I attended Paul's clinic ...

I attended Paul's clinic and it was primarily about making turnouts DCC friendly - so it was more about electrical reliablity than mechanical reliability.

Paul was pretty gutsy in that he tuned up a real turnout right in front of a room full of modelers - you know how nit-pickey us modelers can be!

He altered an old-style Shinohara turnout, so he removed the points assembly by drilling out the rivets on both ends of the points - then he unsoldered the points from the metal strip on the throwbar end.

At the points end of the closure rails, these turnouts have a brass strip that needs removed, so Paul cut away a couple of ties in that area and unsoldered the brass strip.

Paul then cleaned up the ends of the closure rails a little bit with a file and slid rail joiners on the ends of the closure rails and then slid each point into the rail joiner on each closure rail.

Next Paul took a PC tie, filed through the copper foil in the middle on both sides, and then soldered one point to the PC tie, set the point spacing with an NMRA gage and finally soldered the other point to the PC tie.

Finally, Paul soldered a jumper from each closure rail to the adjacent stock rail.

The result is a turnout that has the closure rails the same polarity as the stock rails, making for a much more DCC friendly turnout.

Paul also cut gaps around the frog to isolate it using a razor saw (which he prefers because it gives more control). He mentioned you can also use a motor tool with a cutoff disk to do this but he doesn't like that as well because it doesn't have as much control, the disk can break and go flying (wear eye protection!), and so on.

There's also things you can do mechanically to improve a commercial turnout, but Paul did not cover those things.

Get an NMRA gauge and use it.

The flatsheet metal gauge that is sold through the NMRA, I think Kaddee also offers a version of it comes for every scale except "large Scale," I think.  The gauge has detents, bumps, and such to measure just about everything you would need to measure to get proper clearances.  I'm not sure of all of the issues with commercial switches, but Atlas has the guard rails spaced too wide on all of their switches.  I can't remember for sure, but the guys in the modular railroad club I belong to add either a .005, .010, or.015 shim made from styrene to the inside of all Atlas Custom Line switches.  We discourage the use of Snap Switches on modules operated in the club layout.  The problem is that the guard rails on the Atlas switches are too far away from the rails to serve any real purpose.   You can measure the correct gauge for the rails, the correct spacing for guard rails, the correct gauge for wheels sets on locomotives and cars, correct coupler height, as well as correct clearance for tunnel portals and even the correct spacing for a loading dock or passenger platform along side of the rails.

NMRA standards gauge

Try MRH sponsors Tony's, or Dallas Model Works:

NMRA Standards gauge - HO  (Wm K Walthers # 98-1)

NMRA Standards gauge - N (Wm K Walthers #98-8)

+ + +

A few years ago, in my ignorance of things DCC,  I purchased a bunch of Shinoharah turnouts, non dcc type.

After reading  and finding out the error in my ways  I set out to correct and modify my turnouts. I was not going to spend more money.  Here is what I do. it is basicaly the same as Stated above,.

I drill both rivets and unsolder the offending parts from the point rails.  I clean up the bottom of the rail and dress things up. I also tin the bottom at the point end.  I discard the unsoldered parts but keep the brass pickup that is under the throw bar. I use those for power pickup on a few caboose.

Back to the turnout. I do not use the rail joinners. I solder a metal guitar string, light gauge, keeping the gap between the point rail sections close to what it was. The guitar string gives permanent conductivity/power to the point rails. The  guitar string is plenty strong in this application  I remove three plastic from the  original pivot point and remove the small brass bridge. I will replace these ties later.

I gap the point rail to stock rail with the nmra gauge and solder the point rail to a PC tie throw bar I cut myself.

I then remove one tie three ties from the frog and replace it with a pc board tie I cut myself. I put one gap in the copper clading so the rail do not short out.  This way I do not need wire bridges going around for power.

I then  use a Zona saw to cut the gaps before and after the frog. Fill the gaps with a small shim and acc it in place. they will not bridge together now.

The points end up a tad stiffer but not any more so  than the one piece point rail a la Fastrack jig.  People put .035 music wire to operate those so mine use the same. Or I  use ground throws.

If the stiff point is an issue, you can use a trick from FastTrack. Drill a small hole the size of a track spike in the rail where it meets the throw bar. Drill thru the rail and the throw bar. Insert the small track spike in the hole you made,  solder it to the throw bar from below.

Marc Fournier, Quebec

Interesting methodology

Very interesting but your methodology could be illustrated with a few photos.

Irv

FILM AT 11

FILM AT 11

turnouts

I used roughly the same techniques when I converted to DCC in 1994 although I used a fiberglass tie for the throwbar and narrowed the gap between the stock rail and point.

Another way to join the point to the closure rail is to solder the joiner to the point and use a short, small wire from the joiner to the closure rail.  Another way is to solder a wire between the stock rail and point.  A similar wire can be used on each closure rail if the frog is insulated.

They are still working on the third layout since the initial modification.

Terry

Gaps at Turnout Points

Like several others I'm converting some turnouts for DCC to save spending on new stuff.

What if anything is wrong with this:  gaps between points and frog are necessary because a wheel can short the stock rail with the point that's not touching it. I can replace the throwbar that shorts the two points with a PC throwbar that also shorts the points, but set the points closer to each other, to give point gaps that are large enough that only a derailed wheel will cause the short. It looks less like prototype, but the switch machine can handle the longer throw and now I don't need gaps between frog and closure rails. I still need wires from closure rails to point rails, and a wire to the frog to change  polarity. Two gaps isolate the frog from rails of the diverging routes.

The result looks very like selective control turnouts for DC, except for the wide point gaps. These turnouts will be in hidden staging, so I don't care what they look like as long as they function.

S scale standards gauge sold by NASG

The NMRA has HO, N, O, HOn3, Sn3,  NASG has S scale

Some dealers have them, but the organizations also sell them to non-members.

Paul

The NMRA has HO, N, O, HOn3, Sn3, NASG has S scale

and Coastal makes TT scale.....DaveB