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Started this project in August 08.. Finally got to the end and have some pics.
I wanted to finish the southern end of my yard so I could make progress on trackwork and a tunnel to the hill section. Need to close the passing siding to the left, and extend the passing siding on the right another couple of metres.
Started by bending a couple of 5 footers to the right line, then traced the rail heads onto 3 A3 sheets taped together.
After separating the rails from the tie strips I used the tracing to fine tune the shapes of the rail, and to mark up the cedar ties.
Lesson learned from an earlier mistake: Remember to lay the ties out on the opposite[/b] side of the tracing to the rails – else your LH turnout suddenly becomes a RH one.. The strip bracing is bradded in place with 18g galv pins.
And yes, I had to tidy up the workbench to make space.. (that took half a day)
Setting up the frog was a bit tricky. I ended up marking the angle of the cut on each rail using the other as the guide then clamping the rail to a couple of blocks and (carefully) cutting along the line with a 4” disc grinder. The head of the rail is sitting in a groove to steady the work in the photo below.
After cutting I filed the two frog rails clean then lightly spiked them in place through the tracing to a piece of scrap wood. The tracing was then removed, spikes tightened and the join soldered.
After that it was time to play the ‘spike the rails’ game…
Points were shaped using a belt sander clamped in a vice.
Sorry no clearer pics of the points. If you look not so closely you can see where I cut the stock rails too far back. Ah well..
So now its summer and I finally installed it!
In the last two photos you can see the far left rail has been removed – its waiting on the work bench for a much improved turnout creation to complete this bit of track work.
Hope you’ve enjoyed.
Cheers
Neil
I wanted to finish the southern end of my yard so I could make progress on trackwork and a tunnel to the hill section. Need to close the passing siding to the left, and extend the passing siding on the right another couple of metres.
Started by bending a couple of 5 footers to the right line, then traced the rail heads onto 3 A3 sheets taped together.
After separating the rails from the tie strips I used the tracing to fine tune the shapes of the rail, and to mark up the cedar ties.
Lesson learned from an earlier mistake: Remember to lay the ties out on the opposite[/b] side of the tracing to the rails – else your LH turnout suddenly becomes a RH one.. The strip bracing is bradded in place with 18g galv pins.
And yes, I had to tidy up the workbench to make space.. (that took half a day)
Setting up the frog was a bit tricky. I ended up marking the angle of the cut on each rail using the other as the guide then clamping the rail to a couple of blocks and (carefully) cutting along the line with a 4” disc grinder. The head of the rail is sitting in a groove to steady the work in the photo below.
After cutting I filed the two frog rails clean then lightly spiked them in place through the tracing to a piece of scrap wood. The tracing was then removed, spikes tightened and the join soldered.
After that it was time to play the ‘spike the rails’ game…
Points were shaped using a belt sander clamped in a vice.
Sorry no clearer pics of the points. If you look not so closely you can see where I cut the stock rails too far back. Ah well..
So now its summer and I finally installed it!
In the last two photos you can see the far left rail has been removed – its waiting on the work bench for a much improved turnout creation to complete this bit of track work.
Hope you’ve enjoyed.
Cheers
Neil