring-loaded turnout throw. There are two track nails driven partway into the plywood nearby, such that you can rest the safety pin against one or the other of them and it will create tension on the points to direct traffic to the tangent or divergent track. That’s the willy part. To make it hot, I run a wire from the screw to the frog, and one wire from each of the track nails to one of the stock rails. To throw the turnout you move the safety pin so that it is touching one nail or the other, and this makes a connection from the proper stock rail to the frog. The power source in this case is just the nearby feeders to the rails.
I use 20 or 22 AWG wire for both of these scenarios. If the above description of the hot willy is not clear, I will try to dig up an old thread where I know I described it before with photos.
-Matt
Here’s a hot willy on a long curved turnout. On this one, the yellow wire goes under the plywood base and comes up at the frog and is soldered there. The “safety” part of the safety pin is bent up to make a handle. In the photo, the safety pin is not only applying pressure to keep the points tightly closed, but it is making an electrical connection between the frog and the far rail. You can see the wire going from the further (rightmost) nail down into a hole, and it comes up on the other side of the track and is soldered to the far rail.
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Hi Maxman,
You are right. The wire was much heavier than it needed to be. It was what I had on hand. One advantage to the heavier wire is that it doesn’t tend to bend or get stuck when you are pushing it down through the subroadbed.
Cheers!!
Dave