Did you get any other accessory jigs?

Charlie:

Did you get any other Fast Tracks jigs as well, like their point filing jig?

Even though I use the Central Valley tie kits for my turnouts, I still use the Fast Tracks point and frog jigs. They make very fast work out of the filing.

While it's true you can do all this turnout construction work without any pricey jigs, the jigs are a great time saver and they help ensure consistent quality results.

These days, I have to ask, how much is my time worth? And how much is consistent quality trackwork worth?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - become a turnout expert! Most derailments happen at turnouts, most shorts during operation happen at turnouts. The most costly part of your trackwork are the turnouts, and the most maintenance intensive part of your trackwork is your turnouts.

Since no commercial turnouts I'm aware of are to NMRA spec, it's worth checking out things like the Fast Tracks jigs, the Proto87:Stores jigs, and the Central Valley turnout ties (used as a poor man's jig) to get turnouts that are spot on NMRA spec, electrically friendly, and that go together quickly in a dummy-proof manner (thanks to the jigs).

With your turnouts all in perfect spec and electrically friendly, many of your turnout issues go away. The only other thing you need to do is make sure your wheelsets are also in gauge and running true on the track (not canted at an angle for any reason).

If you've become a turnout expert like this, then most of your turnout derailments will be gone, most of your turnout shorts will be gone - and although you may not have saved much money on turnouts, your turnout maintenance headaches should be virtually non-existant!

I also got the point filing

I also got the point filing jig.

I agree that turnouts are generally the most critical piece of trackwork for reliable operation. I've built mine so that the frog area exactly matches the wheelsets. This means that if all wheelsets are correctly gauged that I get very reliable operation. But woe unto equipment with out of gauge wheels! They and my turnouts have some serious disagreements usually ending with the wheels leaving the track and sulking somewhere (but hopefully not on the floor).

The one part of the turnout that I'm still not happy with is attaching the points to the throwbar. I've been soldering points to a PC tie throwbar (using some silver-bearing solder for extra strength). And this works for the most part. But my points and closure rails are one continuous piece of rail which means there are some flexing stresses on the points/throwbar joint. I'm concerned that as the number of turnouts on the layout increases the number of emergency point reattachment operations will also be increasing (and I don't even need the kind of excitement that comes when a point on an important turnout comes loose during an op session and 16 guys are standing around watching me use a soldering iron so they wheels can turn again. Sigh.

I'm thinking about hinging the points with rail joiners (like Micro Engineering turnouts). Or perhaps have on continuous point/closure rail and a rail joiner on the other one. If I do this I'll be needing to run tiny jumper wires from the point across the rail joiner to the closure rail to ensure the point has track power.

Cheers,

Charlie Comstock

"An Alternative to Solid Soldered Switchpoints"

Charlie,

In his newsletter  #8, Tim Warris explains An Alternative to Solid Soldered Switchpoints:

This method involves soldering a small spike to the side of the switchpoint and pressing it into a hole in the throwbar. Once the spike is firmly in the hole of the throwbar, it is soldered to the points and will pivot freely in the throwbar. This method produces a very strong and durable switchpoint as long as care is taken to properly prepare the spike and throwbar.

Tim also included picture of the process in the newsletter.

BTW. I hope it is OK that I qoted you, Tim.

Congrats Charlie

 Congrats Charlie,

I'm gonna some jigs as soon as I get back to the states, can' wait to hear what you think of them.

Also, there is a very nice photo in the Model Railroader Calender this month!

I think you will be happy

Hey Charlie,

I think you will be happy with the jig and tools, I am quite impressed by the quality.

And thanks again Tim, I am really enjoying your products and cant wait on the new videos...

Mike

Tilt table demo

Is that cool or what? I wish Fast Tracks had been around when I started my railroad - I would have never laid the first commercial turnout. I like the gentle way you stopped the car as opposed to a controlled crash at the end of each spur. Good video. Good product.

Mike

I'm hoping to give it a try

I'm hoping to give it a try this weekend. Let y'all know how it goes.

C.

Well...

Well, it took me longer than I'd hoped for before I could sit down and build my first turnout with the fast track jig.

The turnout jig itself is a rather impressive looking piece of milled aluminum with slots for rails and ties. I had some code 83 rail and some PC ties so with the turnout jig and the point/frog filing jig I figured I'd be all set. Not quite.

