RMweb Gold big jim Posted April 1, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 1, 2012 im sure pete wont mind me starting a thread about his sleeper spacing tool. its basically an etch you fold up and either solder or glue together to allow you to be able to correctly space the sleepers this is the track as bought, code 75 steel sleeper peco streamline and this is the assembled tool the first thing to do is to cut the plastic from between the sleepers then you place the tool onto the sleepers, 10 at a time, and space them out in the grooves, i then added a drop of glue to each sleeper into the hole on the bottom which secures them nicely once the sleepers are secured its just a case of moving on to the next 10 sleepers and securing them, the metre length of flexi track took me about an hour to do, one down 9 to go!! the result of spacing the sleepers out is 12 sleepers, and plastic joints between them, are removed from the length of track you can see the difference between the stock and modified track in the following pictures, although subtle i think it does make enough of a difference to warrent the short time it takes to do the job, the removal of the plastic between the sleepers make a world of difference in all a great simple piece of kit, i would recommend one if your doing like i am and starting a layout from scratch and are using off the shelf items rather than building your own track im sure pete can elaborate on the product further....... 8 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
-missy- Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 Hello Jim. Thats a neat little tool although does it do curves? Would it be better if it wasnt a box and the sides could be bent to form part of curved track? Just a thought.. Missy Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted April 1, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 1, 2012 as i say im sure pete can elaborate on whether he does any other types of spacing tools for curves Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium 2ManySpams Posted April 1, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 1, 2012 For curves you could perhaps do as above but only glue the sleepers to one rail. Then gently curve when the glue is set. Might work, then again... 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Harvey Posted April 1, 2012 Share Posted April 1, 2012 (edited) Jim I'm happy for you start a thread. Missy There is no need for a Curved spacing tool as you space the sleepers before you curve the track. Besides the ends of the sleepers on the inside of the curve will allways be closer together than the outer ones and if a tool was produced for curves you would only beable to have one size radius and that would not be much use. Pete Edited April 1, 2012 by Pete Harvey Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon A Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 A neet and simple tool that is a step in the right direction. Would it be worth doing a similar tool that correctly spaces the sleepers at the track joints for panelled track where the spacing closes down? Gordon A Bristol Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bernard Lamb Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Would it be worth doing a similar tool that correctly spaces the sleepers at the track joints for panelled track where the spacing closes down? Gordon A Bristol Panelled is more likely to be BH so not applicable to modifying Peco. End spacing varied between companies and location/use so several varieties of jig would be required. Probably better to adjust by eye. Bernard Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
micklner Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 If you glue the sleepers to the track? you cannot bend the track to any sort of curve. How can you space the sleepers before making a curve without glueing them ? As soon as you turn it over to glue the sleepers to the curved rail you will lose the radius. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted April 2, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 2, 2012 How can you space the sleepers before making a curve without glueing them ? As soon as you turn it over to glue the sleepers to the curved rail you will lose the radius. IF im reading what 2 many spams says right you could glue the inside rail sleepers in place then bend the track to the desired radius and glue the outside rail sleepers in place, i suppose you could glue the outer rail with the track the right way up if you used a fine dropper for the glue Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
micklner Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Cant see it working on curves far too rigid even glued to one side only Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Mike Bellamy Posted April 2, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 2, 2012 First time I have seen this track with the steel sleepers and so I assume that it's a fairly new introduction from Peco. If that's the case and they had to produce new tooling, then why didn't they set the sleepers at the correct distance in the first place. I know in the past the argument has been that a lot of their production goes for export (labelled as HO) but would that be the case for this design - or are the steel sleepers a type only seen in UK ? Mike 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Y Posted April 2, 2012 Share Posted April 2, 2012 Cant see it working on curves far too rigid even glued to one side only It will work, as MrSpams has said, on curves by glueing the sleepers at one side (the inside rail of the curve is better). I've used it for such before now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted April 2, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 2, 2012 (edited) I do have a curve to build into the layout, only slight as a lead off a set if points so i'll give it a try and put a step by step guide up when i do it First time I have seen this track with the steel sleepers and so I assume that it's a fairly new introduction from Peco. If that's the case and they had to produce new tooling, then why didn't they set the sleepers at the correct distance in the first place. I