Photo-etched details for handlaid turnouts

[ednadolski]

Guys, thanks much for your interest & responses!   You're all making the process a lot more fun for me, and I do greatly appreciate that!    Let me see if I can address the points:

 -  The tieplates are mostly half-etch. There is a raised groove on either side of the rail base that should serve as a fairly good guide for rail placement.  However I have not worked out the tolerances so I still think it is important to use gauges to ensure accurate construction. 

 - The sheet is 0.010" nickel-silver. I thought to match the material of the rail so that thermal expansion would be the same (surely not a significant concern).  A rail blackening solution should hopefully produce similar color on the rail & tieplates.

 - I would prefer all-wood ties from a cosmetic POV but I am not 100% sure how well that would maintain gauge over the long term.  Pliobond is, well, pliable, so if there are stresses then I would be concerned about creep.  I did try to keep the PCB tie placement strategic, in the sense that those ties could sort of represent the gauge plates that are on some prototype turnouts, even in the frog areas and other places.

 - Throwbar is a WIP, but what I had in mind was something like a flat plastic bar with some holes drilled in it. The detail bolt strips for the points have a tab at the ends that makes the whole thing look like an 'L' shape.  The idea is to solder the strip to the point rail, then bend the tab down to fit into the hole in the plastic strip.  IIRC Robert had done something similar using a bit of brass rod, but I don't know if the L tab will be as robust.  Since I am doing hinged points the stresses should be minimal.  (The P87 points are my fail-safe )

 - I'm debating to try spikes, even just cosmetically.  This size turnout would need over 500 spikes!  <ouch!>  Maybe just for foreground track, if it looks naked without them.

 - Going blind?  LOL, I have been on trifocals for years now.   Really a decent optivisor and good lighting are all that you need.

 - On availability, pricing & such, seems to me too early to go there.  I want to see where this attempt ends up & what changes are needed.

Thanks again fellas! 

Ed

[Lemosteam]

Ed, thanks and i sincerely wish you well on this project as I think it will benefit many, possibly even me.  Your logic is well placed on the design IMHO.

If you double etched the piece, you could etch spike heads onto a fold over tie plate and even solder it to the rail.

[chrismears]

I think this is a really neat project. How is it coming along?


/chris

[sd80mac]

I think this is a really neat project. How is it coming along?


/chris

Hello Ed,

You have done what I've only thought about doing this several years ago as a way to supplement the lack of detail when using the Fast Tracks system. I just never got around to doing it. Very nice design, and I too look forward to seeing an update on this project.

Donnell

[ednadolski]

Thanks dudes for the follow-up.  I've been tied up with some other efforts (which were turning out to be a lot of fun!  ), so I needed a nudge to get this one going again.  At the moment I'm short on PCB ties so I'll have to get an order in for some of those.

Cheers,
Ed

[ednadolski]

Time for a progress report! 

This begins with a set of pre-stained wood ties and pre-gapped PCB ties attached to a paper template with some double-sided tape.  The theory here is that once the solder work is finished, I should be able to lift the entire turnout off the wood ties, paint it, then apply Pliobond to the underside of the rails/tieplates, and place the turnout back atop the ties.  With the wood ties thus bonded, then I can lift the turnout (with all ties), peel off of the paper template, and then install in its final location (TBD ).

The first little surprise turned out to be that the ties on the printed paper template did not precisely match up to the tieplates on the etching.  Even a 100% sized photocopy of the template was still slightly off -- I can only presume that my printer must be adjusting the sizing and is probably thereby distorting the image slightly.  Anyways I ended up having to re-position all the ties by hand, which was not terribly difficult, but a bit time-consuming with a turnout of this size.

The next minor hurdle was that the wood ties turned out to be thicker than the PCB ties.  This was resolved by adding some HO scale 1x6 wood strips under the PCB ties to shim them up level with the wood ties.

Finally I  was able to put the etched tieplates into position over the ties and solder them in place over the PCB ties.  This was pretty straightforward, however I used a rather large tip on the iron (left over from my P:48 work) so I got down a little more solder than I actually wanted.  Not too bad, if the paint doesn't hide it I can file down anything else that is too high.   BTW I am using a lead-free solder which is better to work with but does require a higher temperature on the iron.

Here are a few pics with the tieplates soldered down:


IMG_1865.jpg


IMG_1867.jpg


Next step was to install the stock rails and frog point rails.  To reduce the number of rail joints, I decided to use two pieces of flextrack with the ties stripped off one end, then re-attached at the pint end on a common tie strip.   It took a fair amount of time to slide off and re-install the plastic ties, which had to be done gently to avoid damage.  You can't slide more than about 4-5 ties at a time, otherwise they become rather hard to move.  For the rails that will meet at the frog, I trimmed them to length and then ground a shallow angle onto the intersecting side of each rail.  I removed most of the rail with a bench grinder, then touched up with some hand filing.   Since this is a long (#12) turnout, the angle had to be pretty shallow.  I also filed away the rail base on the stock rails where the points will go.  Here is the subassembly fitted into place atop the tieplate strip:


IMG_1870.jpg


The rails get soldered down at each point over a PCB tie.  The photoetch strip turns out to be pretty handy with getting the rails into the proper location, but  am still using a gauge to verify that the dimensions are correct.
 

