White River Line
Member
My newest video is out. Hope you enjoy it.
I did start cutting 2 at a time eventually. I experimented with a few more, but managing more than a couple of sticks is a bit cumbersome. Yes, I got my from Micro-Mark, but there are others that probably work just as well.Thanks for the reply. I see you have many videos to view and I'll be watching them as I get time. One Question if I may. When cutting the ties why don't you cut four or five sticks at a time? The blade would be long enough I think. Like the cutter. It would be very useful for a lot of different model making. Yours is from Micto-Mark right? How about the turnout templates? Where did you get them from. Making turnouts would be better finacially than buying the r-t-r one's I think. I would imagine that after you make a few you could get pretty good at it. Pete
I've had more derailments on more layouts with crappy commercial track jobs than those with handlaid track. One of the reasons people handlay track is because the tolerances in commercial track sucks. I had more problems with gauge in commercial switches than I have in my handlaid switch and if I do have a problem I can fix it, unlike commercial track.I'm sure that the process of hand laying track way back in the early days of model railroading drove quite a few modelers away from the hobby. Today, it's more of a sign of superiority in technical skills, sorta like those who build their own ham radio. Novel to look at but inferior to good operations when compared to flex track.
There is no way you can convince me that most hand laid track is as perfectly gauged as flex track.
So as far as hand laying track is concerned, it may draw a momentary appreciation from some of the more senior modelers but for the new guy, it's more of a "so what, who cares?" right up there with the ability to balance a chair on your nose.