I looked at the 'how to' video that came with the jigs back when the jigs finally arrived (took about 1 1/2 months coming from Canada - how much was shipping time and how much was delay prior to shipping I don't know).

The first steps went fairly well - I cut out a couple of piece of rail to form the tracks beyond the frog. The frog filing jig made fairly quick work of shaping the rails so they fit together well in the jig. The knobs on the filing jig are rather small so I had to use the (supplied) allen wrench to tighten them. Bigger, knurled, knobs that could be finger tightened would be nice (perhaps though they would need to be bigger than the width of the jig and making the filing operation difficult).

I stuck the pieces in the turnout jig and tried to solder them together. Oops. The jig makes a wonderful heat sink. I've got a nice (but rather elderly) Weller controlled heat soldering station. Even with the large chisel tip it had difficulty heating the rails enough for the solder to flow. With persistance however the solder did flow and the joint was made.

I set the half frog assembly aside and starting cutting PC ties to length. Then I tackled cutting the other rails to length. I filed the points with the point jig without problem and cut and bent the attached closure rails to fit the jig (I'm using continuous closure and point rails).

Now came the fun part. I put the PC ties in the slots to hold them then laid the rails on top. Oops. The PC ties I've got on hand are 1/32" thick. I'd read on the handlaidtracks.com website that they sell (or will sell) 1/32" thick PC ties so I figured mine would be ok. Not quite. They sit in the slots fine but they don't stick up enough making it impossible to solder the rails to them in the jig! Like I said "Oops".

I've got some 1/16" thick ties on order. Hopefully they'll work better when they arrive.

Since I've been building turnouts completely from scratch for close to 10 years I figured I solder the frog assembly together then set it on a piece of wood and manually align everything and solder the rails to the ties. I had one heck of a time getting those rails hot enough to solder together. When I build a frog assembly on a piece of pine I never have this kind of problem. That jig is one heck of a heat sink!

I'm gonna wait for the 1/16" ties to arrive then give it another shot. I'll write more then.

Cheers,

Charlie (I need a bigger soldering iron) Comstock

Good capsule review

Hi,

Interesting review. Would a fine point tip for your weller perhaps work better? I have also read that resistance solder stations are really good for trackwork. Probably not for a fast track jig.. but been keeping my eyes out for a deal on one.

They definitely have 1/32" ties for N scale.. thats what I ordered from them to put down some code 40 track. My order says "still in production" although I was careful to only order things they had in stock. I hope I don't have to wait too long, I need the code 55 rail to put my bridge together!

Chris

N Scale Turnouts

I bought a fast track jig for N scale turnouts.  I built a bunch of turnouts and installed them. They worked very well. Very smooth operation.

Unfortunately, I started having trouble with the solder joints at the points failing.  The instructions suggest that you use a regular tie for the throw rod. These joints failed. Usually the failure was between the copper cladding and the fiber board of the PC tie. I tried using wider PC ties for the throw bar, and had a little better luck. But problems persisted.

After a period of test-fix-test, I decided to stop the project and tear it all out.  I still haven't decided what I will do next.  In the mean time one of my friends (an HO modeler) borrowed my jigs to try them. If I can't come up with a sturdier point system that I can build, I may have to forgo hand laid turnouts.

Maybe a different PCB?

I know from my days (years) as an electronics tech that not all PC Board is created equal. Maybe it would be worth while trying a different PCB, perhaps cutting it out of a piece of project board?

Chris

Going unhinged

Did you try making separate point and closure rails and usign a rail joiner to hold 'em together? Just be sure to run a jumper wire between points and closure rails to avoid future electrical continuity issues.

FWIW the #1 failure in my hand built HO turnouts has been the solder joints attaching the points to the throw bars. I noticed that on my #8 Fast Tracks jig the (continuous) points are longer than usual making it a bit easier to flex them into position. In a private email Tim Warris told me that he doesn't have have joint failure issues even using regular solder (I've been using silver bearing solder on my point-to-throwbar joints).

Perhaps your failure is due to the very small width of the N-scale ties?

Regards,

Charlie

N Scale Turnouts

 "Perhaps your failure is due to the very small width of the N-scale ties?"

Yes, I think that was a contributing factor.

