Build your own points

[brossard]

Make sure you check the Ambis instructions:  https://www.hobbyholidays.co.uk/images/pc4_4.pdf

 

John

[hayfield]

Phil

 

If you have deep pockets to afford Shapeways 3D prints Off the Rails do some superb 3D printed chairs

[Simond]

On 01/05/2020 at 13:27, brossard said:

A good point about solenoid motors contributing to tiebar failure.  Our club layout has a lot of handbuilt copper clad turnouts (I made most of them) with CC tiebars.  It is not uncommon for the tiebar to come adrift but a relatively easy thing to fix...until next time.

 

My preference is for slow motion motors.

 

John

 

I’d avoid solenoid point motors like I’d avoid Coronavirus...

 

I’m still in tortoise-land, but servos are much cheaper and are easy to control, either with commercial servo-controllers, or if you’re a cheapskate like me, Arduinos.  I’m keen to investigate this, but I want to find a good way to set them up - it’s important not to stall servos.

 

Another option has been recently published by the Twickenham club, using gear-head motors from cash point machine, apparently.

 

Atb

Simon

 

 

[brossard]

Well, Simon I have a bunch of Tortoise left over from a previous layout (way more than I need for my current layout).  My experience with them has been good as long as you change the 0.020" rod for 0.032".  There are off the shelf devices for controlling them with DCC.  Again I have Wabbits left over from previous efforts.

 

I much prefer to get off the shelf products.  These have been developed and are a known quantity.

 

I totally hate solenoid motors too.

 

John

[brossard]

53 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Phil

 

If you have deep pockets to afford Shapeways 3D prints Off the Rails do some superb 3D printed chairs

 

I note that Greenwood have Exactoscale chairs for 0 gauge.  If I were to build more turnouts I go for those.

 

John

[brossard]

2 hours ago, 34006 said:

Still pressing on glueing chairs to sleepers.and filing bits of plastic sprue to represent the spacer blocks for checkrails etc,.

 

 

 

I don't understand what you mean by plastic sprue for checkrails.

 

John

[The Bigbee Line]

8 hours ago, brossard said:

 

I don't understand what you mean by plastic sprue for checkrails.

 

John

John,

 

On Bullhead track, the check rail can be fixed just by the wooden keys, but this gives the chance that soggy keys will allow the check rail to flex towards the gauge, allowing the wheels to rub the crossing nose and eventually ride up the crossing and derail.  The answer was to bolt the check rail to the running rail and fit a spacer block in between.  Usually 3 blocks per check rail.

 

There are also spaced clocks on slide chairs to give the switch rail some support.  These vary in dimension depending which chair they are fitted to.  I'll look for some pictures...

 

It is one thing I always look for when visiting a yard..

 

Thanks

 

Ernie

[hayfield]

11 hours ago, brossard said:

 

I note that Greenwood have Exactoscale chairs for 0 gauge.  If I were to build more turnouts I go for those.

 

John

 

John

 

Exactoscale do not produce special chairs in 7 mm scale, both Exactoscale and C&L chairs are much the same. I understand that one of Phil's future plans will be to upgrade the 7 mm chairs the same way as he is doing in 4 mm scale with extra special chairs on the sprues, The point I was making was that special chairs are available but at a price

[daifly]

3 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Exactoscale do not produce special chairs in 7 mm scale, 

Not entirely accurate. They do produce slide chairs and bridge chairs. Available to ScaleSeven Group members https://www.scaleseven.org.uk/index.php?id=334

Dave

[hayfield]

32 minutes ago, daifly said:

Not entirely accurate. They do produce slide chairs and bridge chairs. Available to ScaleSeven Group members https://www.scaleseven.org.uk/index.php?id=334

Dave

 

OK I accept they do bridge chairs, (slide chairs are pretty standard, but when you compare what is available in 4 mm scale the choices are very limited, Modely do crossing nose chairs as did C&L who did white metal castings, but if you follow up Off the rails there are quite a few different chairs and in 7 mm scale they are far more noticable.

