Hayfields turnout workbench

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

The Scalefour Society is now my only modelling membership, due to the economic climate, and I think the only source of Exactoscale products?

 

I am still a member of the Southwestern Circle, but considering you get a book or two a year plus the magazine every couple of months for £17:50 a year, it's a damn good bargain 👍

 

1 hour ago, PjKing1 said:

The EM gauge society sell exactoscale products to, I’m still a member but I’m back making hand built track in OO gauge now.

 

Paul

 

The Scalefour Society  sell a full range of Exactoscale 4mm parts,

 

The EM Gauge Society sell most 4 mm Exactoscale parts

 

The Scale Seven Society are the only source of Exactoscale 7mm components

 

Given the amount of parts I buy these cushion the cost of membership, plus I only get the Railway Modeller so its quite easy to spend five or ten pounds on other mags, at the moment I would rather spend this amount on society membership. I think at the moment this may be a better use of my modelling budget 

 

Not forgetting C&L do sell items that the other 3 societies do not sell. 

Edited December 2, 2022 by hayfield

[Tim Dubya]

6 hours ago, PjKing1 said:

The EM gauge society sell exactoscale products to, I’m still a member but I’m back making hand built track in OO gauge now.

 

Paul

 

Yes, I was a member until recently.  Hopefully things will look up and I can afford to renew my subs soon.

 

Cheers

Dubs 👍

[PjKing1]

23 minutes ago, Tim Dubya said:

 

Yes, I was a member until recently.  Hopefully things will look up and I can afford to renew my subs soon.

 

Cheers

Dubs 👍

I never got around to cancelling it when I moved away from EM up to 7mm but now three years later I’ve returned to 4mm I’m glad I never as I find Exactoscale chairs far better than C&L’s also it’s far easier to order off them to.

 

Paul 

[hayfield]

If you understand how Phil works then its the same with C&L as the EMGS. And C&L do have products Exactoscale don't, and visa versa

[hayfield]

On 29/11/2022 at 21:52, dpgibbons said:

Hi John - could you expand please on how you use your bench sander for rail filing?

 

 

Sorry for the delay in replying in more detail, the way I use the bench sander for filing the vees and switch rails is much the same. The bench sander is for mating roughs, which are finished with a file

 

 

The first job is to mark the rails, switch rails in this case, blue marks are for the planing, the black line is for full sanding/first face to be sanded

 

 

The first side has been disk sanded, now the rail is clamped to a piece of steel bar 3.25mm thick. You just need something rigid to file against, just file a straight taper. Make sute the safe edge is in the web so you do not damage the foot

 

  

I then turn the rail over so I can file the head of the rail, again to a taper, then bevel the head of the rail

 

 

Make sure the rail is straight on one side

 

 

For double slips I make a hinge joint, I am using cast brass functional fishplates, soldered to one rail only. On double slips I always make hinged joints as there is too much resistance from 4 short switch rails to easily move the tiebars

 

I will solder some brass wire between the switch and stock rails which will hold the rails in place, but will not cause too much resistance

 

 

These are the cast (functional ) fishplates, In this case they are Exactoscale, C&L do these as well in 4 & 7mm scale

 

 

Close up of the fishplates, in my opinion in 4mm and especially 7mm scale these are a must, so much easier than etched brass ones to fit, as rail joiners look awful. Plastic ones can also double up as electrical insulators, they are much cheaper than cast metal ones, just means you need to use more dropper wires

 

 

Again Exactoscale but C&L are just as good, brass ones are made in a form of lost wax/plastic moulding, as a plastic sprue is sacrificed to produce them

 

I hope this explains my methods further

Edited December 7, 2022 by hayfield

[hayfield]

 

This is the last of the continental turnouts I have been asked to build. I still have to fit all the timber tiebars to what I have built, this was left as there was a chance of fitting alternative tiebars. Also bonding wire need completing plus all servos need fitting. My trial serve was a success in a test, the only fly in the ointment is I still am having issues with the servo controller

 

Next up is a double outside slip again with altered timbering to give a continental flavour. Now my abilities with Templot will not stretch to  designing one of these, I will be cutting two C&L templates in half and fitting both outside slips together, fingers crossed on this one

 

I have also offered an article promoting the Exactoscale turnout bases as an easy method in building a P4 turnout, this system is equally usable in EM gauge for turnouts, but the 0 gauge turnouts are my main priorty 

[martin_wynne]

15 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Next up is a double outside slip again with altered timbering to give a continental flavour. Now my abilities with Templot will not stretch to  designing one of these,

 

Hi John,

 

There is a Templot video here:

 

 http://flashbackconnect.com/Default.aspx?id=3o4-PiKKPVaAXZsePJOwSA2

 

And more explanation here:

 

 https://85a.uk/templot/archive/topics/topic_3660.php#p29557

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[hayfield]

Martin

 

Again thank you, on this occasion its a time factor as I get older I keep forgetting things, however these two links will be extremely useful as I have been asked to design in Templot a track plan from one in a Railway modeller for a 7mm layout changing it to 00 gauge with an asymmetric scissors amongst other things

 

Thanks as its saved me hours trying to find these videos

[Chamby]

Asymmetric scissors... outside slip...  

 

Great Central?

[martin_wynne]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

Thanks as its saved me hours trying to find these videos

 

Hi John,

 

The full list of Templot videos is here:

 

 https://85a.uk/templot/companion/online_video_list.php

 

There is a link to that page in the program:

 

 

Not all the links in that menu are up-to-date, but that one is. :)

 

cheers,

 

Martin.

