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Sector Plate Construction


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Hello.

My new layout is to have a small sector plate linking just two tracks, and was wondering if anyone has any tips, tutorials, or advice.

 

Id prefer to keep the whole thing as thin as possible as it would be too difficult to recess a portion of the main boards at this point and would prefer to not have to raise the tracklevel significantly just to get it working.

 

Thanks.

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This is a single track one I made for my 4mm broad gauge layout. It's a piece of 3.5mm Tufnol, with a woodscrew for the pivot, and a bolt and spring arrangement running in a curved slot in the baseboard at the track end. The microswitches feed power to the correct track.
 
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I'm waiting for the materials to arrive to rebuild it with three tracks. I'll be using 2mm Tufnol this time, with something I haven't decided on yet to make up the height different. I'll also be trying non-stick oven liner as a surface to slide it on, as suggested here.

 

I also need an 11 inch two track sector plate for my OO layout, where I'm planning to do something similar, but I've got some 1.5mm copper clad sheet on order that I'll solder the rails to. I hope that will work!

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This is a single track one I made for my 4mm broad gauge layout. It's a piece of 3.5mm Tufnol, with a woodscrew for the pivot, and a bolt and spring arrangement running in a curved slot in the baseboard at the track end. The microswitches feed power to the correct track.

 

attachicon.gifDSCF6197.JPG

 

attachicon.gifDSCF6460.JPG

 

attachicon.gifDSCF3931.JPG

 

I'm waiting for the materials to arrive to rebuild it with three tracks. I'll be using 2mm Tufnol this time, with something I haven't decided on yet to make up the height different. I'll also be trying non-stick oven liner as a surface to slide it on, as suggested here.

 

I also need an 11 inch two track sector plate for my OO layout, where I'm planning to do something similar, but I've got some 1.5mm copper clad sheet on order that I'll solder the rails to. I hope that will work!

Could you go over how you have the bolt and spring assembly? What stops the nut from working loose over time.

And is a simple wood screw strong enough for the pivot?

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A good old fashioned wood screw is quite a chunky piece of metal. My concern would be more for the hole wearing, but my layouts don't get used enough to suffer from that!

post-7091-0-10687600-1452602353.jpg

 

This is the bold and spring. It's locked by the good old fashioned method of using two nuts tightened against each other, but you could also use a locknut.

post-7091-0-00768000-1452602345.jpg

 

The possible weaknesses with this was the Tufnol sliding on plywood, and the spring loaded washer wearing it from underneath. Being out of use for a long time, it got stiff, but I'm not sure it would have got like it with constant use. My attitude was that it's a simple design, and if it gave problems, I'd find a simple solution!

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