Ray H

What about the tea lady. Please note that I said nothing about sausage makers/sellers!

Brian I'm just back from a few days away and trying to catch up on all that's been posted everywhere so apologies if this has been mentioned but Andy had some problems with condensation on his similarly insulated shed. Yours also looks to be pretty air tight. Were you aware of Andy's (ventilation) problem? I subsequently decided to add "ventilation" before anyone put the wrong interpretation on the sentence as it was originally!

Mick Indeed but I suspect Andy has a greater supply of plasticard. On reflection it would probably be better if they were dedicated to the crossing angle as I suspect that the provision of adjustment to cope with various angles would make them too flexible for other angles and allow excessive to prescribed tolerances to creep in. One good advantage of metal ones is that they could be pushed up against the nose of the common crossing and the closure/wing rails could be positioned against the other end and soldered in place thereby all but guaranteeing the correct alignment. I suppose that the shear number of crossing angle/length combinations and the different scale tolerances (even in OO) stops anyone producing something like this for retail. Would it be possible to make (thick) brass etches and sell them by the sheet I wonder?

OK I admit it, I only got grade 3 for maths in my O Level exam! Yes, you're right but maths aside I wonder of the concept might be useful.

Andy Is this idea worth a try for testing your frog assemblies. I believe that the usual OO flangeway is 1.25mm. This isn't too far of sixty thou (of an inch) if my maths are correct. Could you use some sixty thou plasticard strip as gauges to check the spacing between frog and the wing rails? If you could make two piece into an X shape such that the X would drop between frog and wing rails at one end and the outsides of the other end of the X would help you align the closure rails. You could make a fixed X if all the angles are the same but you could otherwise probably slot the two pieces with a little room in the slots to make the angle variable. I only suggest this because one of the images above appears to suggest that one of the closure rails isn't in line with its associated frog rail.

Andy I'd liked to have visited your open day but the rest of the family (in Cumbria) got in first and as I'm going there by train I can't even drop in when passing! I think your club has these sessions quite regularly so maybe next time. I have been looking at another (old) thread about making 4mm points as I'm determined to go that way in due course. However, I noticed reference there to PCB thickness and SMP track which I recall you intend to us (as do I). The inference from what I read is that the SMP sleepers are thinner than the Peco ones so it seems necessary to use 1.06mm thick PCB sleepers on the pointwork to match. Apologies if I'm mistaken but it may be worth noting otherwise. Good luck with the open weekend.

That soon? Can't you make it next month instead Pete?

I wonder if Andy's printer is set to "Fill Page" rather than print actual size?

Go on, admit it Mike, you're dying to see the track down so you can plead for some grass!

Andy I wonder if you have a copy of the template that Jason is using to build your point & slip. It might be useful to have in case you want to start building other bits of track around it now that his visit has been delayed.

Andy (and George, remotely) Look at Cav's point templates and I think you'll find that there is a mix of different width "timbers" - aka PCB strip used in a point. Don't confuse the width with the thickness of the PCB strip which some of the previous comments above seem to suggest that you may be doing. I think you will find that 1.6mm (thick) strip (of any width) is nearer to the thickness of the likes of Peco sleepers but I can't comment about SMP and other nearer to scale sleeper spaced track. I did try earlier to explain what I understand to be the story of OO-SF. My understanding is that it is intended to remove the unsightly gaps between frogs and adjacent check rails and improve running over the gap between the nose of the frog and the ends of the closure rails. It does so by taking advantage of the historical flexibility with standard OO wheel tolerances. If you were to put a modern wagon on a piece of Peco (for example) track and look at the two end on you would see that the inside faces of the wheel flanges are nowhere near the inside faces of the rails on which the wheel treads are resting. The visible gap is probably around 1mm. Look how thin the (modern) wheel flanges are as well. Now look at a (for example) Peco point and look at the space between the running rail faces of the rails of the frog and the faces of the adjacent wing rails. These reasons for the width of these gaps are historical and as I hope I have demonstrated they're no longer necessary with modern stock (and for modern read 15-20 years old if not older, so I'm told). There are a number of ways to improve things but the OO-SF solution does what it does with only a minimal chance that B2Bs of rolling stock will need to be adjusted. Start with the frog of a point. Now move the adjacent wing rail, the check rail and the stock rail 0.3mm closer to the running rail face of the frog - 0.3mm is the difference between the track gauge that OO-SF uses and the more universally understood 16.5mm of conventional OO. You've reduced the unsightly gap between wing rail and frog by removing some of the play that is built into OO-BF measurements to accommodate what amounts to pre-historic wheel geometry. This is hopefully a very simplistic description of what OO-SF is about and how it came into being (as far as I understand it). I am not specifically and pointedly trying to convert people, I'm simply trying to explain my understanding of the way it achieves what it does for Andy's benefit based on his comment in a recent post. It took me a little while to get to grips with it but I have only been prevented from using it on my hand built points because the inbuilt curves on the frog rails on small radius points aren't really compatible with the finer tolerances that OO-SF uses. My current layout used Peco points for speed (of laying track). I have every intention with my next layout of building my own points and using larger radii for them so that I can build them to OO-SF standards. I hope that helps.

