Have you researched at the handlaidtrack website?

Not to be unkind, but a quick check of the handlaidtracks website for PC ties shows pages for every PC tie type they sell, and each page lists every possible dimension of the ties.  Check there first.

As far as being able to put HO regular gauge PC ties in the On30 turnout jig, a quick glance looks like you can but they would slide around side to side in the wider On30 sized slots.

Janet N.

Ties

I know the O scale PCB ties are significantly larger, it's a question of whether anyone has found a decent workaround that actually works. I guess I could just get an On30 jig and see if it would work- no harm in trying it since I eventually need On30 turnouts anyway. I'd agree that the HO ties would likely slide around. I was thinking about some method to make the HO ties larger, but the two ties together foils the plan, especially since On30 being narrow gauge and typically a pre-war era on lightly used branchlines tends to have really wide tie spacing.

Narrow ties can be shimmed, wider ties not so much

I suppose you could add a wooden shim next to each HO PC tie while they were in the On30 jig, or if you were going to use the HO jig to create turnouts for use on On30 track, either glue such shims to the sides of the PC ties when installing the turnout.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the issue.

Also, if you only need a couple turnouts, I'd try printing out the paper templates and building the turnouts in place.  The biggest difference with paper vs the aluminum jig is you need to pin/spike the PC ties temporarily in place and take more care in soldering the rail onto the ties.  I started out that way before deciding that the jigs and tools would be far preferable for my purposes, as well as cost-effective based on the number of turnouts I think I will eventually need.  But if I need one or two curved or other-sized turnouts, I will go back to the paper templates.

Janet N.

spacing between ties.

Notice the On30 ties are longer, as well as thicker and spaced much further apart. So an On30 turnout jig should have competely different tie spacing and location of the pcb ties. 

In the fasttracks jigs the depth of the tie is a critical measurement. The tie depth needs to be what the jig was designed for or there will be space between the rail and the top of the tie and you won't be able to solder them together. Or if the tie is too thick the rail will get pushed up out of it's slot.

I must be misunderstanding the question, because it seems to me the answer is you lay all On30 track or all HO track rather than have some of it of one kind and some of another. So you decide whether you want correct tie spacing and looks for your On30 loco or your HO loco and that's what you lay, and the other loco just won't look right but you live with that. So you only need one kind of jig, and you buy ties and rail that fits it.

Or are you trying to do 2 different layouts in different scales with the same tools?

Shimming ties

So the issue with using an HO scale turnout in On30 is that you end up with two closely spaced ties that look ridiculous in O scale. Going the other way with making HO turnouts in an On30 jig might work. Taking one of the PCB ties off would probably cause the turnout to fall apart, even if I could re-gauge it when laying it down on the ties.

The pointform and stock aid tools will work for both scales, but the paper handlaying method is going to be a lot harder than using the jigs. On the other hand, using the paper method allows for an almost infinite number of one-off turnouts.

HO and On30

   I'd just use wooden ties for the On30 (for On3 too). O scale ties and spikes are large enough to be easy to use and will look better than PC board ties. After a couple of turnouts you'll find you don't need a jig for O scale( or S scale either).  In contrast HO scale has a great selection of flextrack and turnouts so I'd view it as a separate  process. ......DaveB

Ties and placement

Actual tie placement isn't that critical, especially in narrow gauge...   I'd just build it with HO ties, take it out of the jig and solder the On ties on, then take the HO ties off.

Simple and cheap

Ties and jigs

Right, and that's the problem.

3 layouts, 2 HO, one On30. The HO ones are going to be connected, the On30 will not, but I'll probably run them off of the same command station just for ease of use so they can share WiThrottle and a UR91. The On30 project is a few years off, but I'm trying to plan my jig buying ahead of time if I can manage to get both scales of turnouts out of one set of jigs.

I was using FT jigs and ME flex track for HO, but I've gotten kind of fed up with ME flex track, so I'm handlaying in HO, and I plan to do the same in On30. On30 turnouts are the same size as HO except for the ties, so I'm not sure why one would be that much easier to handlay than the other?

