Pointing the way

Well, I finally got over my fear of making trackwork this week. I had made a short stretch of straight track, but if I was going to get anywhere I had to be able to make a point. Woodsworks provided the template for an NZR No 7 point, and so I was off (well, it sounds easy but actually getting the gumption up to actually start took some time). As this was to be a test piece I just went ahead and had a crack to see where the pitfalls were.

First up I glued the plan down onto a piece of MDF. The PCB sleepers were then glued down with a glue stick so that I could remove them at the end. The outer rails had areas filed into them where the point blades would sit in them. then soldered down the outer rails, using an old track gauge given to me by John Rappard 20 odd years ago. I assume its about right. I then filed up the crossing point bit (sorry, can't remember its name) and using the track guages installed it about the right spot. the wing rails were next to go in. I bent these up and then positioned them, discovering in the process that 2 pieces of code 55 rail soldered side by side give a surprisingly good gap that even the Peco 'cookie cutter' wheelsets will pass through. Yah number one here.

'don't look at the solder'

Next up was the point blades themselves. These have to be filed quite thin so that they will bend and fit into the rail notches at the head end of the point. I didn't have anything to make a tie bar out of so I've left this.


For a first up effort I've found that there's some things that worked, and some bits I need to do better. I do need an NMRA track guage, and some jigs to solder up several bits. Apart from that I think it's the way I will go on the new layout.