Beating the Boredom - Turnout build(s)

Neil_Wiggins · August 8, 2020, 9:42am

Hi all,

Started this project back in lockdown, maybe mid April? Finally got the time to start posting some pics. Does that qualify for a ‘Beat the Boredom tag?

I’m loosely following how I made some turnouts 10+ yrs ago for my old layout. Main difference is using code 250 rather than 332, and adding a few ‘improvements’ suggested by folk who inherited version 1’s after I had to dismantle the layout in 2012.

I’m planning to start the new layout this summer downunder time. I figured I’d try & use use #6’s for mainline, and #5’s for branch lines and yards. A ‘back of a fag packet’ napkin sketch of a trackplan showed I’m in for 20+ turnouts for the whole empire. So from day 1.5 this morphed into a production line thing so I can produce them on tap to the same specs. Well – that’s the plan anyway…

First up was to rip some lumber. Timber is cedar, from offcuts off a kitset log house. Not completely sure if it’s US or Canadian – but definitely not local…

Ripping ties

Way too dusty to be inside for this job…

Straightaway I ran into the ‘every job needs two others done before you can start’. First was make a zero clearance plate for the table saw, then a box that can hold all the ties grouped in the right sizes.

I downloaded some HO templates for #5 & #6, traced the rails and drew some ties in Cad once I’d scaled the gauge to 45 mm. I split them into 4 bits to print on A4 pages

Last time I had some stringers pinned straight onto the ties to hold them in place. That was one thing that caused hassles when you lay them on a hard roadbed. So I attempted to get them flush this time. I tried routing the groove in the assembly jig but they weren’t tight enough, I ended up blowing half of them apart.

The answer, eventually, was making another jig to hold the ties tight so I could use the router and not have them move. Not worth it for a couple of turnouts, but I figured 20 odd would make useful. Hopefully.

Then, some assembly on the first one. 18 ga pins and urethane glue hold everything in place.

More to come…

Cheers
Neil

Pete_Lassen · August 8, 2020, 2:16pm

Nice job Neil, looks like you spent way more time building things to build the turnouts, than you did in actual turnout building. That jig for the ties and to use a router to cut the groove is as much work as building a turnout. Will you have to build another one to do the other size turnout, or is that adaptable to the differrent frog sizes. Looking forward to progress pictures.

Neil_Wiggins · August 8, 2020, 8:06pm

Pete Lassen said:

Nice job Neil, looks like you spent way more time building things to build the turnouts, than you did in actual turnout building. That jig for the ties and to use a router to cut the groove is as much work as building a turnout.

Will you have to build another one to do the other size turnout, or is that adaptable to the differrent frog sizes.

Thanks Pete,

Ummm, Yep. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)My only excuse is the country was in total lockdown at that stage, no public movement except shopping or essential workers. I was still on 40 hrs work from home, but that still left a lot of ‘WhatAmIGonnaDoNow’ time.

It actually wasn’t too bad, I had all the wood right on hand or in the scrap bin. Took so an hour or so each, x 4. Yes, one for each size, one for each hand. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cry.gif)

Then less than a minute ea to load and make sawdust…

Cheers

Neil

Cliff_Jennings · August 8, 2020, 9:27pm

Neil, your stringers and routing are very clever, I like how they structurally hold everything together even before the rails are laid.

Neil_Wiggins · August 9, 2020, 8:41am

Thanks Cliff, they sure are strong, the engineer in me is gonna buy that every time… I mainly do the stringer approach so I can treat & stain them in one go, otherwise I‘d be doing over 500 individual ties for this project.

This first tie strip was a bit of an experiment in several ways. The next ‘covid fail’ was that I only had 20 mm brads (say ¾”) on hand. The ties are only ½” thick so they were always going to be too long but there was no way to get the right size during level 4 lockdown. First plan was just to grind/cut them off.

But even prying them off the template was a mission in itself.

You can see above how the router smashed up the ties before I made the new jig.

Not sure if it shows in the pic but it looked really ugly. Add to that some of the cut marks weren’t going to be under the rails. Ok. Plan B, make them the right length. How hard could that be…

At least the base was flush. I’ll take that win!

It took several goes before I found the answer, mainly because the glue in the nail strips kept melting. Two wooden blocks with a groove for the brad heads, clamped in a vice, and leave it 5 mins after grinding to cool was the way.

At this point I finally got to production stage. Took about 10 mins per strip from loose ties to fully assembled. I weighted them down straight away to make sure they were flat.