So that's kind of what I was thinking.... I'd have to be really careful controlling the heat while doing the soldering and de-soldering, but I think it can be done? Maybe buy a #6 jig for On30, and then do the oddball stuff like the 3-way or wye turnouts with the HO jig and de-solder/re-solder? 

  "I was using FT jigs and

O scale ties are wider and deep than HO ties so are less likely to split and hold spikes better. O spikes are a bit larger too so are easier to handle. If you are not happy with ME flex track I'd try some Atlas or Peco. Thousands of layouts have been built with flextrack so something should work for you. I handlay all my turnouts but try to use flex track where ever possible as spiking long runs of track is very boring and wastes lots of time than could be used for other modeling tasks.......DaveB

Track

I want to keep the rail profiles the same. For the amount of track I'm laying and the amount of time I spend futzing with flex track, I can handlay it in not too much more time. The ME stuff just breaks too easily, the handlaid is rock solid. I am sticking with Atlas 100 in my old yard, and I may use it to connect the yard to the first new layout, as I have a lot of it, and it's basically indestructible. I do plan on using some bridge track on a module, but I'll probably do the two ends handlaid, and handlay my other one.

Spikes

Also, I think the 1/4" spikes are fine for On30, as it's the same rail code as HO, and narrow gauge lines likely used small spikes anyway.

majority  "the 1/4" spikes

majority 

Yes, 1/4 inch spikes work well in O scale ties but they are pretty big when used in HO scale ties. HO ties are much thinner so the spikes protrude thru them a lot more so the roadbed has to be easy to spike into plus hold the spikes well. In O scale the spikes don't protrude as much so roadbed spike friendliness is not as important. I use 1/4 inch spikes for S scale and can get by with gluing 1/8 inch cork over plywood roadbed then gluing the ties to the cork. For HO thickness ties I'd probably have to use homasote roadbed which is more trouble and harder to find than plywood. My S scale layout has about 350 feet of track and I'd guess only about 10% is handlaid. I have 42 handlaid turnouts and a few short connecting segments of handlaid track, the majority of the track is Shinohara and ME ( Tomalco) flex track. For contrast when I built an N scale layout a few years ago I used all Atlas and ME code 55 track and turnouts and only had to hand lay a couple of curved turnouts on PC board ties. That went a lot faster but it's too hard to find S scale turnouts and they would cost way more than I'd want to pay.....DaveB

just go HO for now

My view of the jigs is that they are a great stepping-stone and learning curve assist but not the end of the journey. The end of the curve is full hand-laid turnouts spiked on all-wood ties.

If the On30 layout is far-out time-wise I'd just buy HO jigs and use them for HO and cross the On30 bridge when you reach it. By then you will probably be comfortable enough to just hand lay everything, but if not the scheme of building an HO turnout then adding and subtracting PCB ties should sort of work. 

If you end up wanting to build your On30 track with HO-height ties and you still feel you need a jig, you can get a custom jig made for an On30 turnout with HO-thickness tiest. Or you could just use the HO jigs to bend all the rail pieces to the right dimensions, then lay out a full-turnout's worth of wood O-scale ties and spike the pieces down without soldering anything but the frog point.

I think once you get to the point mentally that at most you're going to want to buy one On30 jig, you'll see it as a $100 issue and decide to just worry about it later. All the rest of the tools and helpers will be useful.

Spikes and jigs

They've worked just fine for me. They're the standard that Fast Tracks sells. I caulk my cork down to plywood, caulk the ties to the cork, and then spike the rail to the ties, and everything seems to be pretty solid.

I think that's the best course of action for now.

That's an interesting idea, but the HO ties would end up out of alignment. The thickness really doesn't matter, as the PCB ties float over the roadbed anyway, they are quite a bit thinner than the wood ties.

That's probably the better idea, maybe get a #6 jig for On30, and use the HO jigs for all the weird stuff. Maybe I'll be more comfortable with building crossings and 3-ways after building a few of them in HO.

