islandbridgejct Posted January 19, 2017 Share Posted January 19, 2017 (edited) HI Gordon, I know you like your pcb, but I found plywood and rivet, Brook Smith method, quite easy and effective. The trick was to poke a scriber through the hole in the sleeper, then stick the end of the scriber into one of a bunch of rivets sitting on the cutting mat, and slide the sleeper down onto the rivet. After that, take out the scriber and do the same with the other end. When I had ten or twenty done, I used a centrepunch to close the rivets. Fairly quick and painless, and no mucking about with pcb. You might find it cheaper than C&L, quicker than cutting individual sleepers, and fairly therapeutic. I don't know are the parts available in OO though. Alan Edited January 20, 2017 by islandbridgejct Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 Morning all, back in the frame again... With all the events of the past few weeks, I've managed to lose myself for an hour or so and make a start on the pointwork for ET. I had planned to get a loop up and running, but once you start track building, you just have to keep going.... One turnout led to another and now I have the northern end of ET approach completed in pointwork terms. I could sit there for hours soldering away as the sheer pleasure of taking a rigid 0-6-0 chassis through a common crossing without a click or bump gives me the same pleasure as the very first one I built a few years ago. Occasionally I will build a few turnouts together as one complex, rather than built them one at a time. This really allows the rail to flow without any possibility of a kink where one turnout joins another. Of course these lead to long 'tails' of rail where one end is the vee and then it continues as a switch rail. I still follow the same process in building the vee first and then the wing rails. Once they're in place I use the check rail gauge to set the check rails and only then do I set about the stock rails, doing the curved one first and then the straight one. Last thing to go in place are the switch rails. We all have our favoured ways of building things. This one just suits me. Today will see this complex complete and then I have 20+ turnouts to be painted and inspected to ensure everything is 100% before they go off to their new owner. Thanks for all your kind comments guys. I shall look forward to seeing these ex ET turnouts in new surroundings. 16 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 There was me thinking you are a reformed character, and will get some trains running ASAP !!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 John, you know what it's like. Other's get their pleasure from loco building or scenic work. Us 'trackies' are never happier than twiddling with bits of rail and solder. I've order some pcb material from Crownhill. I hope I'm not disappointed as I've always believed 'you get what you pay for' and I'm thinking it must be suspect at the prices they're quoting. If my expectations are exceeded, then the chance to get 4mm pcb for a fraction of the current pricing will be a real result. I was lucky enough to get a £25 Amazon voucher at Christmas, so I've invested in a diamond blade for my Proxxon. The current one cuts across 4mm strip without problem, but cutting down the length of a 12" sheet may prove a challenge, so a diamond blade might be the answer. I've also ordered some 0.2mm, 0.8mm and 1mm sheet to play around with as I use pcb strips as dummy sleepers for power connection. The thinner material may be perfect for that, so I ordered a sheet of each to play around with. I'll let you know how it goes.... 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 I'll let you know how it goes.... Yes please. I have used a saw blade in a lathe with a saw table but it was not a success and I failed to get a consistent width. I ended up with a rather long winded way but it was quite theroputic after a while: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=42102 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 Yes please. I have used a saw blade in a lathe with a saw table but it was not a success and I failed to get a consistent width. I ended up with a rather long winded way but it was quite theroputic after a while: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=42102 You need a fail safe method of cutting strip at both the correct and constant width, I guess having a circular saw table with a decent slide attachment will help. Making the sheets shorter may make cutting a bit easier, as this could end up with the least overall waste. Just because a commercial outfit can cut 18" strips does not mean we have to. The longest Exactoscale plastic timber is 86 mm, waste is not too much of an issue, 100 or 150 mm strips will be fine, 200 mm + even better 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) I had a feeling it was all down to being a "trackie" seeing as we never seem to progress much further... If it doesn't work for you this time, it might be an idea to buy a few lengths of 0 gauge Peco, one of the inexpensive RTR locos and a few of Dapol's excellent box vans and coal wagons. I am confident you will be impressed by the size of 7mm and the impression of 'weight', and of course the locos look correct from the front..... Merely a thought Gordon. Edited January 21, 2017 by coachmann 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gismorail Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 I had a feeling it was all down to being a "trackie" seeing as we never seem to progress much further... If it doesn't work for you this time, it might be an idea to buy a few lengths of 0 gauge Peco, one of the inexpensive RTR locos and a few of Dapol's excellent box vans and coal wagons. I am confident you will be impressed