my first scratchbuilt turnout

[nachoman]

Here is my first attempt at scratchbuilding a turnout in HOn3. It's a #4 and uses code 55 rail. I basically followed Stephen Hatch's online tutorial. As you can see, I still need to trim the ties, but other than that, it seems quite nice :mrgreen: I've pushed a truck through both routes, and it's very smooth.

It took me most of the weekend, but I think most of that time was spent learning techniques. I could greatly speed up the process if I put together an assembly line of sorts, cutting all the pieces beforehand. Once I get the hang of it, I estimate they would take me about 3-4 hours a piece.

After making one of these by hand, I can definitely see the usefulness of the fasttracks jig. It's a little tricky to get everything lined up prior to soldering.

Kevin

 

[Nomad]

Nice:thumb: Looks a heck of alot better than the ones I tried to build in ho.

Loren

 

[tetters]

Good stuff!

I was going to suggest adding one or two PC ties inbetween the the throwbar and first pc tie near the frog to keep everything in gauge, however it looks like you've glue a couple of ties to the rails instead. That should work nicely.

 

[TCH]

looks good

it is difficult to have everything lined up and then stay in place while you solder.
I made a jig of sorts by glueing some balsa strips to a fasttracks template.
it is not as precise as their jig would be but i found it a great help to keep things in place