Fri 8 Dec 2006
Alternate Fog Techniques
While building curved turnouts, I discovered the technique I had used to create the frog point worked better on sharper turnouts, but didn’t work as well for gentle angles/curves. Several attempts to file and bend the frog resulted in the rail breaking. I made the best of a bad situation, and developed the following technique which resulted in sharper, more accurate frog points.
After filing the bent rail (as outlined in the turnout articles) I purposely cut the rail at the thinnest point.
I filed the angles point on the wooden jig, and extended the length of the angle so that the rail now resembled a turnout point. Repeating the same procedure for the other frog rail, I clamped the two points together using a pair of needle-nose pliers at the very tip of the two points. I adjusted the angle until it closely match what I needed, and then applied a very small amount of solder at the tip of the frog. I then gave the frog angle a few minor adjustments before soldering the entire assembly solid. The resulting frog had a longer point then necessary, so I simply filed the difference away, and in the process sharpened the frog to a tidy point.
Nesting Points
Although I did my best to ensure that my points were razor sharp and rested snugly against the stock rails, the rear trucks on my rolling stock continually jumped over, and traveled down the wrong path. Hence, I learned that all point rails must seat themselves in a notch filed in the stock rail as deep or deeper then the end of the point. A fairly straightforward exercise, it is certainly easier to file this notch before assembling the turnout as opposed to after!