by the size of 7mm and the impression of 'weight', and of course the locos look correct from the front..... Merely a thought Gordon. OK Larry you 'pushing' your new addiction ..... .....I do understand where you coming from though I'm still struggling with the Darkside urge and keep looking at the boxes of '0' under the baseboards with you Andy and Jintyman it's hard 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 I had a feeling it was all down to being a "trackie" seeing as we never seem to progress much further... If it doesn't work for you this time, it might be an idea to buy a few lengths of 0 gauge Peco, one of the inexpensive RTR locos and a few of Dapol's excellent box vans and coal wagons. I am confident you will be impressed by the size of 7mm and the impression of 'weight', and of course the locos look correct from the front..... Merely a thought Gordon. You may not think so, Larry, but your posts on 0 gauge are having an effect. There's a little scrap of an idea ticking away back there.... I think I may be a closet 0 gauge fan. I blame my Dad and a Christmas present back in the 50's of a clockwork Hornby tinplate 0-4-0 and a couple of wagons. Oh b*gger, please let me get a little further... Still, nothing to stop me building 0 gauge track. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted January 21, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) You need a fail safe method of cutting strip at both the correct and constant width, I guess having a circular saw table with a decent slide attachment will help. Making the sheets shorter may make cutting a bit easier, as this could end up with the least overall waste. Just because a commercial outfit can cut 18" strips does not mean we have to. The longest Exactoscale plastic timber is 86 mm, waste is not too much of an issue, 100 or 150 mm strips will be fine, 200 mm + even better Hi Gordon, Sound advice from John there. If you try to saw long strips exactly parallel 4mm wide for the full length you are going to need a very special saw bench. Back in the day when I was making and supplying track parts, I supplied sawn 4mm copper-clad strip (all other makes at the time were sheared). Using a small sawbench I cut them from 4" (100mm) wide sheets. Anything longer just created too much waste from tapered strips. If you are careful during construction, cutting the long timbers from the strips first, you end up with very little wastage even with only 100mm strips. In those days I used thin HSS slitting saw blades, and re-sharpened* them as needed (i.e. often, when cutting epoxy-glass laminate). *edit: p.s. I found a slight negative rake on the saw tooth beneficial for copper laminate, other wise you get torn edges on the copper foil. regards, Martin. Edited January 21, 2017 by martin_wynne 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 21, 2017 Author Share Posted January 21, 2017 (edited) Well I had hoped to get outside to spray all my sold pointwork with red oxide primer today, but even though the sun was shining the temperature was very low and not ideal for paint spraying. I have done it indoors before, but Simonize Red Oxide Primer has quite a strong smell and even with all the windows open, the smell does hang around for a day or two. I sensed the domestic authorities would not be overjoyed, so decided to leave that for another day. This did free me up to carry on track building and a very pleasant afternoon was spent with the radio on. I did stop for a while after lunch to watch Liverpool v Swansea, so the total time was around 4 hours to build three turnouts. Happy with that, particularly as they went together with no problems whatsoever. I do find if I stop building pointwork it takes one or two before the build process becomes automatic and the the various bits of mechanical engineering hang together. I've really go no excuse now not to work my way round the various boards and only build the turnouts as required to complete a loop or two. Thanks for the 0 gauge mention again, Larry. Whilst watching football, I happened to pull out an historical book on a railway line I have walked many times. Back in the late 70's, we lived in the village of Hadleigh in Suffolk and I walked past the old maltings and station building most days on the way into town. It has always been on my list of places to model and 0 gauge would be perfect. Checking out the plan, the whole station and approach could be fitted into 9m in 0 gauge. Add a bit for storage etc and 15m-18m should suffice. Only problem is that I would have to go through the wall and into our bedroom so thats unlikely to get past the planners..... Edited January 21, 2017 by gordon s 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium polybear Posted January 22, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 22, 2017 I had a feeling it was all down to being a "trackie" seeing as we never seem to progress much further... If it doesn't work for you this time, it might be an idea to buy a few lengths of 0 gauge Peco, one of the inexpensive RTR locos and a few of Dapol's excellent box vans and coal wagons. I am confident you will be impressed by the size of 7mm and the impression of 'weight', and of course the locos look correct from the front..... Merely a thought Gordon. Nice one Coach .....next thing we'll know is: 1. Gordon decides that Eastwood Town in 4mm isn't big enough. 2. Eastwood Town gets scrapped. Again 3. Gordon decides to sell off all 4mm in favour of 7mm 4. Gordon realises Eastwood Town in 7mm isn't going to fit in railway room 5. New railway room required....only there's nowhere suitable. 