O gauge whitemetal chairs

[Pelham Street]

Hi guys, I am constructing track in O gauge by soldering rail to copperclad sleepers. All very old had

now days. however I am ballasting alnost to the top of the rail web as I am modelling pre-1900 period.

 

Does anyone make whitemetal chaie tops that can be glued or soldered to represent the very tops of the

chairs that poked above the gravel ballast used then?

[BG John]

No idea, but that could interest me too, as I'll be doing the same.

[hayfield]

The one issue you will face is that all chairs are designed to hold the rail above the sleeper/timber. Not too certain about whitemetal chairs (the ones I have seen were coarse scale) but the C&L and Exactoscale chairs hold the rail 1 mm above the sleeper/timber. The problem you will encounter if you solder the rail directly to the copperclad is that the chair will not fit into the recesses of the rail as its too high

 

One solution is to raise the rail up by 1 mm. This can be done several ways, one I have used is to use slivers of 1 mm thick copperclad ground back to the width of the rail. drill holes in the copperclad and fit (lill or panel) pins, which can be soldered to both the copperclad and rail. In 00 gauge it was the norm to do this every third sleeper/timber using card or wooden sleepers/timbers in between, given the cost of copperclad this is a very economical building method. C&L or Exactoscale chairs could be used functionally on these and cut in half for the soldered joints 

 

To be quite honest unless you have lots of cheap copperclad timber strips, ply strips would be far more cost effective

[Pelham Street]

I was originally thinking about cutting lengths of brass rod, the width of a chair with rail cutting snips, and soldering to the rail web where a

chair would appear. As the ballast covers every thing else the lack of the rest of the chair won't show. However, it's cutting multiple length all

the same size that stopped me before. Any ideas if this will work?

[hayfield]

To be frank using thin spacers cut from 1 mm double sided copperclad will be the quickest method, using a slitting disk to remove any excess. I would still go down the route of only soldering every third sleeper and just threading plastic chairs on the rail for the non soldered sleepers, or doing the same but use short panel pins on every third sleeper 

[66C]

I was originally thinking about cutting lengths of brass rod, the width of a chair with rail cutting snips, and soldering to the rail web where a

chair would appear. As the ballast covers every thing else the lack of the rest of the chair won't show. However, it's cutting multiple length all

the same size that stopped me before. Any ideas if this will work?

 

Copper wire from twin and earth would be easier to cut and solder - some leftover cable would be cheaper than buying brass rod.

 

No reason why it should not work.

 

Regards.

Edited October 7, 2017 by 66C