Hi Dad 1, just seen your point made using copperclad for sleepers. That looks a pretty good effort to me.

My first attempt years ago certainly wasn`t as clean as yours, i used far too much solder.I drew all my points on waste off cuts of wallpaper using a pencil tied to a piece of string and a knot at the point of radius required.I wouldn`t build points any other way now, scratchbuilding is much more interesting and quite quick once your skills improve. keep it going, you wont regret it.

best wishes

Jim.

Hi Black5, Thanks for the support It's something I certainly want to feel capable of

although at the moment IF what I wanted was available I may have been saving my time

and just spending money.

Obviously you have made a few, perhaps you can help with the anchoring of point blades.

With a soldered tie bar how can one anchor by the closure rails, but allow some movement.

On long points I suppose one can rely on bending the blades, but short blades are a different matter.

I have the intention of using a brass pin of around 0.7 mm soldered to the ends by the closure

rails to allow it to swivel in a hole drilled in the copperclad.

When building my points i bend the blade rail to the required curve, file one end to fit against the running rail and solder the rail at the other end to two or three sleepers from the isolation gap to the frog so the curve is maintained and a certain amount of springing occurs. At the blade end i used the idea shown in the Right Track dvd on tracklaying, that being a piece of nickel silver wire bent at right angles, soldered to the inside of the blade, the other leg of the bend fitted in an appropriate sized hole in the tie bar. Repeat for the other rail.

My own means of switching points is small brass rod inside brass tube running from the edge of the baseboard in a straight line to the point (in my case underneath the baseboard. With hindsight, i would do the same again but on top of the baseboard, between the sleepers and covered with ballast ) Inexperience at the time didn`t lead me down that path.

Obviously, after reading all this, buying a point to suit and save time would be much quicker but i just think designing and building your own points to suit your own track layout is very satisfying.

My problem was the electrical side of things but after gradually working that out the points have worked well for the last few years. In total i have 22 turnouts and 2 diamond crossings in an m p d layout.

I hope some of this might be of some use to you.

Happy New Year.

Jim.