Cheers
Neil

Cliff_Jennings · August 9, 2020, 7:15pm

Neil,

At first I thought you were going to bend the brads over to ensure they’d never pull out (upwardly, at least). But that would take a long time, and maybe split some wood. So your cutting of your brads was a clever solution.

And I love the fact that you’re making a bunch of them all in one go, that’s great!

Cliff

Bruce_Chandler · August 9, 2020, 8:26pm

Cliff Jennings said:

Neil,

At first I thought you were going to bend the brads over to ensure they’d never pull out (upwardly, at least). But that would take a long time, and maybe split some wood. So your cutting of your brads was a clever solution.

And I love the fact that you’re making a bunch of them all in one go, that’s great!

Cliff

Mass assembly is such a cool concept. I always attempted it, only to find out later that life would be just so much easier if I had only made one more! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)

Bruce_Chandler · August 9, 2020, 8:42pm

Neil,

That is some very FINE work! Well done. However (there HAD to be a HOWEVER, didn’t there?) you should be VERY concerned with those ties rotting. Not today, nor tomorrow, but perhaps many years from now. I’m not sure what steps I would take to prevent that - perhaps put them all atop a nice bed of ballast, or maybe treat them with something. (I NEVER DID find the answer to stop those ties from rotting, but ROT they will!)

David_Marconi_FOGCH · August 9, 2020, 9:57pm

I have soaked mine in used motor oil for a week to ten days. then dumped them onto rags to drain for a week or so. After 11 + years outside they still look like the first day. YMMV (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

edited to add:

You could also soak them in walmanizer, deck stain, or waterproofer coatings, but don’t paint it on, soak them in it like the oil above. I have not used anything other than the oil on mine so don’t know how well the other products will work. Again YMMV

Rick_Marty · August 9, 2020, 10:55pm

I’m with Dave on this.

I soak all my wooden tie switches and bridges with a 50/50 mixture of used motor oil and diesel before install. Then every couple of years a pull them and drench them down again with a brush then let them dry for a week or so before re-install. Will last for years this way (for me) as long as the ties are in gravel ballast not dirt.

Neil_Wiggins · August 11, 2020, 2:29am

Cliff, bending them over went through my mind as well, for about a millisecond. Same reasons you mention… (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)Powertool of choice was a 5” grinder with a 1 mm cutoff disc, very handy for this kind of job. Spot the bilingual measurements? Really annoys the youngies at work… (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Bruce Chandler said:

Neil,

However (there HAD to be a HOWEVER, didn’t there?) you should be VERY concerned with those ties rotting.

David Marconi,FOGCH said:

You could also soak them in walmanizer, deck stain, or waterproofer coatings, but don’t paint it on, soak them in it like the oil above.

I had to read twice, then google Walmanizer – never struck that word before.

Rick Marty said:

I’m with Dave on this.

I soak all my wooden tie switches and bridges with a 50/50 mixture of used motor oil and diesel before install. Then every couple of years a pull them and drench them down again with a brush then let them dry for a week or so before re-install. Will last for years this way (for me) as long as the ties are in gravel ballast not dirt.

Great minds think alike! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)Read on…

The last ones I made are coming up 13 yrs old now, so they make a good reference point. I used Metalex brand preservative (zinc napthenate) and oil based stain at the time. The new owner also made some using CCA treated pine (walmanized… (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)), and used a few different brands of spikes. Verrry interesting to compare!

All of the pine ties had lots of spikes pop out, both black and stainless steel, so he ended up moving to bending them over like Cliff suggested – lots of work. The treated NZ cedar had faded completely to grey but held the black steel spikes well – very few popping. No apparent rot – yet. You know you’ve cursed them, don’t you Bruce…!

They were installed in crusher dust / fine gravel for the first 10 ish years, then on a block roadbed with no ballast for the last 3. So, conditions were completely free draining and (mostly) in full sun.

Given all that, I went for repeating the Metalex preservative, then an oil stain. HOWEVER (nice way of saying But!, lol) I soaked them for as long as I reasonably could, either a few hours or overnight.

