Finished Turnouts (Sort Of)
Following on from my last post showing an overview of my turnout construction fixtures, I have managed to get some working turnouts produced after many months of no modelling.
Since trying the fixtures out for the first time, I discovered my soldering iron just wasn't up to the job and I wasn't getting the results I had hoped from the fixtures. I have since purchased a new temperature controlled soldering station and it has been fantastic. I also found most of the 2mm Association rail was coated in what I presume is oil so after trying out several different cleaning methods, the good old fibre glass pencil seems to do the trick. I now follow the process of ensuring the PCB sleepers are filed clean, the rail is brushed clean with the fibre glass pencil and I now use a different flux with my new soldering station and everything seems to work like a dream.
I also sorted the artwork for the laser cut sleeper bases to account for the laser kerf. Tim Horn kindly produced two boxes worth from a 1200x1200mm sheet of 0.8mm ply and shipped them out within a few days. I now have over 190 sleeper bases in both left hand and right hand for sizes B8, C8, C10 and D10.
I have now started to build the seven B8 turnouts I need for my new layout and the first three have been built at the rate of one per night. I reckon I can build a whole turnout in under two hours now! The photo below shows a completed turnout with freshly glued sleeper base at the top (isolation gaps still to be cut), a Peco large radius turnout in the middle and a freshly painted left hand B8 at the bottom with extra Easitrac sleepers added. It shows the reason why I moved to 2mm Finescale in the first place.
Here are a few more shots shown beside a Farish Class 37 for comparison.
I'm really pleased with the results so far and all my converted wagons and locos run through the turnouts silky smooth with no bumps at all.
I'll be showing these off along with the fixtures and filing jigs at the 2mm Association AGM this Saturday 3rd October so if you're coming along please pop over for a chat.
Thanks
Martin
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