Alternate

An alternative to ties at all is to solder shim brass strips across the top of the rails at 4 or 5 spots, then lift it out of the jig, set it on the ties and solder or spike it down, then unsolder the brass strips.

An alternate alternate is to glue a paper switch template onto Homasote or soft board, then rubber cement On30 ties to the template and lay the switch over the paper template, then pry the PC ties off the template.

I have used variations of these methods on some of my switches (HO but that doesn’t matter really).

Not sure this would work

Not sure this would work, otherwise it’s a great solution.

As designed, it’s soldering the rail to PCB ties held tightly in the jig that holds the rail in place. Just sitting the rail in the jig will not keep it from moving all around while trying to solder the brass shim to the rails. Once a piece of shim brass has been soldered on top of the rails, what’s to keep the rails from popping out of the jig?

Intriguing ideas

I had to read it twice to understand what you were getting at, but that's a really intriguing idea. I'm going with the HO stuff for now, and I'll cross the On30 bridge when I get to it.

Soldering to tops of rails

Dear Joe,

-  Flexing and temp-spiking track to suit plan geometry,
- soldering scraps of rail accross the tops of the geometry-correct and tested running rails,
- lifting the whole section out as-one-piece,
- and sliding the plastic tie-strip away to leave "skeletal rails"

has been a go-to technique for handlaying/spiking rails accross scratchbuilt "freehand" and "compound-curve" wooden trestles and similar bridges for some time now, particularly for the NG and Logging modellers, works very well...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Shim brass

I use this technique all the time to recycle handlaid switches or to build at home and then move to the layout.

Here is a thread on "unlaying" a switch:   

Unhandlaying Switches | Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine (model-railroad-hobbyist.com) 

keeping rails from moving around in the jig

To keep the loose rails from moving around in the jig, with or without pcb ties underneath, it is easy to lay a pointform or stockaid tool across the tracks. I don't yet have a 3-point track gauge, but I imagine that would work even better. Once you've got it soldered at one or two points you don't need additional restraints anymore.

The jigs are designed so that if there is a pcb tie in the slot the rail makes contact with the top of the pcb tie. Thus if there is no tie it will sit a hair lower in the slot, but be no more likely to move around. 

The biggest problem I have with rail movement is the curved stockrail wanting to roll inward. These techniques solve that too.

Build a few and decide

PM me and I’ll send you an On30 fixture to borrow. I’m at a point where I won’t use it for a while and trying to build a turnout in the wrong size could just make you frustrated and leave the scale/gauge. Yes, you can do as others have suggested but the system works well to build a turnout that will look and function to spec. 
 

I bought a HO FT jig for a

I bought a HO FT jig for a needed ON30 curved TO: 30/36R. After filing each rail to fit in the jig, use the jig to hold the rails in place. Solder the frog into a solid single unit. Do the same for the guard rails & stock rails. Using a hacksaw blade, cut out the wheel flangeways. File the bottom of the frog / guard rails smooth. Then place the rails in their respective grooves with HO PCB crossties and use painter tape to secure the rails in place: DO NOT solder rails to the crossties. Solder scrap rails across the tops of the rails to keep everything in gauge: frequently verifying proper gauge. Use as many of these scrap rail top gauge securements do-hickies as wanted. You can still check for proper gauge after lifting the turnout from the jig. Lay your ON30 turnout ties onto the roadbed (use your preferred technique). Sand the tops smooth, Stain / weather / ballast. Place the turnout onto the crossties and spike into place. Unsolder the scrap rails and file any sharp edges to perfection. EASY..... PEASY.....

temporary strapping on top rails?

Isn't needed if one knows how to use an NMRA gauge. Just spike down the outer running rails to the desired route then use the gauge to shape and install the frog and closure rails to match the route ,then add the points. No jig needed and totally flexible choice or radius and turnout size......DaveB

On30 and HO

Thanks for the offer, but by the time we send it back and forth, I'd have quite a bit of money towards just buying one from FT. I'm probably going to get one On30 jig regardless to play around with, probably the ever-popular #6.

That's a good idea to use the scrap rail pieces. I'll have to give that a try when the time comes.