As a newcomer to Large Scale Central I am looking for plans to scratch build turnouts. I recently purchased a couple from Aristo Craft but I’m not happy with them, but its a place to start.
Bryan, Welcome. I’ve scratch built exactly one. After that, I decided I really didn’t like doing it all that much. It’s not that hard, but for me, it just wasn’t that much fun. For the next 15 or so, I bought frogs and points from Llagas Creek. So far, they seem to be working well. Anyway, here’s some great spots with nice ideas: http://members.shaw.ca/sask.rail/construction/lsbuild/lsswitch.html http://www.bigriverlines.com/Modelmaker/Big_River_Lines_site/BRRR/Building_a_Switch/text.html You’ll also need to throw these switches. I wrote an article for June 07 Garden Railways, but you can catch some of the highlights for building a switchstand on my own web site: http://www.jbrr.com/html/switchstands.html They’re quite sturdy and work well.
(http://www.jbrr.com/assets/images/P1010796s.jpg)
In addition, you can get switchstands commercially. I have some TenMille as well as some from Sunset Valley on my layout.
Welcome Bryan,
What type of track are you using, code 250 or code 332?
Are you going to be running track power or Battery?
Try looking at www.switchcrafters.com they hand make switches in 3 sizes of rail and 3 different material types. These are great switches and several people on this site use them. They are also cheaper then most of the major manufactures.
I carry these in our store and my customers love them.
Chuck
Bryan,
Take a look at USA switches, I have five on my layout. No problems with them at all. A friend has about twelve on his layout, he’s the one that got me started on USA.
Thanks for all the input I’m running Code 332 brass track. I found that my recently acquired 0-4-0 Porter stalls at the plastic frog because the gap is too wide for the small wheels. Looking at the turnout components offered by Llagas Creek is for Code 215 or 250, not sure how to get around that but it would be the easiest way to go. Looks like its time blow the dust off the soldering iron. Oh yea for now I’m using track power.
Drop by chat sometime, and I’ll tell ya everything I know on the topic…
Bryan,
I believe that ‘Train-Li’ were doing a metal frog for the Aristo wide-radius swith. This could solve your stalling problem. I use a LGB microswitch pack to change the polarity on my Aristo #6 switches. With a metal frog and polarity switch, you could have stall free running.