6. Gordon decides to build new, larger house in order to create larger railway room....... :jester: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junctionmad Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) Gordon , All modern PCBs are now glass fibre , typically FR4, its ruinous to cut and the fibres not good for your health. I suspect the issue with C&L etc , is that phenolic base copperclad is now very hard to source and I think the remaining sources are in china. ( if you search Aliexpress.com you can get 5 sheets for a few quid , free postage etc ( search on aliexpress.com , for phenolic or bakelite single sided pcb ) , 1.6mm is easily available , 1 mm is very difficult to find I wouldn't attempt to saw FRP4 in a proxxon quite frankly Your idea would work fine with Phenolic paper ( bakelite ) Id suggest you order a bit from aliexpress.com and try it Edited January 22, 2017 by Junctionmad Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ray H Posted January 22, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 22, 2017 Don't Squires do a non glass fibre copper clad board? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted January 22, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 22, 2017 (edited) Single-sided copper-clad SRBP here: https://www.rapidonline.com/low-cost-copper-clad-srbp-circuit-board-32634 Various sheet sizes. Not expensive. However it is all 1/16" (1.6mm) thick. Data sheet: https://www.rapidonline.com/pdf/34-0860.pdf SRBP = synthetic resin bonded paper. (not epoxy glass). Not suitable for garden railways. Martin. Edited January 22, 2017 by martin_wynne Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 (edited) Delivery courier arrived this morning with some PCB sheet from Crownhill. Their quality looks great and I ordered some 1mm, 0.8mm and some 0.2mm which opens up all sorts of possibilities.... The 0.8mm is single sided. The 0.2mm is very flexible and opens up loads of options. The Proxxon saw comes with a guide rail, so using a strip of C & L material, I set it to 4mm wide. At this stage I am using the standard blade which is stated as being suitable for pcb material, although I now have the diamond blade so it will be interesting to see how that compares. Fingers crossed, let's see how it goes.... Not bad, not bad at all. The sheet cut cleanly with only the smallest sign of a burr from the cut. I suspect using a diamond blade would improve the cut even further. Here's the end result... All in all a worthwhile exercise. Edit: Forgot to say I sourced some 0.4mm wide double sided tape, a great improvement over the low tack 12mm I was suing before. It holds sleepers in position and the finished article is easy to remove . Edited January 23, 2017 by gordon s 15 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PhilH Posted January 23, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2017 Nice shirt... 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 (edited) I agree, but I only get to wear it on Sundays as my good lady has it during the week.... Just tried cutting with the diamond blade and if I'm honest, I'm a little disappointed. Much more dust and a similar result regards the very small burring on the strip. This is certainly no worse than ones I have bought, so have no problem with it. I'll go back to standard blade which is about a third of the cost and keep the diamond one for other material. Edited January 23, 2017 by gordon s 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 I realise this is an imposition but is there any chance you could try cutting a 2mm wide strip? Thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Trevellan Posted January 23, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2017 I realise this is an imposition but is there any chance you could try cutting a 2mm wide strip? Thanks. I suspect that might be a little tricky Mike, with lots of potential for things to go wrong. A moving table would be best for that, which I don't believe the Proxxon has. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chris p bacon Posted January 23, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 23, 2017 I realise this is an imposition but is there any chance you could try cutting a 2mm wide strip? Thanks. I'd be wary of cutting something so thin but if a sacrificial bed is run through first it might be ok (covering the rather large blade opening), The problem I can see with material such as this is when it passes by the back of the blade in which case I wouldn't have the blade so exposed and would only have it 3mm high. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordon s Posted January 23, 2017 Author Share Posted January 23, 2017 (edited) Just to be clear. Do you mean a 2mm wide strip of the 1mm material or a 4mm wide strip from the 0.2mm material? Edited January 24, 2017 by gordon s Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 2mm wide strip of the 1mm material e.g. for N Gauge use. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium polybear Posted January 23, 2017 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 23, 2017 Out of interest, how does the home-cut sleeper strip compare with SMP strip? It'll be interesting to see how long the blades last - any plans to keep a record of cuts made? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted January 24, 2017 Share Posted January 24, 2017 Just to be clear. Do you mean a 2mm wide strip of the 1mm material or a 4mm wide strip from the 0.2mm material? Gordon The 2 mm wide bit of 0.2 mm strip may be far better cut with a Stanley knife as when making some Masokit tiebars this was the route suggested For me the reason to cut/route rather than guillotine is to get nice square sides for sleepers, especially 1.6 mm thick ones. Can we tell the difference/need square sides for 0.5 & 0.2 mm thick strips Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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