Taking a Break from Woodworking

So, I am of course still working on building the layout.  Currently all of the wood framing is now in play and time for the decking to go in, which will be a combination of plywood and XPS foam.

But I need to start multi-tasking a bit more.  So I am going to start making some points. I have an ulterior motive though, as the club I am in is building a new HO scale layout with both Standard and Narrow gauge tracks. So we will need some dual gauge points that diverge to narrow, yet continue to go straight in dual gauge.  No problemo says this one - I have some jigs.

So I have setup a point making table in my shed where the airconditioning is working very nicely indeed.  A necessity in this hot and humid summer we are having.

Yep, I bought the Fast Tracks dual gauge jigs in #5 size a few years back, as I knew I would be making my own points. So it caters for HOn3½ scale which is 12mm track and also the HO scale in standard track of 16.5mm.  With the one set of jigs I can also make any combination of  12mm and 16.5mm points - plain standard gauge, plain narrow gauge or combinations of both. For those curious, the standard gauge will be for running NSW (New South Wales) trains and of the course the narrow is for my home state of Queensland , the QR trains.

There are two jigs needed to play this game of dual gauge for me.  You need one jig to make points that have the narrow gauge running on the left hand side of the track and another jig to make the ones with the narrow gauge running on the right hand side of the track.  Here is the one for the narrow gauge running on the left hand side of the track:

So from the above jig I can make all dual gauge points or just a narrow gauge point as pictured below. Also standard gauge and combinations of them can be made.

So here are the makings to build a point.  There is the laser cut plywood sleeper set, the lengths of rail cut in readiness (using code 83 rail), and of course the copper clad sleepers.  The copper clads are actually PCB that has been routed to the correct size by Fast Tracks.  All I have to do is cut them to length and then put an electical gap on the top side with a small file so the tracks don't short out from rail to rail.

So, the copper clads get slotted into their positions in readiness.  A previously made point sits above watching the process going on.

I will start with the frog - ribbit.  So out comes the Fast Tracks PointsForm tool.  This allow you to file the two pieces of rail that will make the frog, accurately.  Just slide the rail into the block and clamp it shut with the screws.  Then with your trusty metal file, file the rail away until you are just sliding along the side of the block.  Don't worry, the block is hardened steel and does not easily file away.

Then you slide both pieces of rail into the big jig and hit it with some rosin cored solder and of course a soldering iron.  Voila - a pointy bit.

Then you solder this onto the copper clads, again whilst using the big jig.  Here it what it starts to look like when not in the jig.

There - all the relevant copper clads are in place on this pointy bit, the frog. Ribbit, ribbit.

So next we start adding in the outer rails.  

In this particular case, that make 3 rails.  Looking at the picture below, the bottom rail is purely only used by standard gauge wheels.  The top rail is used by both narrow and standard gauge wheels and the second bottom rail is used only by narrow gauge wheels. Confused yet?  Try building these suckers...  Nah, once you look at the videos and documentation they supply, and have on their website ( Fast Tracks that is ) you get the hang of it - you just don't rush these things.

So the soldering continues

Now, before we actually soldered in the two rails that will have the point blade hit up to them, we need to file away some of the rail.  Yep, there is another hardened steel tool available to make it easier - the StockAid tool.  Again, just slide the rail into it and lock it down.  Out with the metal file for a bit of filing exercise and we are left with the correct piece for the job.

In the next two shots you can see on the upper rail, the indent we have filed for the point blade to be able to hook in and allow the wheels to pass properly.

So we are now ready for the point blades to go in. But first some more filing - yes there is a bit of filing required when making points.  So with the PointsForm tool, the other end of it this time, you insert the bits of rail and file away and end up with a nice long filing which will be your blade.  The other end you bend as per instructions, and this makes the little guard rail near the frog.  So the blade is pictured above the point in the below pic.

Now the blades are soldered into place.  You also make a couple of small guard rails and solder them into place opposite the frog.

Phew - almost done. Now we just need to fully electrically isolate the frog.  With a small jewellers saw and a 5/0 saw blade - yes, damned tiny bugger, we cut the rail gaps.  And yes, they are very tiny gaps, but since the rail is soldered to the PCB's it really doesn't move with the heat and cold of the days and night, so it works fine and does the job we want..

The damned tiny saw blade against my millimetre ruler.

Now we are done... well almost.

So I needed to test it of course. So some plywood onto some tables and some track of dual gauge type was grabbed as was some narrow gauge track.  Things were screwed down and wires soldered into place and such.  This was a big job all in itself this setting up of a test rig.

Then a few QR narrow gauge locos were whacked onto the track with some wagons, as was a NSW standard gauge loco.  All combinations of points and trains that are workable was tried and it all worked nicely.

Funny enough, even though I was powering the frog manually as required, it turned out I left the lead disconnected at some stage and did not notice it for quite a while as all the locos were long wheelbase and just ran over the point fine. The short 1720 class QR loco didn't have a problem either as it was juuuust long enough, but also had a stay alive installed :-)

Okay smarty pants... my friend Scooter down the back of the class has his hand up and saying I'm not finished - well duh...  You guessed it, not all the sleeprs are in place.  That's right, the laser cut wooden sleepers.  I will glue them on later.  What you do is get the correct contact cement and apply it to the rails and sleepers where needed, then once set, you push them together and voila - done.  Buuuut, there is a hint they give you for even better strength.  Run a soldering iron over the rail and it will set the contact glue rock solid :-)

So that is the first point made this year, with many more to make over the next year or so. I expect to need to make 60 or more HO scale points and 100 or so N scale points as well - that's right, I'll be making all my N scale points as well.  Yes, my mother did get me tested as a kid and even so, I do believe I may have been dropped on my head back then - on ya Dad  ;-)