Handmade oo scale points

[gromitdog]

Good Afternoon fellow modellers

 

I have acquired some hand made OO radius points & a customised curved point with a Dimond crossing built in to it from a uk manufacture of hand made track and some flexible track made by the same company for the front half of my circular layout ( viewing side ) In the pass for my layouts I always always used Peco code 75 points so having hand made scale looking track is really nice touch, For the point motors I am using DCC Cobolt Digital IP point motors for all my point switching I have 2 questions that hopefully are easy to answer.

 

1).  A couple of the points blades are slightly stiff to move ( the blades don't move smoothly ) how do I ease this & where on the point, ( I know this is difficult to answer without seeing it ) So that the point motor can move the blades easily accrues to the position required 

2).  I have tried hard to set the point motors with the point blades in the centre when I come to program and test each point I have a couple that will not fully move across into position, On the Dcc Concept Digital IP point motor there is the little piano wire that runs up through a little blue movable bar into the point sleeper that moves the point blades If I move this bar downwards does this make the throw larger ? Which will make the point blades move further.

 

I hope this makes some sense to you and thank you for taking the time to read this item

 

Regards

Gromitdog

[ikcdab]

in response to q1, if you have had these custom made to your order, then you need to go back to the manufacturer and get the blades freed up. If however, you have bought them with no guarantees, then are they copper clad or with functional chairs? Obviously difficult to say without seeing them, but you just need to look very closely and see where the blades are tight. Maybe there isnt enough free blade.

Can you post a picture?

Ian C

[gromitdog]

Hi Ian

Thank you for your reply you are right I should send them back for him to sort it but I didn't think it be a problem as a relay type motor Which I been used to on previous layouts would have moved them no problem. But the cobalt motors are far more gentle on these point blades, It took me ages to get them and I don't think his after service is not up to much if you get my drift as when I phoned up about them being stiff he said just to look carefully at them and ease them off where they are tight  ! Certainly wouldn't & couldn't recommended him.

So the problem I have is that I now laid 95% of my track and sorted the the wiring and put the point in motors so I don't really want to take any of it up again as its taken me ages to get it laid how I wanted it as I didn't have printed plan to follow as I run a Mac computer ( big mistake for this sort of thing )

 

I will try later this week to up load some pictures for you but I have struggled on hear to upload stuff but you are more than welcome to send me a personal email and I will reply back to you I think your find my email on my profile if not I send it to you 

 

Wow that's some layout and write up you done its great to be able to build a shed to fit the layout required I will enjoy reading through your build this week, I gone backwards a little as In our last house I was lucky enough to have a 12x6 but since we moved I now ended up with a 10 x 10 room which I am more than happy with and as normal with all layouts I had rein in what I wanted to do so hopefully it will work out with what I want.

 

Thank you once again for kindly replying to my request for help.

 

Gromitdog

 

 

 

[Stephen Freeman]

Personally I think it is a mistake to try and make the pointblades all in one. The prototype doesn't so why should we? Even Peco don't try that. If you can cut the pointblade short and re-attach with a suitable fishplate/railjoiner depends on the rail involved. These days I either use Exactoscale, etched fishplates or in 4mm scale the new Peco ones (Bullhead only of course). You then need to bond the pointblade with fine wire. How depends on the construction.

 

Stretcher bars are another source of problems, you either go for a very flexible one or the Norman Solomons method. pointblades just soldered to a piece of PCB will be problematic.

 

[gromitdog]

Hi Stephen

Thank you for your reply and advice I will look into stretcher bar movement where I think the problem may well be the points are already on soldered onto PCB and painted so l investigate further and if that does not cure it I will look into cutting & putting a 4mm scale fishplate into the switch blade as you suggest 

 

Thank you for your help and advice

 

Gromitdog

[Bernard Lamb]

If I am correct in identifying the maker of the points then I think that you are being a bit hard on him.

He is not to know how you are going to operate the points.

He has probably been making them without comment or complaint from a time long before cobalt motors were invented. 

He has his ways but I have found dealing with him to be excellent.

If you use tube in wire or direct rod operation then being a bit stiff is actually an advantage as it means you do not have to bend the rods to introduce friction.

Bernard

 

 

[Izzy]

One of the problems with the stall type point motors like the Cobalt is that they aren't very powerful. This is part of the idea of course, that when they come up against resistance they stop. When as in the OP's case the point blades are quite stiff then this means that often they won't move the blades far enough. I have read that replacing the actuating wire with a thicker wire can sometimes help ( I don't use stall motors myself because of their lack of power but instead hacked servos). In the circumstances finding ways of reducing the blade resistance as suggested seems sensible. The other alternative would be to use more powerful point motors.

[hayfield]

A couple of thoughts are would a stiffer piece of wire help ?

 

Stephen suggested having a hinged switch blade, I sometimes use this method using either an Exactoscale/C&L cast metal fishplate soldered to one rail or use a Peco insulated rail joiner

 

Another thought is that the blades have soldered too far leaving a very short length not soldered. Or the joints to the tiebar are too tight

 

A photo is well worth posting

[brossard]

4 minutes ago, hayfield said:

A couple of thoughts are would a stiffer piece of wire help ?

 

Stephen suggested having a hinged switch blade, I sometimes use this method using either an Exactoscale/C&L cast metal fishplate soldered to one rail or use a Peco insulated rail joiner

 

Another thought is that the blades have soldered too far leaving a very short length not soldered. Or the joints to the tiebar are too tight

 

A photo is well worth posting

 

A long time ago, I had a Peco turnout that developed a loose hinge, creating power dropouts intermittently.  My solution was to solder the hinge in situ.  I was using Tortoise's (and still do) and found that it had the muscle to move the blades.  With Tortoise, you do need to replace the 0.020" operating wire with 0.032".

 

Putting a hinge of some sort, as described above, represents a loose heel type turnout.  In reality a fishplate was used.  If you use a Peco joiner, you will want to add an omega loop to the underside of the closure rail and blade to maintain continuity.

 

John