This morning I attached the guardrails to the #8 turnout. I waited to do this because I wanted to get a new soldering iron and some thinner solder as I mentioned in the previous post.
I picked up this Radio Shack Pro Series 25w soldering iron, spare tip, and 1.5oz of .022 diameter 64/34/2 (64% lead, 34% tin, 2% silver) solder for $40 at Radio Shack. Apparently they are going out of business (I thought they announced this a year or two ago???) and everything in the store was 30% off. I imagine however that they probably raised prices 30% before announcing the 30% off clearance price...
Anyway, the new soldering iron and thinner solder works much better than my old Weller economy model with .040 solder. This soldering iron is rated at 1000 degrees heat at 25w while my Weller was only rated at 750 degrees at 40w. The increased heat allowed the solder to melt and wick much easier than before and the smaller solder meant that I had much better control over the melting solder feed. That and hopefully as my soldering skills improve I will not get the big blobs of solder on the ties.
One thing I noticed about the Fast Tracks jig is that on my particular jig - see pic below - and they are produced with CNC milling equipment so I can't imagine mine is different than any other jig you would get from Fast Tracks, but the little channel used for measuring and cutting guard rails seems about 1/8" too short. I did the diverging route guardrail first (on the left) so I didn't really notice it but when I did the normal route (on the right), it became apparent when I centered the guardrail on the two ties and the one end was noticeably too short to match up with the frog wing rail across from it.
I attached the guardrails outside the jig because I just butted the guardrails up against the stock rail. You will also notice that I didn't bend the ends of the guardrails (or the wing rails) and instead just filed a bevel on the ends of the straight guardrail. I think this looks more realistic and it still functions just fine.
NMRA says the target for HO scale standard flangeways is .048, with only .002 over tolerance allowed but a generous .013 under tolerance is allowed. Using my nearly 40 year old veneer caliper to measure the flangeways on this turnout, I also discovered that the distance between the frog point and the wing rails was about .055, which is .007 over tolerance and not acceptable. Test fitting revealed that when two pieces of Micro Engineering code 83 rail are butted against each other at the base, the flangeway between the two rails is about .045, which is .003 under tolerance which in my mind is perfect for code 110 wheels and probably for code 88 wheels as well. Basically, the base of the frog point rails need to butt up against the wing rails just like I did with the guard rails, and in the photo above you can see there is a gap.
One thing worth mentioning is that NMRA tolerance for Proto:87 flangeways is between .021 and .023. This is less than half the standard tolerance and would require the bases of the rails to be filed away to allow the rails to get even closer together. For comparison, the thickness of the standard NMRA gauge is .020!
Fine scale tolerance (meant for code 88 wheels) is .040 but I'm betting standard NMRA tolerance would work just fine for code 88 wheels.
The real test was running the code 110 wheelset and the code 64 wheelset over the turnout. No difference in performance with the code 110 wheels - they roll through the frog just fine - but an unexpected surprise was when the code 64 wheels also ran through much better than without guard rails. Just pushing the code 64 wheels and letting them roll free did still give a few derailments, but if I rolled them through with some slight pressure to simulate the weight of a freight car on the truck, it allowed the guard rails to do their job and the truck rolled through much better than before.
The big takeaway here is I need to really pay attention to the bend at the wingrails and the alignment of the frog point to make sure the tolerance doesn't exceed the target. I think even using the Fast Tracks jig it is quite possible to force the rails into the guides and yet have them be out of tolerance. A few thousandths of an inch is all it takes.
I have also ordered a Stock Aid filing tool from Fast Tracks. While it was possible to file the recess at the points without one, it was not easy and the end result was probably not as accurate as using the Stock Aid tool would have been.
I'm glad I made this first turnout having no expectation of ever using it on the layout, although I am sure it would work. I think my next effort will be to build one outside of the jig, just using the printed diagram as a guide. I think that would allow me to tighten up my tolerances to be more to my liking, although I'm sure it will be more difficult to hold everything in place and gauge it as I build it. I will probably still build the frog in the jig and I will definitely still use the filing tools.