I thought you still had that in mind for the branch line

Correct if I'm wrong - and I probably am - but I thought that it was possible to inter mix OO-SF and OO-BF on the same layout by widening/narrowing the gauge gradually as appropriate where the two are to be joined. I recall that the use of OO-SF is not recommended on anything other than pointwork, straights or large radius curves.

You can see how Andy always manages to produce such divine results. The tweaking that goes on and in this case, the amount of planning he's done are already paying off. I am looking forward to one thing. I can't for the life of me work out how he plans to convert the telephone handset in the last picture into a set of coal drops! Interesting times lay ahead don't you know.

It is nearly 2 hours since the electrician finished and we've not seen any trains running or any grass sewn on the baseboards. I'm giving up and going to look at the Dent thread. Far more interesting! P.S. Glad the electrician has done a good job.

Andy Do you have a Prt Sc key on your flip flop?

You can't be accused of knowing nothing about grass!

Don't forget handbuilt points are usually longer than Peco ones. I was a little concerned when I saw that you'd started cutting baseboard tops because I think you should get the track plan worked out before you cut any more and build the boards to suit as this is a permanent layout so board sizes within the overall length constraint are that critical.

Andy Have you roughly divided the track plan up so that you can check that you don't have any points across baseboard joins? It looks as though you could be tight for space even with your extended shed and with large radius points requiring around a foot at a time (if not more) there doesn't appear to be too much scope for juggling them back & forth.

At least we do see some pictures of trains on this set of baseboards, not like a grass less layout I can think of!

Are you going to model the GRASS verge?

I have no desire to confuse anyone who is not accustomed to some of the finer points of the above discussion but I fear we may be in grave danger of doing so. I also confess with my hand held very high that I am probably not the most appropriate person to try to explain this. Apologies in advance if the attempt that follows simply chucks more coal on the fire. Further apologies if I'm repeating something already explained before. OO-SF reduces the gaps between check rails and adjacent running rails be they the frog or the stock rail (i.e. the other running rail in the frog area) by reducing the overall track gauge by 0.3mm down to 16.2mm. This is well within the tolerances that are acceptable to modern stock and anything else that is suitable for code 75 rail. It requires no changes to BtB (Back to Back) measurements that wouldn't be required for ordinary OO (16.5mm) rolling stock but the appearance is far superior and that is the main reason for people switching to it as far as I am aware. It does however require the use of dedicated track gauges (and rail spacers) to achieve the reduced flangeway. OO-SF has been designed to accommodate anything that conventional OO will so you get an appearance more akin to EM or P4 without all the problems of re-wheeling. Any attempt to reduce the flangeway whilst retaining the 16.5mm track gauge will require BTBs to be widened. I hope that helps. Edited to add:- There's no reason other than the appearance why you can't mix points built to either gauge on the same scenic section of a layout. Furthermore, OO-SF points can be connected to standard OO plain line by easing the gauge back to 16.5mm between the frog and the relevant rail end. In fact it is better to use 16.5mm plain line on curves without check rails.

Andy With my head firmly below the barricade to avoid any incoming from non-believers can I suggest you look at the frog/common crossing area of one of Gordon S' OO-SF turnouts and see what you think of the appearance compared to the ones you and George made today. You'll find that the wheels roll over the gap with barely a twitch and if you're serious about going down the handbuilt pointwork route for all the scenic area I think you'll find the results are worthwhile. Save for the gauges (i.e. about £10) and possibly some slight tweaking of back to back measurements on stock you'll be able to continue with what you already have and are planning.

Brian One of the reasons for contemplating moving my layout to the garage is so that I can replace my ten road traverser with something more akin to what Andy has shown latterly on his Bitton thread - before the banger brigade took over! I've tried a traverser with both a continuous layout and the proverbial BLT and am convinced that it is the prime reason for me not operating my layout except when pressed to do so if I have visitors. It may sound silly but I find that the constant unlocking, moving, locking of the traverser rather than simply setting up a route using a couple of (point operating) switches is what is putting me off. Unless I run one train at a time - the layout basically comprises a single line passing station - I set the traverser for train 1 to depart, run that to the station, return to the traverser and set it for train 2 to depart and then run that to the station. I then send one train back to the fiddle yard, reset the traverser and then send the next train back before re-setting the traverser again before the next move (and there are two more traverser moves in this short sequence if I want to keep trains on the same traverser track). Your traverser is double track and the practical operation may be different, mine also feeds a separate (single track) branch but you will either have to run trains individually or always run the same pair together. I know they're space savers but I'm not convinced that they're the best thing for a predominantly one person operation layout, especially a continuous one (and I want that facility so that I can let trains run round (and round occasionally, primarily for testing). The logistics of having three separate traverser tables in the same space doesn't bear thinking about!

No parcels? . . . . . . (No grass either!) Thanks for reminding me of the shed dimensions. I've been struggling with me initial look at a Fiddle Yard design should I decamp to the garage where the space available is about a foot shorter all round than your palace. I presume your track layout is mirrored at each end so I'll play around with that idea. I also note that the image shows 14 tracks not twelve which is why they may look a bit cramped (assuming it is a 2ft wide board). I note the reference to a branch that I don't recall in the original plan. Funny that, I was thinking along similar lines. I'll be interested to see what you're thinking you can squeeze into (what you seem to imply is) a 6" wide board. Enjoy your break.