The PC ties I was using came from Clover House. 

The Atlas Code 55 N Scale track line is now fairly complete, including number 10's. I will probably use it in my next layout. Of course, I plan to cover this in my first N Scale Column, so stay tuned.

Alternative to Solid Soldered points

Hi,

Some time back I wrote a newsletter showing an alternative to soldering the points solid to the throwbar.  The example I used was in N scale, code 55 #6.

This method uses a PC board tie that has had the copper foil removed by filing.  Two small holes are drilled into the throwbar into which a Micro Engineering 30-106 Small spike is inserted and soldered to the switch points.  This will allow the points to pivot on the throwbar and reduce the stress where the two join.

This method is ideal for the smaller scales where clearances are small and the traditional method of soldering a brass tab to screw the points to a throwbar might not work.

The newsletter can be found here.  It shows step by step how the method works.

Tim Warris

Fast Tracks

Alternative to solid soldered joints.

Interesting solution to what is abviously a stress problem. I wonder if this has more to do with the track being code 55 or whether its an actual weakness in the PC board tie?

In any case I will be using code 80 N-Scale track on my layout. Have you had any feedback from anyone who has built turnouts with your jigs?

Irv

Good idea!

That looks like a good solution.  It should be possible to retrofit my existing cd 55 turnouts to this. I'll try it when I get a chance.  But first, I will be building some O Scale stub turnouts. I was thinking about a similar solution to mounting the throw bar to the stubs.

Soldering

I'm going to buy Fast Track jigs soon so I haven't tried to build and soldered any turnouts yet but I have done a lot of soldering of electronis equipment.

If the copper cladding will separate from the fiber board you are probaly using to much heat. You need to practice to get a better way to solder.

I have resistance soldering equipment that I so far have used for soldering tracks to each other and to solder wires to tracks. Do anyone know a good way to use resistance soldering with Fast Trak jigs?

Resistance soldering

I think resistance soldering of rails to PC ties would probably be trickier than tricky in a Fast Tracks jig. I'd expect that either the upper foil surface would be in contact with the jig plate as would the rail. Or the foil might be somewhat insulated but you'd have a very difficult time getting one of the resistance probes onto the PC foil.

Perhaps I'm wrong here but I don't think it would work well at all.

Regards,

Charlie

Fast Tracks Reactions

My supply of 1/16" thick PC ties arrived and I tried using them instead of the 1/32" thick ties. These came from Clover House.

The new ties worked much better than the 1/32" thick ties but still failed (by perhaps 0.015") to both sit flat in the tie slots and touch the bottom of the rails. But I was able to solder the rails to the ties. Then I took the turnout out of the jig and resoldered the rails to the ties while pressing down (hard) on the rails to make the ties lie flat and even under the rails. I plan to try putting some thin shims in the bottom of the tie slots to raise the tie surface to match the bottom of the rails.

Before laying the rails in position in the jig and soldering I used a toothpick to put a TINY dab of non-acid flux on top of each tie where the rail crossed it. After this the soldering went fairly quickly and the result was a nice looking turnout (just PC ties so far). After a bit of cleanup filing (to get rid of excess solder here and there) a truck rolled nicely along the turnout and went through the frog without picking the points.

Semi-scale wheel issue

However - I use a number of code .088 wheels (semi-scale treads) on my railroad. These have a standard RP25 flange but the tread width is narrower than the NMRA standard although not as narrow as a to-scale prototype wheel would be. The NMRA standard wheels in HO look a bit like miniature steam rollers riding down the railheads  because they're so freakin' wide). The semi-scale wheels work with standard HO gauge track and (to my eye) look much better especially under hopper or tank cars where the wheels are more readily visible. Proto 87 (true prototype models of wheels) would look better still but require that track be especially constructed to proto87 standards which are imcompatible with the 'normal' standards.

My semi-scale test wheel set lurched when traversing the frog produced by the Fast Tracks jig becaue the narrower tread width provided a smaller supporting surface allowing the wheels to "drop" into the frog gap. If you use standard RP25 wheels this would likely not be an issue for you. For me it is (maybe I'm too persnickity?).

Semi-scale wheels do NOT adhere to NMRA standards.