[hayfield]

 

Whilst its not perfect splicing 2 single outside slips into one it has given me a working drawing. C&L plans whilst being useful are not as accurate as Templates from Templot, as they are now photocopies of masters the outside slip plans are now printed on two A4 sheets. Still with the use of gauges and ling straight edges it being a straight slip makes life much easier.

 

The first step is to decide on how its wired up with isolation gaps.

Then I can start with sorting out the timbering in the Continental style with 8mm gaps between the timbers and double timbering 

[hayfield]

 

Slowly (very) reorganising the timbers to something that reflects Continental practice. The longest timbers need extending as they exceed the length of C&L's longest timbers, I make the splice under a chair as this both helps to hide the join and gives the joint added strength

 

I am having an issue with the board warping and a few of the timbers being warped, so I am gluing about 6 timbers at a time and weighing them down as the glue sets, another good use for a H&M controller !! 

[hayfield]

 

A quick update, the timbers are in place, I have had issues with warping with both the board and some of the timbers. This is why its taken so long as I have been sticking  about six or seven timbers at a time and weighing them down for several hours. The whole board is being weighted down for a couple of days on a flat surface and it seems to be producing good results

 

Next up is to build these common crossing units, I am also waiting for my membership to the Scale 7 Group to be finalised as I have realised this crossing is full of bridge chairs, I have 62 7mm scale bridge chairs but I desperately need more.

 

You can also see I have a common crossing building jig which I forgot I had

[hayfield]

 

The first of the triple common crossings on the go, first three vees made

 

 

I thought this would be the easiest way of making the subassemblies 

 

 

Stock rails added for testing, fingers crossed time. I will test them tomorrow

[mullie]

44 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

The first of the triple common crossings on the go, first three vees made

 

 

I thought this would be the easiest way of making the subassemblies 

 

 

Stock rails added for testing, fingers crossed time. I will test them tomorrow

What thickness is the copperclad?

[hayfield]

12 hours ago, mullie said:

What thickness is the copperclad?

 

As this is for 7mm scale its 1mm thick, if it had been 4mm scale it would have been 0.5/0.6mm thick.

 

The copperclad will be cut back and act as risers to sit on to Timbers, the stock rails are just for testing.

 

If you work with copperclad timbers I would not be building these as subassemblies but just start tacking everything together before testing

[hayfield]

 

A very Heath Robinson set up to test the crossings. but all is OK on each road. I have sacrificed a bit of copperclad strip and the stock rails can be reused initially on the next subassembly then into another build. But it is far better finding issues now than later on in the build

 

  I have used Exactoscale functional cast brass (H section) fishplates and for the test I electrically isolated the stock rails from the subassembly

[hayfield]

 

The first obtuse (K) crossing sub assembly is soldered together

 

 

The same process as testing the common crossings of my hashed together test bed is used to check its operation, as I said before Its better to find any issues at this stage

 

 

One K crossing tested then cleaned up ready for chairs

[hayfield]

 

A couple of quick photos of using wing rail gauges, its important to check both roads

 

 

I always like to have guide marks, next job is testing

 

 

[hayfield]

 

I was asked to use a plan from Railway modeller and produce a track plan in Templot, it was a quick draft (there are quite a few errors) simply to see if I was on the right track (sorry for the pun) of what Simon wanted, he did not require the turntable but wanted sidings

 

Last night I was very lucky to be part of a trial zoom meeting and after a short time organising ourselves the meeting started. lucky for me Martin asked if anyone was working on anything so I quickly volunteered this plan as I was stuck in making the crossing in the middle of the scissors. First time I have ever been in or watched a Zoom event

 

Templot Club forum Zoom Meeting thread  (will not load a link)  There is a video of the last third of the zoom meeting showing how simple it is to make and alter a double sided 3 way turnout

 

Anyway with less than 6 clicks the diamond was created automatically

 

 

This is the cleaned up Template. Most of the kinks and dog leg joints have been altered, amazing scissors fitted and I got rid of some bad timbering

 

There is another Zoom meeting on this coming Wednesday evening at 8pm. well worth joining in especially if you don't use Templot

 

This is a screen shot of a layout planed in Templot, this was 

[hayfield]

 

Sub assemblies waiting for trimming to size

[martin_wynne]

On 03/02/2023 at 19:53, hayfield said:

There is another Zoom meeting on this coming Wednesday evening at 8pm, well worth joining in

 

 

All welcome to join in the Templot Club Zoom meetings. Next one is this Wednesday 8th Feb at 8pm UK time. Meeting details here:

 

https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/zoom-meetings-access-links.620/latest

 

To join the meetings or watch the recordings afterwards you must be a member of the Templot Club forum. If not already, it's easy to register, here:

 

 https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?register/

 

But please register well in advance if you intend to do so, I won't be able to deal with new registrations once the meeting is under way. Thanks.

 

Looking forward to seeing you 🙂,

 

Martin.

[hayfield]

7 hours ago, martin_wynne said:

 

All welcome to join in the Templot Club Zoom meetings. Next one is this Wednesday 8th Feb at 8pm UK time. Meeting details here:

 

https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/zoom-meetings-access-links.620/latest

 

To join the meetings or watch the recordings afterwards you must be a member of the Templot Club forum. If not already, it's easy to register, here:

 

 https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?register/

 

But please register well in advance if you intend to do so, I won't be able to deal with new registrations once the meeting is under way. Thanks.

 

Looking forward to seeing you 🙂,

 

Martin.

 

 

Its was far better than I expected and I had to set up Zoom as the meeting started, I was a first time Zoom user and it was very easy to set up and partake 

[hayfield]

 

Slowly getting the crossings in place, the bottom K crossing being filed to length.

[hayfield]

 

A bit more progress, the biggest job now is  filing up 8 switch blades

Edited February 9, 2023 by hayfield