Wayne Kinney

Hi Guys, 

After much feedback from the societies and you lovely guys, I have decided to keep offering the switch blades pre soldered to the plates/pins.

I've worked out that the time saved by not needing to make moulds, inject waxes, cut metal sprues or straighten/flatten castings is more than adequate, still allowing me to speed up production and extend the range faster.

I'm still working on making the instructions/video tutorials, it's slow going but worth it once done. 

I hope you'll agree, that's good news all round 

Hi Guys,

Little update  I'm currently working on making updated instructions for the new 'All Rail' turnout kits. They will be online instructions broken down into easily digestible steps, each with an accompanying YouTube video.

It's important that I get this done before changing the kits to the new format, but it is a lot of work filming and editing, so it's going to take some time.

I've made the main 'contents' page for the standard turnout instructions, each 'step' will take you to its own page with written instructions, diagrams and YouTube video.

https://www.britishfinescale.com/Articles.asp?ID=264

Each category box will have a picture (like the first one) once I film each step.

I'm hoping that these new instructions with the help of videos will make the process of assembling much clearer to understand.

It's been a few years since I've had to be in front of the camera and I find it very difficult indeed, but I'm getting  there

I'll update you as progress is made!

45 minutes ago, martin_wynne said:

I don't fancy assembling your slab & bracket "A" chair, the bolt has a bend in the middle!

Darn, that's gonna interfere with the M0.15 bolts I'm getting turned 

Hi Guys,

Sorry for not replying, I've taken the weekend to allow me to absorb all the feedback. Also took my wife and little boy to London on Sunday for some sightseeing and to watch the 'Back to the Future Musical' at the Adelphi Theatre (highly recommend!).

Regarding my decision to stop using castings and going with an all rail design. I have tested all the suppliers that cast in Nickel Silver, including:

Beechcast

Platorum

Just Like The real Thing

Merrell

Sans Pareil

Slaters Plasticard

For the majority of the years, I was using 'Just Like The real Thing' for my castings, they were great quality. But then they closed shop in Feb 2018 so I had to find another supplier.

After testing many suppliers I went with Sans Pareil (Iain young) as his castings are amazing quality. But as I've said before he is close to retirement and the K crossings were not working anyway.

This left just one supplier from the list above that I had not yet tried. I won't mention which one, but I just received sample casting from them. I sent them 5 of my waxes to cast in N/S so I could test their casting quality.

Oh guys, receiving these cast samples only cements my decision to move to ‘all rail’. The quality is terrible, putting it mildly. Completely unusable! I’ve now tested all the available suppliers, and only Sans Pareil is up to the quality needed (at least for the common crossings). When he retires, I would have no other supplier up to the job. ‘All rail’ is the way forward.

I’ve also come to a firm decision on the tie bar design/solution. I’ve had much feedback and the consensus seems to be that people don’t like the ‘Normal Solomon’ method that I proposed. They all like the method I was using with the etched plates and pin.

So I am going to do what I’ve been doing with the N Gauge range for years. My N Gauge kits currently are supplied with the tie bar, etched plates and wire for the pins as separate items. I then also offer soldering jigs (sold separately) that the builder then uses to solider the etched plates and pins to the switch blade themselves. You only need one jig for multiple turnouts. The switch blades would still be supplied pre machined.

This would then produce the same result, only the builder solider it using the jig (sold separately).

I hope you can agree that this is the best compromise/solution.

Hi Guys,

Just a few quick snaps of an 'all rail' 1in7 diamond in EM Gauge. Photo's arn't great as I was loosing light. I'm quite pleased with how it looks, though.

EDIT: BTW, my test bogies and 0-6-0 chassis runs really smoothly through it!

Hi Guys,

Firstly I apologise for this long post, but I have been having a bit of an issue.  It’s to do with the castings I use for the common & 'K' crossings.

I received a large batch of 1in7 common castings and also new castings for the K crossings, both for diamonds and for slips. However, I am unfortunately pushing the lost wax casting technique to its limits here as the K crossings are much longer than the usual common crossing, so shrinkage and warpage is becoming an issue to the point where they are not really useable!