I see two ways for me to deal with the wheel/frog issue:

1. Fill the frog with solder or epoxy or something then mill out the flangeways to the depth of an RP25 wheel flange. This would make the turnout look a bit like it had a cast manganese frog. The wheel would ride through the rail gap in the frog on its flange so the little "bump" I found disappears.
2. I noticed that the point of my frog wasn't as sharp is it could possibly be. If I can make it sharper the point would extend farther and reduce the length of the frog gap - possibly enough that my semi-scale wheels don't drop in as much. I'd prefer this over filling the frogs because filling them with solder is a royal pain in the jig because the jig acts as a big heat sink making it hard to get the rails hot enough. And milling out the excess solder with a piece of hacksaw blade is a bit of a pain (and isn't very precise either).

My reactions to the point filing jig...

Using the jig isn't as fast as my old method where I ground the points using my 5" disc sander and eyeballing the taper.  But the points I produced with the jig seemed very precise (more so than many of my hand-made points). I experienced little difficulty using the point jig tool (but the Fast Tracks video wasn't kidding when they suggested getting a new mill file! A dull file would take forever to shape the points...).

Summary of my experience (so far)

+ Using the F.T. jig yields precise turnouts.

- The jig is a huge heat sink that can make soldering difficult (but definitely possible).

+ The point jig produces superbly precise points (but use a sharp mill file).

- The tie slots seem a little too deep. I'll try shimming the ties off the bottom of the slots with some strips of business card or maybe .010" styrene for the next turnouts I build.

-/+ The gauge through the frog is wider than I like. I'm a believer in having the frog gauge EXACTLY match the flangeway end of the NMRA gauge. This locks the wheels into running straight through the frog without any 'crabbing' (trying to run through diagonally a little bit). This makes for extremely reliable operation (per my experience and check the Railway Engineering website).

However setting the frog gauge and flangeways to be so precise (tight) means that ALL of rolling stock MUST have perfectly gauged wheels (and I mean wheels in the center of the NMRA wheel slots on their gauge - not just fitting in the slots) or you're looking at derailment city. The NMRA flangeway gauge is slightly narrower than the gauge of most flex track so a close up photo of the track going through the frog can actually show a bit of an hour-glass shape there. Tim Warris (of Fast Tracks) reports that he's found the frog gauge used by his turnouts to result in very reliable operation (and it should be a bit more forgiving of imprecisely gauged wheel sets). I'll probably not bother to regauge the turnouts at the frogs (except for the unlikely event where it becomes a problem).

- The ties at the ends of the frog are set pretty far away and the insulating rail gaps are supposed to be between them. This results in an overly long frog assembly (electrically). I prefer dead frogs (unpowered frogs) because running 'em the wrong way doesn't create a short circuit (but there are many that disagree with me on this). A dead (unpowered frog needs to be as short as possible to reduce the likelihood of an engine stalling on that turnout. So I'll need to custom cut the rail gaps to insulate the frog. By spiking the turnout in place and then cutting the insulating gaps I can shorten the #8 frogs by a bit more than 1/2". If you are using powered frogs (powered through switch machine contacts) this is not a concern for you. Frogs longer than a #8 may need to be powered no matter what since they get longer in a hurry as the frog # goes up.

+ I can build a turnout faster with the jig than by hand and with less likelihood of a gauge problem (when I was in top form building turnouts for my previous layout I could build 'em pretty quick!).

+/- When building a turnout with continuous closure/point rails the Fast Tracks jigs allow a generous amount of rail for the points making it easier for those rails to flex when moving the points. This should reduce the number of busted solder joints between points an PC tie throwbars (a busted solder joint between point and throwbar is the #1 turnout problem on my railroad). But the longer points don't look very prototypical.

So, is the expense of the jigs worth it?

That would depend on what you'd be using otherwise. I'm going to be building 40+ #8 code 83 turnouts for the peninsula on my BC&SJ. There will also be a number of code 70 and code 55 turnouts with a #8 frog (for which the point filing jig should be workable). Once I get the hang of it I should be able crank out turnouts faster than I could be hand and they should be precise enough to not require much (if any) fiddling to make them work well once installed.

For 40 turnouts the $150 cost of the two jigs works out to $3.75 per turnout. If you were building 10 of 'em it would be $15 per turnout for the jigs.

