PUBLISHER’S EDITORIAL: Turn a small project into a large project, part 2 Musings from the MRH founder
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As you read last issue, my staging turnout replacement project went really bad …
Joe Fugate is the featured expert in many Model-TrainsVideo.com videos, and he’s also the founder and publisher of Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine. To learn more about Joe, click here.
N
ow that I had found the mystery short in staging – a stray metal wheel wedged between the closure rails of a turnout – I still had the problem of no turnouts on the west (Eugene) end of my staging yard. I started this whole project because I wanted to replace the poorly performing commercial turnouts on my west staging ladder with spot-on-NMRAspec jig-built turnouts1. Even though I know better, my big mistake was not checking these turnouts for shorts before I installed them. Out of frustration from making such a foolish oversight, I hastily stuck a putty knife under the turnouts I had just fastened down and ripped them up out of the caulk without much care.
1 My “poor man’s” jig approach uses Central Valley turnout ties strips to get much-improved turnouts that are spot-on the NMRA RP dimensions for HO turnouts. I show how I build these turnouts on my Siskiyou Line web site.
Page 11 • Issue 6 • Mar/Apr 2010 • Publisher’s Editorial, page 1
Checking for shorts in my jig-built turnouts is the one vital step I missed in this project, so I made very sure to check the turnouts for shorts the second time around! I use a volt-ohm meter set on continuity - if there’s a short, it emits a loud beep. I figured the turnouts were a total loss so I was not especially careful in pulling them up with the putty knife. They came up easy enough, but I expected to just start over and build new turnouts. Imagine my surprise when I later examined these turnouts and saw they had survived the whole ordeal amazingly well. This is a real testimony to the ruggedness of turnouts built using these methods! I’m now even more certain that building turnouts using PC ties to fasten the rails down is the way to go!
In the photo above, I’m checking my one curved turnout for shorts. As a result of this test, I found at least two different PC ties where I had failed to cut the proper gaps in the copper foil. I unsoldered the PC ties, cut the proper foil gaps, and resoldered the rails. In effect, I had the perfect storm scenario in my staging. Not only were these turnouts full of shorts, but I had a mystery short on the other end of staging as well from a stray metal wheel! To add insult to injury on this project, I also skipped a crucial step in making
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