 

It is worth making the effort in trying to model additional switch, crossing and check chairs, some are easier than others to form.

[brossard]

6 hours ago, The Bigbee Line said:

John,

 

On Bullhead track, the check rail can be fixed just by the wooden keys, but this gives the chance that soggy keys will allow the check rail to flex towards the gauge, allowing the wheels to rub the crossing nose and eventually ride up the crossing and derail.  The answer was to bolt the check rail to the running rail and fit a spacer block in between.  Usually 3 blocks per check rail.

 

There are also spaced clocks on slide chairs to give the switch rail some support.  These vary in dimension depending which chair they are fitted to.  I'll look for some pictures...

 

It is one thing I always look for when visiting a yard..

 

Thanks

 

Ernie

 

OK, but when I install check rails I thread cut back running chairs on them.  The cut back chairs need to provide sufficient clearance to get a flangeway gauge in.  I install half chairs on the outside of the stock rail.  When installing I use a check rail gauge.  I'm wondering if the process described is too fussy.

 

John

[brossard]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

John

 

Exactoscale do not produce special chairs in 7 mm scale, both Exactoscale and C&L chairs are much the same. I understand that one of Phil's future plans will be to upgrade the 7 mm chairs the same way as he is doing in 4 mm scale with extra special chairs on the sprues, The point I was making was that special chairs are available but at a price

 

On Greenwoods site there are 4 types of chair sprue shown:

 

https://greenwoodmodelrailwayproducts.co.uk/shop/o-gauge/chairs/

 

Running, slide and what look like bridge chairs.

 

I make bridge chairs by chopping up regular Peco chairs.

 

John

 

[hayfield]

12 minutes ago, brossard said:

 

On Greenwoods site there are 4 types of chair sprue shown:

 

https://greenwoodmodelrailwayproducts.co.uk/shop/o-gauge/chairs/

 

Running, slide and what look like bridge chairs.

 

I make bridge chairs by chopping up regular Peco chairs.

 

John

 

 

4 photo's 3 types from the look at it, also the Scale 7 Society only mention standard, slide and bridge chairs being available. Certain special chairs can be made from splicing chairs together but some very distinctive chairs are hard to scratch build and if you are not very careful chopped up chairs just look like chopped up chairs, in 7 mm scale everything is so much bigger

 

Sadly a phone camera does not do justice to these translucent prints, check rails are very difficult to represent just by chopping up a few bits, if bought in bulk these chairs are quite reasonably priced

 

 

Chairs like the 1PL and 2PL can easily be represented by splicing standard and slide chairs together, a bit more difficult for the centre parts of the block chairs

 

 

Again the crossing nose chairs are quite distinctive (some are available from off the rails as separate prints, and the block chairs can be hard to replicate. Sadly there are no diamond or slip chairs available. Its such a shame that the Exactoscale special chairs were not produced in 7 mm scale,

[brossard]

Thanks for those pictures John, these look extremely good.  Are they 7mm?  Unfortunately I have made all the turnouts I need for the foreseeable future (chopped up chairs and all) (...and I lot I don't need because I couldn't make my mind up).  These options are certainly food for thought for the future.

 

John

Edited May 3, 2020 by brossard

[JeffP]

John, if you have a spare minute, could you explain what those chairs are, please, or link me a site that might help?

[hayfield]

19 minutes ago, brossard said:

Thanks for those pictures John, these look extremely good.  Are they 7mm?  Unfortunately I have made all the turnouts I need for the foreseeable future (chopped up chairs and all) (...and I lot I don't need because I couldn't make my mind up).  These options are certainly food for thought for the future.

 

John

 

Yes they are 7 mm scale and excellent quality

 

5 minutes ago, JeffP said:

John, if you have a spare minute, could you explain what those chairs are, please, or link me a site that might help?

 

Its a chap designing for himself and making the parts available to others

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/otr

 

I find it hard to search for his site as its buried within the Shapeways site

[brossard]

1 hour ago, JeffP said:

John, if you have a spare minute, could you explain what those chairs are, please, or link me a site that might help?