Here’s 12 x #5, and 10 x #6, (plus a couple of stuff ups) ready to go…

We were mid winter at this stage and the turps solvent base took over a month to dry to the touch. And the workshop stunk…

For better or worse, I’ve stockpiled AML track with the ties that rot in the sun. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)But at that stage I didn’t know and I was trying to colour match them - ish, I ended up using 50/50 Charcoal and Redwood oil stains mixed together. That was just a 5 min brush and soak job. My patience with this job was running out, and no rail down yet…

Then wait another three weeks for that lot to dry! Patience is a virtue, la la la… Nah! (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)

Getting closer to real time now, sneak peak of some rail on the first turnout below. It wasn’t smooth sailing – most of my 332 spacers had too much tolerance for code 250 rail and there was a lot of rework… Once I remake them I’ll be better placed for that production line thing…

Cheers
Neil

Edit for Tpyos…

David_Marconi_FOGCH · August 11, 2020, 9:28am

Yep, that patience thing certainly is involved here. Good to hear that using other than motor oil to soak them in works. Nice looking switch bases Neil.(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Cliff_Jennings · August 11, 2020, 7:14pm

Holy cow, that’s some mighty fine string of switches Neil!

Are you going to pre-fab your track as well?

Neil_Wiggins · August 12, 2020, 3:22am

Cliff Jennings said:

Holy cow, that’s some mighty fine string of switches Neil!

Are you going to pre-fab your track as well?

Thanks Guys,

Yep, that is / was the plan Cliff. Once I get one up and working ok I’ll check what rail parts I can mass produce.

The large number is kinda based on Bruce’s comment ‘I always needed one more.’ I took a reasonable number, doubled it - then added two for luck.

Cheers

Neil

Neil_Wiggins · August 15, 2020, 5:46am

I started on the frogs next. I’d got a bit used to using a grinder for other work so I tried clamping the rail in a vice and having at it, following a marker line. Plenty of operator error, plus the angle being shallow meant the first one needed a lot of hand filing.

Plan B - using a belt sander. Waay better. 100 grit seemed to give a controllable cut rate, with not too bad a finish. Then quick tidy up with a hand file.

I used a piece of Aluminium sheet with sharpie lines at the right angle for a soldering template, clamp the rails in place with a bolt & washer, then hit it with a gas torch & silver solder. Pic shows #1 finished, and #2 just soldered. Easy tidy up with a hand file…

I lightly spiked the straight rail, then the frog, matching the rail drawing for location. The spacers are 3 mm Al bar with hand cut grooves for gauge and check rails. Unfortunately they’re made for 332 rail, but seemed ok at the time, just a little bit sloppy. 20/20 hindsight - this was not a wise choice…!

I’m building these to handle track power, although I’m set up for battery at the moment. The red lines and the double spikes on the frog is where the electrical isolation will be made later on.

I’d figured out that the Al rail spacers were giving grief on the clearances by this stage so I hacked out a few wooden blocks that were ‘better’. Pure luck that my table saw blade had a cut the same width as the rail head.

I bent up the curved stock and closure rails next with a railbender. I marked up where the straight rails had to start & stop so I kept a straight section through the frog.

There was quite a bit of trial and error before I got the closure/point rail sitting in the right spot. I made it in 1 piece at this stage so I knew it would work before cutting it for points, frog etc.

The spacers are made from some 0.101” copper wire, that’s right on minimum G1MRA standard for check rail spacing so it makes a good guide for setup of the frog.

Rinse & repeat for the straight closure rail, and the curved stock rail. Everything was solid rail at this stage i.e. no electrical gaps or hinges for the point rails.

Almost there, last steps to come are hinging the point rails, spiking and electrical gaps…

Cheers

Neil

David_Marconi_FOGCH · August 15, 2020, 10:43am

Looking great Neil. I like the wire for spacing bits(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Neil_Wiggins · August 17, 2020, 9:13am

Thanks Dave.

Day off work today, so I made a final push to get this done.

I hinged the point rails by drilling two ‘dents’ in each rail then used half a joiner each side, punching the base of the joiner into the dents. I can’t remember who I pinched this method off, but all credit goes to that unknown person… Then soldered a couple of tabs on for the throw bar.

This got properly tested when I snapped one of the throwbar tabs off right after finishing spiking. It wasn’t quite sitting straight, so a gentle tweak with the pliers… Ahhh crap!

Resoldering in place would have probably made a lot of charcoal. I can only say the pulling the joiner apart with pliers was not a happening thing! I ended up having to file one edge of the joiner apart, then wrenching the point rail clear.

Then reattach, same way as before but in place – with the throwbar tab straight! Only a few minor gark marks on the rail top where I’d tried a screwbar to get it apart.