Campaman Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Hi I have just started building my own turnouts. Before spending money on something I wasn't sure about I thought I would have a play, so I stripped down some old code 100 set track and made some sleepers from some 1.6mm thick brown mounting board, I found some templates on an American site and managed to solder up a V, then after a bit of filing I then used super glue to attatch the rails to the sleepers stuck onto the template, to my suprise even without guages a four wheel wagon ran through it, the only tweak I had to make was to reposition one of the check rails, it even worked when hooked up to some more track and controller and a Hornby Jinty ran through it. I then spent some money and built one using guages, copperclad and code 83 flatbottom rail from C&L using the same American template, but as I was still only experimenting I only used the Copperclad where neccessary and filled in the gaps afterwards using my Card Sleepers, another sucess in that wagons, the Jinty and a Class24 all run through it fine. I have searched and read as much as I can on here and other sites and am certain this is the way forward, I have being getting to grips with Templot TDV and have printed out some templates. What I would like to know is there any specific tips to building using flatbottom rail that are different to using bullhead rail? Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
brossard Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 I made a lot of points using code Peco code 100 rail. The methods are not a lot different from bullhead, except that there is a heck of a lot more material to remove (I used a Dremel to get rid of most of it before resorting to a file). Because the rail is stiffer, you might want to make hinges for the blades. The first thing I would recommend is to obtain some reference material. Trax2 is very good, containing a book and CD with a track planning program. Iain Rice's "An Approach to Finescale Track" is very informative and a good read. BRM's Right Track #10, Terrific Trackwork DVD is excellent. For the beginner, conventional wisdom is that copper clad strips (1.06mm or 1.6mm thick - available from C&L) should be used for the timbering. All the above is for British track. If you are doing American things are a little different in that most of the timbering used tends to be wood with rail secured by spikes. Copper clad strips are used in strategic places for reinforcement. The stuff available here seems very good (although I have not used it): http://www.handlaidtrack.com/ The thing I don't like about the jigs on the site (apart from the horrendous price) is that they seem to limit you to straight points. The great thing about making your own points is that you can construct any radius you want. John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 Campaman Code 82 is much easier to work with than code 100. The main difference in using flatbottom rail over bullhead, is that you have to file the flatbottom webbing on the stock rails where the switch rails touch. Other than that its plain sailing and 00 gauge is quite generous on tollerences. C&L and I think Exactoscale do plastic rail fixings to use on their plastic and wood sleepers. Peco also do a range of plastic sleepers and Pandrol clips for code 82 rail. Once you get used to copperclad construction try the plastic chairs and sleeper method. Good luck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jim s-w Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 The angles on fb point work is different and the planing is much longer. That and the check rails are not bent but shaped on one side. If you want to be accurate then fb and bh point work has next to nothing in common. If you want to do it properly have a look here. http://colincraig4mm.co.uk/s-c/4532599929 Hth Jim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Armchair Modeller Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 The angles on fb point work is different and the planing is much longer. That and the check rails are not bent but shaped on one side. If you want to be accurate then fb and bh point work has next to nothing in common. If you want to do it properly have a look here. http://colincraig4mm.../s-c/4532599929 Hth Jim Those comments are very accurate, but relate only to modern FB track. Older and foreign FB could be as different again to modern FB as FB is to bullhead. People tend to forget that FB has been around a very long time and is not just a recent phenomenon, even in the UK. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R A Watson Posted February 6, 2012 Share Posted February 6, 2012 There is more work to be done as much more metal has to be removed; these are two shots of a switch pair I have filed up from some F B rail First a view from below, Then the same pair from above. Please note that I am building Irish narrow gauge (3 foot) in 7mm using code 100 rali and the small notches in the outer foot are to allow the 4mm scale C & L brass bullhead slide chairs to fit against the web of the rail snugly. This gives the result shown here. Hope this helps to show the finished effect Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 It's not clear to me whether the OP is building at 3.5mm to US specs or 4mm to UK. It may sound trivial but it's possible to get into all sorts of problems with Railhead widths when mixing rail made to 4mm with rail made to 3.5mm as I discovered when hoping to use US made rail for P4 in order to save shipping everything over from the UK to the USA. Conversely using UK gauges to build US made rail to 00-SF standards for H0. Forget about it... Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campaman Posted February 7, 2012 Author Share Posted February 7, 2012 Hi Thanks to all so far. Thanks for that link JSW, very intersting stuff, I am currently thinking 00-FS but still keep wondering if I should just go P4 and be done with it, mainly interested in early diesel/electric but also have a bit of interest in steam so am also thinking maybe preserved railway as a theme. Mr Watson, those pictures are very helpful, its exactly what I found while experimenting, thanks. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodmayes Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 In the States, building your track with FB rail is the norm. So there's lots of stuff and advice available. Just remember to google for "model railroad" rather than "model railway" and you'll find parts, help and experience up the wazoo. e.g. "model railroad points", "model railroad turnouts", etc. Also in my experience code 83 US FB rail and code 82 UK FB rail are indistiguishable and completely interchangeable. Ted Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Sorry but they are not interchangeable. All US track that is comparable by code has a narrower railhead which make using UK built gauges for P4, EM, 00-SF etc., inaccurate. To recap using US gauges with US made rail - fine. Using UK gauges with UK made rail - fine. Yer just can't mix them up. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 To recap using US gauges with US made rail - fine. Using UK gauges with UK made rail - fine. Yer just can't mix them up. That sounds like too much generalisation. Surely it depends on the design of the track gauges used? Those that only gauge to the inner face of the rail head are unaffected by its width. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Sure. Why don't you get into discussions with both Brian Tulley of 00-SF and Colin Craig as I've done over the past year. Brian kindly drew and sent me technical drawings in order to produce a 00-SF gauge for ME code 70 - but I can't find anyone to produce it over here (particularly for limited numbers). Here's an interesting table of relative dimensions: http://www.handlaidtrack.com/kb_results.asp?ID=122 - I have no connection with Fast Tracks except to say they are most helpful pair of guys (I'm not even a customer). Btw I would be interested to see a simple #10 turnout produced just using a gauge "to the inner face of the railhead" let alone a more complicated piece of trackwork - I've no doubt it could be done given time but life is, as they say, too short. For me anyway (actually Brian Harrap could do it). Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alastairq Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 hi...I think there is a difference between the type of 'gauge' that holds the second rail 'in gauge'....and the sort of gauge which simply measures the 'distance apart' of the inner edges of the rail. One is a 'precision' tool to aid construction..the other is simply a measurement device. With the latter, the actual 'width' of the rail head is irrelevant....indeed, one could [and folk have] built stock trays-######-hidden sidings out of ally angle....with the lower flanges simply set to the appropriate nominal track gauge. I have several 'roller gauges' which are intended to grip each rail head, and keep them to the correct gauge. These originally were for use with code 100 rail... so code 55 [N gauge rail salvaged from broken N gauge flex track]...proved a problem as the rail head was a very sloppy fit.....I ended up making some plain track and a turnout using small size square section [hard?]wood bits, with saw cuts made at what I deemed to be the right gauge....whether or not it was correct didn't seem to matter really...NMRA wheelsets tracked beautifully...but the gauge logs were mainly a soldering aid, anyway....somebody pass Brian Harrap a brandy, please...and somewhere to sit down? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Thanks Alastair. A couple of points; this is my first foray into "finescale" as opposed to regular NMRA HO (I was also toying with the idea of Minories in P4) previously I had worked as a team with my late brother being responsible for trackwork and since his death have been rather floundering... so I need the confidence of correct gauges. P4 roller gauges not only grip the railhead gently but they accommodate the actual inclination of the rails towards each other (so far as I understand what Colin told me). That being so they do have to be accurate, indeed. thanks, again. Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugsley Posted February 9, 2012 Share Posted February 9, 2012 The angles on fb point work is different and the planing is much longer. That and the check rails are not bent but shaped on one side. If you want to be accurate then fb and bh point work has next to nothing in common. If you want to do it properly have a look here. http://colincraig4mm.../s-c/4532599929 Early FB pointwork was built to the same crossing angles as BH, only after 1966 (according to the PWI track manual) were the Vertical switches introduced, which brought about the different angles and the planed ends to the crossing and check rails. