In the March 2013 issue of MR is an article by Frank Benenati. Figure 1 shows him drilling out the rivets which act as pivots for the points. In Figure 9 the rebuild is shown. He has used rail joiners to connect the points to the stationary rail. I cannot see what now acts as pivots. Does he simply rely on the points themselves to bend into position when the turnout is closed and spring back when opened? Thanks, Colin
Colin
http://www.proto87.com/making-rtr-turnouts-dcc-friendly.html
While there are no joiners in this upgrade you can use them. What most do is cut one in half and solder one half of those halves to the point rails. In essence is you are only using 1/4 of the joiner for each rail. After a couple of swipes of the point rails they will be loose enough.
Pete
The article is apparently based on Shinhora style turnouts. He solders the joiners to the PC board tie and apparently then solders the rail to the joiners, relying on the point rails to flex to each stock rail. He then cuts gaps in the original wing rails at the frog to isolate the frog.
I’m in the process of trying this on some Atlas Customline code 100 switches. There the “wiring” for the point rails and the frog gaps are there already. The main improvement is to get rid of the wobbly sheet metal point rails and improve tracking through the turnout. I’ll post how it turns out, just waiting for warmer weather to get back to the sander in the garage to grind the new point rails.
Fastracks switches also offer this option for their built up switch templates except that they use a solid rail from the points to the wing rail on the frog. They also cut gaps at the frog after building up the turnout.
With a long enough chance to bend and the small bend needed, apparently bending the points is pretty easy.
Back in the dark ages, rail joiners were the usual pivots between points and stock rails. They are a long way from being rigid, even when used full length and/or soldered to either the point or the closure rail (but not both.)
My own points are pivoted using vertical wire nails under the heels of the points. There is no connection between point and closure rail, and an open point is as dead as an equivalent piece of plastic. That lets me use prototypically close point to stock rail spacing, with no danger of back-of-the-flange shorts. It also requires using the auxiliary contacts on whatever throws those points to power the hot frog - Atlas machines need not apply.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with built-in-place hand laid specialwork)
Thanks Redore, I too am working with Atlas Code 100. In my case I have one turnout where one of the sheet metal point rails broke after too aggressive a filing. The method appeals to me because it is done in place thereby sparing me the work of ripping out ballasted track. I am in no hurry and will be on the look out for your future post.
i just did this to 13 turnout on my layout. no scenery or roadbed yet, so good time to change. will change the other at the bench before i install it really worked great and looks much better too. i have Shinohara turnouts like the article, they have very short point rails. i soldered rail jointer (cut in half) to both and then to the pc board tie. The longer point rails flex, but i did have to change the tortoise wire to a stronger one. you can get piano wire at most hobby shops. bend to the tortoise instructions and i drilled the hole behind the screw a little larger. I replaced the ones on my sidings first to get the hang of it before the ones on the mainline.
i wire the frogs with tortoise contacts and with the pc board tie providing power to the points there is no rail to rail power. All solid electrical conections