wondered that too! Edited April 2, 2012 by big jim 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrushType4 Posted April 4, 2012 Share Posted April 4, 2012 First time I have seen this track with the steel sleepers and so I assume that it's a fairly new introduction from Peco. If that's the case and they had to produce new tooling, then why didn't they set the sleepers at the correct distance in the first place. I know in the past the argument has been that a lot of their production goes for export (labelled as HO) but would that be the case for this design - or are the steel sleepers a type only seen in UK ? Mike I don't think it's a fully new tool, just the sleeper part, so we are stuck with the spacing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RBE Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 I don't have one but certainly would have been useful when I laid my track on Outon Road, I ended up taking off all of the sleepers and gluing them individually to a printed trackplan before sliding the rail back in once the glue had set. Thumbs up from me. Cav Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRealistic Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Is there an advantage in cutting the pieces of plastic (between the sleepers) away completely? Just cutting through them would save a lot of time... and avoid the need to find all the bits that have shot across the room!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Ramblin Rich Posted April 7, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 7, 2012 (edited) I removed the plastic completely as I thought it would allow the ballast to sit in between the sleepers better (although I never actually got that far ). As you say, the bits do 'ping' off in all directions though! I wonder now if the same could be done with the points' bases.... EDIT - by which I mean just removing the plastic spacing between the sleepers, not moving the sleepers. Changing the spacing between the sleepers would mess up the geometry of the points.... Edited April 7, 2012 by Ramblin Rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted April 7, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted April 7, 2012 Is there an advantage in cutting the pieces of plastic (between the sleepers) away completely? Just cutting through them would save a lot of time... and avoid the need to find all the bits that have shot across the room!! i just did it to see how it would look, i may have a go at just cutting between the sleepers on the next piece to compare, i suppose the proof is in the pudding is how they would compare once the ballast is added Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted May 25, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted May 25, 2012 (edited) Ive had a bit of time over the last couple of days to space out some more lengths of track, this time however i have decided to merely snip between the sleepers instead of cutting away all the plastic, here is the result compared to the first piece i did So did he first piece of wooden sleeper track, i think that once its ballasted you wont see any difference Next to a non modified piece Time wise doing it that way took me about 25-30 mins a piece compared to an hour for the first one i did Edited May 25, 2012 by big jim 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tender Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 Time wise doing it that way took me about 25-30 mins a piece compared to an hour for the first one i did Or, you could just buy C&L/SMP track and save all the time. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted May 25, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted May 25, 2012 Or, you could just buy C&L/SMP track and save all the time. I could have saved even more time by not doing it at all!! Out of interest how does the price of a meter/yard of c&l or smp track compare to off the shelf stuff Do you have to build it yourself? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jol Wilkinson Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 I could have saved even more time by not doing it at all!! Out of interest how does the price of a meter/yard of c&l or smp track compare to off the shelf stuff Do you have to build it yourself? You'll find the C&L pricing here http://www.finescale.org.uk/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=51 and one example of a Peco suppliers online cataogue is here http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_results.asp?searchstring=brand~~577~~brand%20scale~~¬oo¬~~scale%20¬pieces¬&style=&andor=&method=kws&strType= Do you have to build what yourself, do you mean the track or the sleeper spacing tool? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold big jim Posted May 25, 2012 Author RMweb Gold Share Posted May 25, 2012 the c&l Do you have to build what yourself, do you mean the track or the sleeper spacing tool? i meant do you have to build the track itself but i see they do ready to plant flexitrack anyway. looking at the price list, the ready to run track is actually quite reasonable in price, i am surprised about that as its something ive never considered as an alternative to peco stuff, but its still more than i paid for the peco track and tool, to be honest looking at the other stuff on the website i got confused straight away, i wouldn't know what to order yet alone where to start building my own track although time consuming doing the lengths i need i'm hoping that the end result will look every bit as good as handmade track (to the untrained eye!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tender Posted May 25, 2012 Share Posted May 25, 2012 (edited) Here's a picture of C&L and Peco side by side, both code 75. As well as being spaced out the sleepers are about 2mm longer, slightly wider and significantly thinner (1.6mm). Part number for the C&L is 4FT101A. Sorry for going OT Edited May 25, 2012 by tender 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThaneofFife Posted November 26, 2012 Share Posted November 26, 2012 What is the spacing between sleepers increased to after using the PH tool? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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