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campaman Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 Thanks for that info Pugsley, I have printed some templates from Templot using both the flat bottom and bullhead rail settings and the only thing I have noticed so far is the flat bottom template seems to be a tad longer, but I have not really studied it fully yet. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pugsley Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 The difference in length will be in the switch area - as Jim mentioned, the switch planing is longer on PB pointwork. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodmayes Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Sorry but they are not interchangeable. All US track that is comparable by code has a narrower railhead which make using UK built gauges for P4, EM, 00-SF etc., inaccurate. To recap using US gauges with US made rail - fine. Using UK gauges with UK made rail - fine. Yer just can't mix them up. Best, Pete. Sorry there are two variations of code 83 in the US. I wasn't thinking of the RTR track. The RTR rough stuff (from China I think) that Atlas and Walthers use, matches the old NMRA code 83 wide base spec, and the good quailty rail sold separately rail for handlaying that Micro Engineering and the Proto guys sell, which has the same base width as code 70. Apparently the latter was changed by ME years ago, so they could use the same moulded tie bases for both code 70 and code 83. If you look again at the Canadian table you quoted a coupla posts later: Peco UK code 82 and Micro Engineering code 83 have esentially identical dimensions, well within the normal manufacturing tolerances for "drawing". (and Pilz and Tllig too) and I'd bet the code 82 from C&L in "yard" lengths is the same. So if you handlay and stick with "code 83", you should be fine. Ted Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Harrap Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Thanks for the brandy.........you may or may not believe this but I have actually made up track gauges (to get out of a fix at a show somewhere) by melting a Lego brick onto a bit of already done track and using the resulting melted grooves as a gauge. It's also quite easy to assemble a gauge yourself by carefully selecting some slot head machine screws which nicely fit you chosen railhead and then soldering them together into a triangle shape with some scrap material, again assembled on some known accurate track. Might have some pics if anyone is interested. Feeler gauges for your chosen tolerances look after check rail gaps etc, and simply using a wheelset should show how everything is coming along. One of my party pieces is to assemble a point (turnout) (rails only) on a bit of double sided tape using no gauges at all - just a wheelset - see me at a show and I'll show you. Final thought.........don't read too much, just get on with it, All the best Brian. By the way, did you know that pencils taped either side of a Lego brick will draw parallel lines 18.83mm apart. V handy for P4 modellers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campaman Posted March 2, 2012 Author Share Posted March 2, 2012 Execllent stuff Brian, I would be very interested in seeing a picture of you home made guage, I am a great believer in making rather than buying if I can. You rails on tape sounds like fun, as I said in my opening post my first try at a turnout was with card sleepers and superglue, so I can see how the double sided tape would work. Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Harrap Posted March 4, 2012 Share Posted March 4, 2012 Herewith a picture of one of my many handmade (hand cobbled) 3 point track gauges. NO need to measure anything, just assemble on a piece of known good track. The inherent ability of the 3 point gauge to widen gauge on curves can be further taken advantage of with a handmade jig like this. By making one with the two outboard screws further apart increases the widening on sharper curves. Regards, Brian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campaman Posted March 5, 2012 Author Share Posted March 5, 2012 Excellent, once my new supply of flux arrives I will knocking up a couple of those. Things like this make the hobby so much more fun than just ordering something over the internet, it feels like more of an achievement by making it your self. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jim s-w Posted March 6, 2012 Share Posted March 6, 2012 Hi brian A 3 point guage needs to be symmetrical to do it's job properly. Hope this helps Jim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Harrap Posted March 7, 2012 Share Posted March 7, 2012 Hi brian A 3 point guage needs to be symmetrical to do it's job properly. Hope this helps Jim Yes, quite right, Jim. Trust me to pick out a wonky one, Brian. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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