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i cut groves in meeting rails right after the frog so it is not shorted anymore (going to solder a lead before i glue everything down so i could make it powered frog later). however now when i look closely i wonder if there can be a situation when metal wheel will short the marked blue points? this mean i will need to isolate where marked in red too. or is this no consern?
DC for now, DCC very soon
Cut both sides of frog, insert and CA glue styrene strips in cuts. Trim to form with hobby knife and file. This will hold the rails/frog in place. If all your wheels are in gauge, there shouldn't be any shorts from them.
Cut both sides of frog, insert and CA glue styrene strips in cuts. Trim to form with hobby knife and file. This will hold the rails/frog in place. If all your wheels are in gauge, there shouldn't be any shorts from them.
Sorry, I wasn't clear: also, make the cuts marked in red. I am assuming this is an old style Shino that has a metal bar across the points at the throw.
Oh yeah! Shino's are far better. I have around 20 or so of the old style that I have converted and have no problems with them. I also have around 100 of the newer "DCC Friendly". Remember that you wil have to supply power on all ends since you no longer have through power, i.e. the diverging route goes to a siding: additional power feeds needed for siding.
if i want to use pair of those switches for a crossover i end up with lines 3" apart as the sides are longer then #4 atlas. the straight section is also longer. how sensible will you say is to shorten the divergent line one one of the switches to make lines closer?
it is after all one way procedure..
You can actually trim the ends of the turnouts...just be careful and don't go too far and interfere with any built-in jumpers or needed support. Remember when putting two together, there has to be power added to the diverging (crossover) routes. (With man'f.d DCC friendly, this is all done for you)
used dremel cut off wheel to cut the rail. filed and super- glued in pieces of removed ties and dremmeled flat when it dried up. some cleaning will be needed
EDIT: here is better pictre i think
points. cut a strip of some old modem card and sanded till copper showed. i solated was bit tricky as PC stuff tends to have multilayer PCB. luckly enough the ground or the powerplane were on top an bottom layers only so to cuts were enough. had there been some interconnect in the inner conducting layers i'd have to use something else.
cut groove on the underside of the ties and installed jumper wires in so they almost fully recessed. even though there is contact via the copper on throw bar now that i think about it i probably should have focused jumping point rails to corresponding stock instead of rails past the frog. but having the ones i installed not going to hurt either.
the first turnout took some time, the second one went much better. still need to jump it tough. then only 4 more to go. i think i'm going to think twice buying old shinoharas from now on
Hi Anton: Way to go!
Yeah, it is a PIA to redo those things. Several years ago and when I made a mistake in my order, I went through the same misery. NOW, I am very careful on my orders to get the part number correct. (I don't think you can still get the old style, but I'm still careful )
thanks!
i'm quite happy how these turned out, and definetly got some sence of accomplishment there. however i miscalculated i have 6 more to do. i think i will do them in batches, ie frog isolation job on all 6, point replacement job, jumper soldering job. perhaps i could finish the entire thing in one/two evenings...
but if i come a cross good deal on these again I will still buy
one thing that bothers me is that to throw the turnout more of a "muscle" is required now. i filed the copper that goes under stock rail as much as i could reach, and it helped a bit but still stiff. i plan on using servo motors for switch machines so i guess more of leverage and/or torqier servos might be needed. on the plus side these wont ever drift half open. since i will have no ground throw nor switching machine on them for now it is a bit consolatory...
Anton: If you use Tortoise and things are still stiff, go with 0.039 piano wire for the actuator wire. It is stiff enough to move the throw bar and probably would be good on any type.
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