I picked up this Radio Shack Pro Series 25w soldering iron, spare tip, and 1.5oz of .022 diameter 64/34/2 (64% lead, 34% tin, 2% silver) solder for $40 at Radio Shack. Apparently they are going out of business (I thought they announced this a year or two ago???) and everything in the store was 30% off. I imagine however that they probably raised prices 30% before announcing the 30% off clearance price...
Anyway, the new soldering iron and thinner solder works much better than my old Weller economy model with .040 solder. This soldering iron is rated at 1000 degrees heat at 25w while my Weller was only rated at 750 degrees at 40w. The increased heat allowed the solder to melt and wick much easier than before and the smaller solder meant that I had much better control over the melting solder feed. That and hopefully as my soldering skills improve I will not get the big blobs of solder on the ties.
One thing I noticed about the Fast Tracks jig is that on my particular jig - see pic below - and they are produced with CNC milling equipment so I can't imagine mine is different than any other jig you would get from Fast Tracks, but the little channel used for measuring and cutting guard rails seems about 1/8" too short. I did the diverging route guardrail first (on the left) so I didn't really notice it but when I did the normal route (on the right), it became apparent when I centered the guardrail on the two ties and the one end was noticeably too short to match up with the frog wing rail across from it.
 |
| Pay no attention to the blobs of solder... |
NMRA says the target for HO scale standard flangeways is .048, with only .002 over tolerance allowed but a generous .013 under tolerance is allowed. Using my nearly 40 year old veneer caliper to measure the flangeways on this turnout, I also discovered that the distance between the frog point and the wing rails was about .055, which is .007 over tolerance and not acceptable. Test fitting revealed that when two pieces of Micro Engineering code 83 rail are butted against each other at the base, the flangeway between the two rails is about .045, which is .003 under tolerance which in my mind is perfect for code 110 wheels and probably for code 88 wheels as well. Basically, the base of the frog point rails need to butt up against the wing rails just like I did with the guard rails, and in the photo above you can see there is a gap.
One thing worth mentioning is that NMRA tolerance for Proto:87 flangeways is between .021 and .023. This is less than half the standard tolerance and would require the bases of the rails to be filed away to allow the rails to get even closer together. For comparison, the thickness of the standard NMRA gauge is .020!
Fine scale tolerance (meant for code 88 wheels) is .040 but I'm betting standard NMRA tolerance would work just fine for code 88 wheels.
 |
| Guard rails butted against stock rails |
The real test was running the code 110 wheelset and the code 64 wheelset over the turnout. No difference in performance with the code 110 wheels - they roll through the frog just fine - but an unexpected surprise was when the code 64 wheels also ran through much better than without guard rails. Just pushing the code 64 wheels and letting them roll free did still give a few derailments, but if I rolled them through with some slight pressure to simulate the weight of a freight car on the truck, it allowed the guard rails to do their job and the truck rolled through much better than before.
The big takeaway here is I need to really pay attention to the bend at the wingrails and the alignment of the frog point to make sure the tolerance doesn't exceed the target. I think even using the Fast Tracks jig it is quite possible to force the rails into the guides and yet have them be out of tolerance. A few thousandths of an inch is all it takes.
I have also ordered a Stock Aid filing tool from Fast Tracks. While it was possible to file the recess at the points without one, it was not easy and the end result was probably not as accurate as using the Stock Aid tool would have been.
I'm glad I made this first turnout having no expectation of ever using it on the layout, although I am sure it would work. I think my next effort will be to build one outside of the jig, just using the printed diagram as a guide. I think that would allow me to tighten up my tolerances to be more to my liking, although I'm sure it will be more difficult to hold everything in place and gauge it as I build it. I will probably still build the frog in the jig and I will definitely still use the filing tools.
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