Replacing Peco 'O' Gauge Point Tie Bars

[Savoyard]

I have been working on wiring the new O Gauge layout 'Lowhill' by members of LYDCC MRG and whilst fitting the Colbalt point motors I wasn't happy with the tie bars after making more realistic ones on the points on Tottington. Being O Gauge it should be easier so I took a broken point and decided to experiment and here is result so far:-

 

 

 

 

I have used 0.7 square nickel silver wire soldered to a similar thickness of copper clad (cut using a dremel), the nickel silver is then soldered to the rails.

[bécasse]

You are putting a lot of stress on those four soldered joints. Even if you have used one of the stronger silver-based solders, two of them are going to come adrift eventually (one on each tie bar), and s*d's law says that it will happen about an hour into your first exhibition!

 

The four joints need to be able to flex without imposing stress.

 

One possible approach might be to use the Dremel to cut two slots in the lower half of each of the two point blades and solder (preferably with silver-based solder) pins into these slots. Use 1.6mm thick 4mm double-clad paxolin point sleeper material (from C&L, for example) standing vertically to form the two tie bars, slotting them across each face to provide the insulation (and preferably filling the slots with epoxy to maintain full strength), and then soldering two short lengths of tube to one side of each tie bar to take the pins protruding from under the point blades; the tubes will be hidden by the point blades once installed. Note that the distance apart of the two tubes will differ slightly for each tie bar.

 

I would file a flat along the tube before cutting it into short lengths as this will both make it easier to solder it to the tie bar in the right places and maximise the strength of the soldered joints.

 

Depending on the relative thickness of your sleepers and the depth of your new tie-bars (typically 4mm) you may need to cut a slight rebate in the baseboard top to allow them to operate freely.

 

This is more work initially, but, as they say, a stitch in time saves nine.

[Savoyard]

Thanks for the info.

 

As i said this is an experiment based on a similar method used on my Holcombe Brook & Tottington which has worked flawlessly now at several exhibitions, so even though it is an OO gauge layout I wanted to see if if it would work in O Gauge.

 

One of the reasons I think it has worked in OO is that I am using slow motion point motors so the stress is reduced compared to selenoid point motors. The main concern I have is the strength of the paxolin and I have been thinking of ways to strengthen it.

 

I will be setting up a test rig to see how it works under normal use.