hayfield Posted September 12, 2011 Share Posted September 12, 2011 I am about to build a trailing crossover in P4 using this method and have a question regarding the sleepers which will carry the slide chairs Do I rivet them all, some of them or none of the sleepers where the slide chairs will be used. If I rivet all or some I guess I should grind down the part of the rivet which shows either side of the rail If I do not rivet them, as I am building the unit off the board should I fit the chairs whilst the turnout is on the building board. Thanks Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 I fitted lost wax brass slide chairs to mine with pins in the bottom through the sleepers and washers soldered on. Others fit rivets and then either a brass etch around them that I think Bill Bedford did or butt up parts of plastic slide chairs on either side of the rivet. I've been trying to power some switches built using the latter method though and you do have to clean up the plastic where the MEK has melted it a bit and the surface isn't smooth. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davknigh Posted September 21, 2011 Share Posted September 21, 2011 I do rivets every 5th sleeper trying to make sure that the extreme end where the points meet is supported. That rivet gets a BillB overlay chair and the the rest go cosmetic, usually C&L. HTH David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted September 24, 2011 Author Share Posted September 24, 2011 Thanks both of you for the advice, I am at a bit of a full stop at the moment as I have a couple of other items that need doing first, hopefully at the back end of next week I can pick it back up again. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 I took these the other day to show my method. The special chairs wont be fitted until i've soldered on the switch anchors but the first of the plastic P chairs has been filed up and fitted around its rivets. From there are 3 brass P chairs soldered to the rail and pinned through the sleepers to washers underneath. The next sleeper is loose with plastic chairs on it to allow me to stick the tie bars on easily. The tips of the blades rest of brass P chairs soldered to the rail and an etched sole plate (a track circuited one in this case) which was Araldited to the sleeper. The other end before I worked on the check chairs. The crossing needs gapping from the closures and a couple of sleepers need replacing still when I find the rivets at the club again! These were the initial couple of sleepers I began the piece with and the rivet positions weren't great. I don't like the solder every 5th method as it doesn't allow rail expansion but doesn't have the complete rigidity of soldering every sleeper either. I did see the jaws fail on a length of track done like this before. Possibly made up in a colder room and failed when at the exhibition space which was much warmer. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted September 28, 2011 Author Share Posted September 28, 2011 Craig Thanks for that, am I correct that you cut the plastic chairs in half, file the bottom of the chair to fit the rivet. Do you use solder or solder paint, and what method of switching the blades do you use please. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 Craig Thanks for that, am I correct that you cut the plastic chairs in half, file the bottom of the chair to fit the rivet. Do you use solder or solder paint, and what method of switching the blades do you use please. Yup that's what i've been doing, filed the rivets/solder a couple of times too where I put a bit much on or you end up with too little chair to stick down! Certainly the most boring task ever and makes it a lot more long winded than just gluing the full chairs down. I will use rivets in the future if I do anything complex that might need a little tweak but for simple turnouts like this i'll stick to plastic only apart from the A chair sleeper in the future. I used 188 solder though solder paint may be easier to manage. The blades will be switched with a prototype tie bar on this one as the baseboard is in the way of the Exactoscale method. I'll sort that out once i've found some pictures of how they were insulated for track circuiting.I've made up the Masokits tie bars in the past which have convinced me they can be robust enough to last though. I managed to extract the box of rivets from a drawer behind the collapsed layout at the club last night so i'm hoping to finish the remaining work off by the weekend. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted September 29, 2011 Author Share Posted September 29, 2011 Craig Thanks, I was going to PM you and ask if you needed a small bag of them. Would be nice to see the tiebars as I have not had a look at the Exacto scale ones yet. I still have some of the old 00 under the board Exactoscale ones, and was hoping they still did them in P4. So still undecided on the way forward. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted September 29, 2011 Share Posted September 29, 2011 Craig Thanks, I was going to PM you and ask if you needed a small bag of them. Would be nice to see the tiebars as I have not had a look at the Exacto scale ones yet. I still have some of the old 00 under the board Exactoscale ones, and was hoping they still did them in P4. So still undecided on the way forward. Ah think that's a different system that i've seen on eBay sometimes.. What i'd meant was just the Tortoise bases they currently sell with a sliding bar you put two tubes in. Droppers from the switch blades slot in the tubes allowing for twist as the switches move. Depending on where you drill the holes for the tubes governs the gauge and opening distance. Actually there is a small clip of one of these moving on the Slattocks blog about computerised turnout control. The above board stuff will probably be my own etch with some very thin 0.1mm ish copper clad fibre involved. Switch anchors and remaining sleepers are now complete on this and I gapped the crossing too, another hour or so filing and fitting 12 chairs now I think.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted September 30, 2011 Author Share Posted September 30, 2011 Ah think that's a different system that i've seen on eBay sometimes.. What i'd meant was just the Tortoise bases they currently sell with a sliding bar you put two tubes in. Droppers from the switch blades slot in the tubes allowing for twist as the switches move. Depending on where you drill the holes for the tubes governs the gauge and opening distance. Actually there is a small clip of one of these moving on the Slattocks blog about computerised turnout control. The above board stuff will probably be my own etch with some very thin 0.1mm ish copper clad fibre involved. Switch anchors and remaining sleepers are now complete on this and I gapped the crossing too, another hour or so filing and fitting 12 chairs now I think.. I must look out for those Tortoise bases, cant remember seeing them in the past Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted September 30, 2011 Share Posted September 30, 2011 I must look out for those Tortoise bases, cant remember seeing them in the past http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/61/entry-5840-more-track-progress/ Tortoise goes on the bottom with the pin up through a hole in the bar you can see sticking out the side. That hole will line up with the hole you can see in the bottom of the base.. AXX TAP0 Tortoise adaptor plate (pack of 5) 6.00 Probably some instructions on their website too though I think they say to drill the two holes for the tubes in the bar too close together (about 19.5mm whereas they need to be wider for P4 I think I found). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 5, 2011 Author Share Posted October 5, 2011 The past 2 evenings I have had a bit of my time modelling Sleepers have been punched and riveted Not my normal build sequence, but I decided to fit the straight stockrails before the curved ones, I allways fit the V's first so when building a crossover which means curved before straight stockrails. Will be interesting to see if it works this way round. I have used solder paint, used a cocktail stick to load the solder on to the rivets,and tinned the bottom of the rails. I am getting better at getting the rivets more in line, just the odd one off center. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R A Watson Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 The past 2 evenings I have had a bit of my time modelling I have used solder paint, used a cocktail stick to load the solder on to the rivets,and tinned the bottom of the rails. I am getting better at getting the rivets more in line, just the odd one off center. I also use solder paint but have found it easier since I bought a small syringe from Eileens for some 50p, and stuck a piece of 2mm OD / 1mm ID brass tube in the end to act as a dispenser. The down side is you have to freshly stir the paint and load the device before each session and also drain and flush out the thing after use to stop gumming up the nozzle but it does make it easy to apply the paint to the rivet. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted October 7, 2011 Author Share Posted October 7, 2011 Just changed the title of the thread as its turned into a build All 4 stock rails have been fitted so thoughts have turned to fitting the crossing, if you look back at the early photos you will see that I have missed out some rivets where they are too close to each other, one area being the check rails the other being the V and wing rails. The V has a rivet, but there are no rivets on thatsleeper for the crossing. The next sleeper has no rivets for the V but 2 for the wing rails. There is no problem with this arrangement providing this sleeper has an anchor to another fixed rail. The problem being that this sleeper is attached to the check rail, so until the check rails are fitted the wing rails can move. Sorry for the poor photo quality, the solution is simple. Add a rivet dead center in the sleeper, solder it to the V then solder up the wing rails, all now is firmly locked together. Switch and check rails have been fitted. Tested with a wagon and all works fine, now I need to motorise my P4 Prairie so I can give it a propper test. I still have to finish the other half of the crossover, fit temporary tiebars, and decide what to do about slide chairs. Quite pleased with the progress to date. A couple of singed sleepers which will not notice once the sleepers have been stained, happy using solder paint to solder the rail to the rivets and its been much easier to solder once the bottom of the rail has been tinned. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Tim Dubya Posted November 24, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 24, 2011 This may be a daft question but where do buy rivets for 4mm? Cheers Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 This may be a daft question but where do buy rivets for 4mm? Tim Scalefour Society stores, although you have to be a member to use it (well worthwhile anyway!) or buy from one of the Society shows where they are present. EMGS may sell them also, but I can't confirm. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Tim Dubya Posted November 24, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 24, 2011 Cheers, I've have been searching online retailers but hadn't come across any. I did find track spikes at C&L, are these a similar thing or totally different? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Not the same Tim - I did check the C&L website and they don't sell them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Tim Dubya Posted November 24, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 24, 2011 Thanks for that. I was considering joining S4S or EMGS, trouble is I'm of the OO-SF brigade so was worried they might find out and give me a kicking but as long as they wear their slippers it shouldn't hurt too much. I'll check out membership, as you say, it will be worthwhile in the long run. Cheers Tim Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R A Watson Posted November 24, 2011 Share Posted November 24, 2011 Thanks for that. I was considering joining S4S or EMGS, trouble is I'm of the OO-SF brigade so was worried they might find out and give me a kicking but as long as they wear their slippers it shouldn't hurt too much. I'll check out membership, as you say, it will be worthwhile in the long run. Cheers Tim You are not alone, I joined the S4 society originally for the "retail experience" but have learnt a lot applicable to other gauges and scales as well. My current project is Irish Narrow gauge (County Donegal) in 7mm but not only did I get the neccesary rivets but also some lovely 21mm gauge track gauges from them - Irish standard gauge 5'3" in four mill works out at 21mm! No one has come knocking on my door yet! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted November 24, 2011 Author Share Posted November 24, 2011 This may be a daft question but where do buy rivets for 4mm? Cheers Tim Rim This may be a daft question, but do you have the ply sleepers and the hole punch/riveter Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Tim Dubya Posted November 24, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 24, 2011 Rim This may be a daft question, but do you have the ply sleepers and the hole punch/riveter Nothing so fancy, I want to use the Iain Rice method (from his Finescale Track book) and use a small hammer and anvil to close the rivets (after pre-drilling the timbers myself). I'm just experimenting with different kinds of track construction at the moment. I've built a C&L "turnout in a bag" kit which turned out (no pun intended) ok for me. So basically just finding out about the different routes to decent looking and running track. I want to build a small length of track and a turnout or two and see how I get on. I haven't got any parts yet but will after some more research and the help from you guys on here. Cheers Tim Edit: I emailed C&L and got this reply this morning: “Tim, Yes we sell them. Put code T4PT120 into the Search Box at the top left of the page. They are listed under Timber Tracks plywood track bases, then 4mm Sleepers and Strips, and are listed three from the end of that table. The Track spikes that we sell are inverted 'L' shaped pins and are completely different, in that they use the smaller length to grip against the foot of flat bottom rail, whilst the longer length of the 'L' is driven down into the sleeper. Sorry there is no photo currently available. Regards Pete Llewellyn” Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 Thanks Tim - I stand corrected! Not where I would have looked for them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Tim Dubya Posted November 27, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 27, 2011 Still took me ages to see them even with Pete's directions Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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