It’s also apparent on the common crossing castings, they are slightly warped I’m just not happy with them. Also, the caster is getting close to retirement meaning future supply is going to be an issue.

This has lead me to have a bit of a rethink. The use and reliance on castings for the kits has been bothering me for a good while, to be honest, for a few reasons:

A)      Having to rely on the casters timescales and as he is close to retirement, future availability is questionable. There are not many casters around that cast in Nickel Silver for the right price.

B)      The look/finish of the castings don’t fully match the code 75 rail and also changes from batch to batch. If I have to change to another caster/supplier then the material will change and maybe be a worse match.

C)      Getting the castings to match the tops of the rail height is a challenge, and can cause a bump on wheel sets

D)      Time consuming designing the CAD models for the wax masters. And then also having to make all the rubber moulds, time that could be better spend on developing new kit formations.

E)       It’s very time consuming for me to inject all the waxes, basically one at a time. Again, time better spend on other things.

F)       Time consuming having to cut each casting off the sprue and cleanup. Most castings have 3 sprues attached, the longer K crossing has 7! Time again.

G)      Cost, especially if I have to change supplier, making it unusable.

All of the above reasons have lead me to wanting an “all rail” design, without using castings. After these EM gauge K crossing castings arrived and I can see they are going to cause me headaches, it’s really pushed me to look into changing to an “all rail” design.

From the modellers point of view, these are the pros and cons of an all rail design:

Pros:

Better Looking all rail

No need for blackening and polishing a casting

Smoother Running (really nice!)

More prototypical rail joint locations

Better for curving the kit

Cheaper Price

Shorter development time for producing new kits

Cons:

Little extra Soldering

Little extra cutting of rail

Over the last few days, I’ve designed an “all rail” version of the K crossings and common crossings in EM Gauge (see pictures below) and they look great and run like butter – SO SMOOTH!

The ‘V’s for the common crossing where milled on my CNC machine, and would be supplied pre machined like the switch blades are. I’ve designed special chairs that hold the point of the V’s down very firmly.

The biggest challenge in designing it is that, once you bend pieces of rail (for example, to form the knuckle of the wing rails) you can’t then slide that bent piece of rail through the chairs on the base! Or worse, imagine forming the outside rail of a diamond crossing, a long piece of rail with a bend in the middle. Then imagine trying to insert that bent piece of rail though the chairs on the diamond base! It doesn’t work as it breaks the chairs.

So instead, I have gone with the approach/solution of splitting it into 2 pieces of rail, that meet where the bend/knuckle is. This is what I’ve done in my tests and it seems to work out great. It will require a little more soldering of electrical feeds on the modellers part, though.

I understand that the knuckle should theoretically have a slight radius, but this really does run incredibly smooth and I think it looks better than the cast version with gaps either side of it!

So this is where I am as of last night. I would really need to move to using all rail and not have to rely on castings and all the work involved. A little more effort to build the kit, but they do look and function much better!

I would need to change the instructions, I think this time having them online instead of printed, in a step by step form with each step accompanied a really small YouTube video.

I am also going to be changing the design of the tie bar and how the switch blades are attached. Unfortunately, it’s taking up far too much time for me soldering the plates/pins onto each switch blade. Instead, I am going to change to a simpler design inspired by Normal Solomon, where 2x 0.4mm thick headed ‘pins’ are supplied with the tie bar, the builder inserts them so that the head of the pins are on the bottom, and the pins then bent over 90 degrees on the top of the tie bar. They are then cut off leaving about 2 – 3mm of the pin on top of the tie bar. The builder then solders the switch blades to the pin ‘in situ’. This is actually how the first kit was provided to Patrick on the first page of this thread!

I realise the above changes will add a few extra steps in the build, but I truly believe the better cosmetic look and running outweigh this.

I've not made the change yet so kits are still being provided with the castings, but I will announce when the change is made.