 

I am mostly referring to the chairs supporting the vee and wing rails.  John's pic above shows what they should look like.  I use a C&L template to provide guidance as to where these should go.  I approximate these by cutting down slide chairs mostly.  These provide a platform for the rail to rest on.

 

My most recent turnouts:

 

 

Those with wooden timbers are my builds, based on the Peco template.  The middle one is Peco with the tiebars changed.  Note that I leave the paper backing on.  There are weak spots at the switch area.  CA helps but it is not perfect.

 

I don't have a picture that directly relates to your question I'm afraid.

 

As an aside, the Peco template ( you can download from the site) is fine for positioning rail and timbers, but doesn't really provide adequate detail on chairs.  For this, I think the C&L templates are much better.

 

HTH

 

John

 

Ooops, I think I got the John's confused.  Nevertheless, thank you the other John for posting the link.  I'm guessing the 3D prints are secured with CA.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by brossard

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, JeffP said:

John, if you have a spare minute, could you explain what those chairs are, please, or link me a site that might help?

 

 

Jeff

 

Sorry I have just noticed I have not replied properly

 

I think the check chairs are quite self explanatory, you have two outer's plus a centre which holds the rail apart at the exact gauge, its very difficult to replicate this especially as both ends flare out by chopping up 2 standard chairs

 

 

This is the common crossing set, the crossing nose chair (2nd from the right) has a distinctive shape, also the X, Y, C, D & E chairs have distinctive centre sections, I believe the description is block chairs

 

 

The switch chairs are also quite distinctive, depending on which switch length you use the first few chairs are slide chairs (known as P chairs) the next few are the PL chairs. On a B switch the first 2 have the stock rail sitting in a chair where as the switch rail is allowed to slide, the next 2 use block chairs where the outer side of each rail is held in place with a key there onwards depending on the size a mixture of standard and or bridge chairs (L chairs) are used, I have not seen Small chairs (M chairs) used in turnouts

 

When you get to diamonds and slips there are a whole host of special chairs used but that's a different story. Its not worth getting hung up on these things, but worth taking a bit of time altering chairs to fit

 

 

 

[JeffP]

I need to start looking at some decent photos. I have a friend works for Network Rail on track maintenance, maybe he could get me some pics.

I have aquired an old speed restriction sign already, from when Barnetby was re-signalled.

[brossard]

Google pics can help there.  I found a lot of useful stuff (and, TBH, a lot of useless stuff too)

 

John

[hayfield]

18 minutes ago, JeffP said:

I need to start looking at some decent photos. I have a friend works for Network Rail on track maintenance, maybe he could get me some pics.

I have aquired an old speed restriction sign already, from when Barnetby was re-signalled.

 

Only if you are modelling modern image, they now tend to use fixings now with flat bottom rail rather than chairs.  More likely take a trip to a preserved railway, or just google photos of turnouts and chairs

[JeffP]

Ha! of course.

 

I was having one of my "senior moments". Thanks for putting me straight.

[34006]

Hot Damn! if I'd known about those it would save me a lot of trouble,what with little bits of plastic pinging off in all directions at critical moments.(not helped with having an essential tremor.But that's another storey...)

Onwards and upwards...

[34006]

Just want to ask if there is any special length of rail beyond the frog where isolation gaps have to be put?Point is nearly finished,Bodged up a power supply and got a loco and wagon to run both ways down each line without coming off.Quite chuffed about that.Got some fish plates to fix in and that's about it.Will post photo when done.

 

ATB

 

Phil.

[martin_wynne]

41 minutes ago, 34006 said:

Just want to ask if there is any special length of rail beyond the frog where isolation gaps have to be put?

 

Hi Phil,

 

There's no special length, but it makes sense to keep them as close to the frog as possible, within the limits of practical construction. If they are beyond the vehicle clearance point there is a risk that a standing vehicle may come to rest with its wheels bridging the gap, or even resting in the gap, leading to mysterious electrical short-circuits.

 

Whereas vehicles are not usually left parked so close to a turnout that they are fouling the adjacent line.

 

cheers,

 

Martin.