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Winston-Salem Southbound Series: Handlaying track - Part 1
I’m running to my neighbor’s garage to cut some Homasote, I’ll just tell 'em “Tony sent me”! Great first video. I’ve been looking forward to this since it was announced. I loved Tony’s track work on the AM all those years ago.
I have a question.
I have a 10x3 space in my garage for a layout. (smaller is O.K.)
I would like for this to be a continuous-run layout. Any ideas?
I also have space for a point-to-point shelf layout with a maximum length of 10 feet in a spare room.
Any ideas? I have been looking… but have not found anything that suits me.
Tony is a real pro. Incredible depth of knowledge and his attention to detail is marvelous. In fact, the same is true for the whole MR staff. Love this series!
Thanks Tony and MRVP! Been waiting a while for this.
I love Tony’s comments during the end credits about how to cut homasote.
I really like Tony’s dry sense of humor regarding cutting up the homasote in a neighbours garage, good tip, and I’m also looking forward to the next video on laying track
Along with being informative Tony always makes it fun to watch! Looking forward to seeing more!
A very informative video. I have never had the guts to handlay track but Tony makes me want to try. I like Tony’s style and presentation. Even though I don’t have plans to do handlaid track I am really looking forward to the next installment (s) as this is about the best presentation that I have seen on the subject.
Terrific segment Tony. Always wanted to watch a pro hand lay track, you were great. I especially like your technique because you don’t try to make it look perfect just emulate the real track gang method. Great information.
Excellent and informative video Mr. Koester. Looking forward to next one on hand laying track.
As always Tony K a great presentation I have followed your articles for years. I put you up there with Allen, Armstrong, King and others.
I noticed in measuring the #5 switch that the ruler does not start at zero on the O scale section (it’s an extra foot divided by inches and THEN 0, 1, 2 etc. So the segments were 26’ long and 6’ wide. It all still works out correctly but for novices, you might want a reminder about where zero is at on the ruler.
The best demo of laying ties that I have seen!! Good job, Tony.
Sure wish MR had scheduled this production about five months ago when I started from scratch hand laying track. Tony makes it look like fun, which I think it is. A couple of coments, I use double sided tape on a template printed from the Fast Tracks site to layout and space turnout ties. I then pick up the ties with masking tape that is sticker than the two sided Scotch brand tape. I do hand lay ties in curvers but use a couple of sets of ancient Tru Track to space and layout straight run ties.
Cutting Homosote with a table saw is a very dusty proposition. Tony’s right about doing it in the neighbor’s garage. I did mine outside with one of my old contractor light weight table saws. Had to rake up a pile of paper dust when I was done ripping strips from a 4x4 sheet.
The yellow carpenter’s glue is a polymeric formulation (polyvinyl acetate) and does set hard in a mater of a couple hours. However, I have used a very sharp chisel to remove glued down ties when I goofed. Was able to clean up the ties and reuse them.
I have opted for precut ties to save time and hopefully obtain uniform sized ties. I do sand down the ties before laying track. Looking forward to more good tips on actually spiking track in coming episodes.
The best part of hand laid track is the cost of turnouts compared to purchased ready track. I think it is fun building turnouts from scratch and you have a complete knowledge of how they work when you have built a couple.
Great series!
COOOOLL!!!
More more more! I’ve been afraid to hand lay track but this is looks like something I could do!
Great video…thanks for sharing…
Great, as usual, Tony is a good teacher and the process is exactly why I subscribe to mrv.
Excellent tutorial on laying track, took away a lot of the mystery form. Thanks