IMG_1874.jpg


This end shot really shows off the length of the #12 turnout geometry:


IMG_1878.jpg


In these shots I've started to solder the frog vee together.  Not much magic here, just trying to keep each frog rail parallel with its running stock rail.   


IMG_1879.jpg


You can see here that there is some intentional overlap, but I will file that away later after the wing rails are installed. 


IMG_1880.jpg


A photoetched frog would of course be a lot less work and more precise, but there is nothing commercially available in a #12, and I did not want to make up a whole photetch fret just for that.

Here the wing/closure rails are installed as well as the guard rails.  The frog throat has been filled with solder to help reduce wheel drop (which is really hard to avoid on a frog of this length -- the model flangeways are just too wide compared to the prototype).  Everything is aligned straight thru both routes and filed down (you can still see a lot of the filings in the pic -- another good reason to avoid leaded solders  ).  The flangeways end of the NMRA gauge goes smoothy thru both routes, as does a test truck:


IMG_2021.jpg


Here are the point rails being test-fit.  Note the P:87 heel blocks:


IMG_2027.jpg


Next up is to finish the point rails, attach throwbars, install some wires, and cut the isolation gaps for the frog.   Stay tuned! 


Cheers!

Ed

[Palouse51]

Nice work. I am looking forward to seeing more of this project.

[ryan_wilkerson]

This looks great. It's work like this that really makes a scene very realistic. In photos, "THAT's N scale?!" will be the first thought. Looking forward to the seeing more of your progress! If you make these available, let me know.

[Chris333]

Holy crap 

[tom mann]

Great idea.  I would like to see a similar tie plate idea for track.

How come the point rails aren't single pieces?

[C855B]

... The first little surprise turned out to be that the ties on the printed paper template did not precisely match up to the tieplates on the etching.  Even a 100% sized photocopy of the template was still slightly off -- I can only presume that my printer must be adjusting the sizing and is probably thereby distorting the image slightly.  Anyways I ended up having to re-position all the ties by hand, which was not terribly difficult, but a bit time-consuming with a turnout of this size. ...

Yes. Optics calibration issues. 100% ≠ 100%. We addressed this (in commercial printing) with calibration targets on bloomin' everything, and then adjusting artwork wherever we had to, to make everything match at the end of the various process chains. Also, X and Y have to be calibrated on their own, and - worse - sometimes they are non-linear.

For starters, create a 1"x1" grid in software covering your largest sheet size and print it. Then take a precision ruler and see how close is really is in each dimension. Should be an eye-opener. (You will also need to do this for each type of paper you plan to use. Different papers will traverse the feed mechanism differently.)

[ednadolski]

I would like to see a similar tie plate idea for track.

It would get costly in a hurry, because it takes up a lot of area on the sheet.  Curves are also a trick too, since the radius can vary.

My greatest fear on this is, once everything is painted and weathered, the details will blend in & disappear, becoming visible only under strong light & magnification   

How come the point rails aren't single pieces?

That's possible, but I prefer hinged points, like the proto.  Code 55 rail is rather stiff so flexing the rails will over time tend to fatigue the joints where they attach to the throwbars.


Ed

[svedblen]

Fascinating! A very clever approach 

[peteski]

That's possible, but I prefer hinged points, like the proto.  Code 55 rail is rather stiff so flexing the rails will over time tend to fatigue the joints where they attach to the throwbars.


Ed

Wouldn't filing down the sides of the rail's foot for a short distance make the rail much more flexible (to allow for continuous closure rail/points?  That would make it easier to have solid electrical connection over the entire span of those rails.

[svedblen]

Wouldn't filing down the sides of the rail's foot for a short distance make the rail much more flexible (to allow for continuous closure rail/points?  That would make it easier to have solid electrical connection over the entire span of those rails.

I fear that removal of the foot would make the bending to concentrate at the filed spot, since there is where the material makes the least resistance. And the rail will probably break right there. And much sooner than an un-filed rail would.

Practical test to show the hypothesis right or wrong:
I took two equally long pieces of ME code 55 rails (about 3" each). On one of them I removed the rail's foot on both sides, for a short length of the rail. Then I put both rails in a vise with the filed portion about  1/3" above the vise. The pieces were parallell and close enough so I could grip both of them with same two fingers. Then I started to wiggle them back and forth. After about 100 turns the filed rail broke, right at the filed spot! The unfiled rail showed no tendancy to break.

So although I bent the rails far more than they would in a turnout is do not think this is a good idea, I am afraid!