Now I'm cheap. I kind of have to be given the size of layout I'm constructing. I figure that the cost of the PC ties, wood ties, and rail in a turnout is going to run around $3-$4 these days. So the jigs effectively double my cost. If you were building only 10 turnouts that would raise the cost to $18-$19 per turnout ($15 jig amortization and $3-$4 for materials) - enough to buy Walthers code 83 turnouts (if you find 'em on sale). If you use the Fast Tracks laser cut tie strips that will raise the cost the cost per turnout by another $7 or so.

So if you're

• building a boatload of turnouts (maybe you could set up a cottage industry building turnouts for your friends?) 
• a group of RR buddies is chipping in for a shared set of jigs
• buying the jigs, making all the turnouts you'll ever need, then it's Ebay for the jigs

then I'd say "YES" the Fast Tracks jigs look pretty darned attractive (despite the small problems I've had).

But if you're only going to build a handfull of turnouts of a particular frog angle and track size then I'd suggest you should either buy your turnouts or try building them from scratch (but if after trying you can't seem to make a turnout that works well, then try the F.T. jigs).

Joe Fugate suggested another alternaive (please correct me if I'm wrong Joe): Get a F.T. points jig and use Central Valley turnout tie strips to align/gauge your rails saving the $100 or so cost of the turnout jig.

I'll build a bunch more turnouts over the next month or two and will report again.

Regards,

Charlie Comstock

Thanks for the mini-review.

Thanks for the mini-review. I am looking forward to building some turnouts although I just have stuff for doing some test lays of "regular" sections of track. The pc ties were omitted from my order but I borrowed some from a friend. Hopefully they will be along soon.

I read an interesting article in a back issue of N-Scale magazine I picked up at a recent MRR show where the guy laid his track using CA to glue to the ties rather then soldering. When he needed to reguage the track he heated the rail which caused the CA to loosen which let him adjust it. It might be interesting to try that and get out of the whole soldering and pc tie thing entirely..

Can you use the point filing jig with a grinding wheel? I have one in the basement I never used that a friend left me when he moved. Maybe it will get reclaimed someday but for now I have it to try using.

Chris

I've heard about using Goo or

I've heard about using Goo or Pliobond for laying rail where you could heat the rail with a soldering iron and regauge it, but I've never heard about doing that with CA...

Charlie

Heating CA is not a good idea

I don't recommend heating superglue (CA), since it can cause hydrogen cyanide to be released (cyanide gas), which is a deadly poison.

See:

http://www.wurth.com.au/msds/0893_403_1.htm
http://www.itwconsumer.com/productfiles/msds_166.pdf

No thanks ... I'll stick with solder.

Soldering in a fixture

Hi,

I second Joe's suggestion to avoid heating CA adheasive.  I have caught a few fumes from hot CA and it is a real shock, like a whiff of ammonia!  Nasty stuff.

Pliobond works very well for this, in fact it was designed to work with heat.  Apply the glue to both surfaces, let the liquid evaropate for a few minutes and join the two parts.  A bit of pressue will set the bond and applying heat with a soldering iron to the base of the rail will cause the glue to cure to a VERY solid bond.

Charlie, I suspect your heat sinking issues have to do with the thickness of the PC board ties you are using.  The fixtures are designed (in HO scale) to specifically work with 1/16" PC board ties that we supply.  We have a supplier that maintains the tie thickness to within a few thousandths of an inch.  They will definately not work with 1/32" ties unless specifically designed to do so.

We cut the pockets and the rail grooves at the same time, the depths are controlled by the CNC mill to within .001" of accuracy.  It is possible, but unlikely that the two depths are not up to spec.  When a 1/16" tie is placed into the pocket it should sit proud of the base of the rail groove by about .008-.010".  This clearance keeps the rail off the fixture a prevents heat transfer.  Heat can not be transfered to the fixture through the PC board tie as it is fiberglass and a perfect insulator.

I would give an acid based flux a try, that will likely make a big difference in how the solder flows.  Properly cleaned off and painted it will not create an issue.

We re-shot all of our turnout construction videos in the last few weeks and are in the process of editing them in DVD quality.  These will be available some time next month.  We extracted the soldering video and uploaded it onto Google.  It still needs some polishing and the sound is a bit off but it is good enough to show some soldering of an HO turnout in a fixture.  I will attempt to embed it here.