Alternative to Templot source

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Proto87stores

Alternative to Templot source

Postby Proto87stores » Tue Jun 29, 2021 6:22 pm

I was intrigued by the "alternative to Templot" mention in the 40 years hiatus from track laying topic.

I just checked the availability of MRJ # 71 and found it be offered for UKP 3.00, but with UKP 21.00 shipping to the USA. Given the high cost of just getting an unknown clue, I wondered if a brief description as to what that "alternative" is, could be posted on the forum.

I did purchase my own copy of Templot a long time post, but found it then unsuitable for my FB rail applications, so I am always interested in other ways of accurately reproducing prototypical FB trackwork in 4 mm and 3.5 mm scales.

TIA

Andy

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grovenor-2685
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby grovenor-2685 » Tue Jun 29, 2021 10:17 pm

The article in MRJ 71 by Martin Goodall describes planning his layout and laying out curves etc using the pencil and paper with versines and/or tables off offsets just as we had to do back before we had computer programs capable of doing the hard work.
I don't think it would be of help, nothibg you could not do if you wanted. And nothing to do with the differences between bullhead and flatbottom.

If you had a paid for Templot then it was an old version, Martin Wynne made it available free of charge quite some time back and it has many additional features including specific ones to help with flatbottom rail. Templot is customisable to cover the practice of almost any prototype. Gauge, size and spacing of timbers, styles of crossings etc are all fully customizable. I was able to set up all of the details to suit Zambia Railways 1067 mm gauge designs without trouble and once set up it can all be saved for future use so the initial effort is not wasted.
I recommend you try again.
Regards
Keith
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PROTO87STORES

Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby PROTO87STORES » Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:56 am

I was interested if someone else had used a jig method to position and fix the rail support chairs directly onto individual sleepers/timbers.

I ended up looking into jig methods, when I realized that my FB rail couldn't be positioned with a template for BH rail that effectively only had gauge (BH edge) lines marked. It turned out that for me, mechanically compensating for the difference between the FB foot edge and the FB head edge gauge alignment was easier and quicker than modifying a whole range of existing BH templates.

Given that most standard gauge railways use either Chairs or Plates as rail supports, it was simple to etch a simple single sleeper jig that positioned a pair of known dimensions chairs or plates onto a sleeper so that they were symmetrical about the centre and in addition would hold the rails precisely and accurately to the correct rail gauge. And immediately the need for a separate track gauge also went away.

Image


After separately gluing the chairs to a bunch of loose, sleepers, all that needs to be done to make straight or smoothly flowing curved track sections is to assemble a row of correctly spaced sleepers on a straight template or jig and glue (or slide) one rail in place to create a "herring bone" like structure. For straight track just glue the second rail as well. For curved flowing track it is easy to flex the "herring bone" with one rail to fit the curve location and fix the whole "herring bone" in place. Then adding and fixing the second rail into the chairs locks the track into the desired curvature shape. All that is needed printed" on the layout is a drawn centre line, or just a few key points.

That method bypasses the idea of using a paper template under the sleepers/timbers which of course is nearly 2mm below the top of the sleepers/timbers where a template really needs to be to accurately locate the rail base edges. Looking slanting down to the printed edges of a typical template on the road bed with the human MK I Eyeball, is subject to parallax errors. It's not possible in most modelling situation to position one's eye accurately plumb vertical over the rail(s).

Using this technique for building turnouts easily turnouts of course requires a a more complex chair/plate jig, but just the same straightforward build process. Again though, in most cases, only a straight turnout form of the jig is required. But of course, for different angle turnouts, each will require it's own jig. In my case, I made up jigs for #6, 7 8 and 10 straight turnouts, each like the one shown below.

Image

Once all the chairs have been fixed to the timbers, they can either have the rail added and fixed as is, for a straight turnout, or rearranged to a (reasonable) desired curvature for a curved turnout. In order to make arranging (and even cutting) the timbers easy as well, I added a timbering jig to hold the timbers in place and dowels to automatically align the two jigs together. That also removed the need for a paper template to lay the timbers to.

Image

As a result, I have never had any need for Templot at all. And provided the common crossings are built accurately as separate items, I've never needed traditional track gauges either. So it definitely fits the description of a quite different as well as viable alternative.

There are more in depth details, but those are probably too much to include in a brief forum posting. But for anyone interested, those can be found in the copy of an NMRA magazine article on my website. Link = http://www.proto87.com/The-Ultimate-Track-Story.html

Andy

martin goodall
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby martin goodall » Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:21 pm

grovenor-2685 wrote:The article in MRJ 71 by Martin Goodall describes planning his layout and laying out curves etc using the pencil and paper with versines and/or tables off offsets just as we had to do back before we had computer programs capable of doing the hard work.


I had previously missed this separate thread. I would gently take issue with Keith's reference to "doing the hard work". I certainly didn't find it hard work to use these paper and pencil methods. Bearing in mind the steep learning curve that users of Templot have repeatedly reported, and the time taken in mastering this software, the old-fashioned methods may prove to be quicker and easier, unless you make a regular practice of designing layouts, rather than planning just one layout and then actually building it.

If MRJ 71 is difficult or expensive to obtain, the S4 digest sheets I mentioned (written by the late Derek Genzel) provide a more detailed but entirely practical alternative.

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat Jul 03, 2021 10:52 pm

PROTO87STORES wrote:I was interested if someone else had used a jig method to position and fix the rail support chairs directly onto individual sleepers/timbers.


Exactoscale {Bernard Weller) did a system essentially as you describe many years ago, fine if you want to make a lot of similar turnouts but not so good if all your turnouts are different. Metal jigs come at a significant cost and cannot be home printed on a computer. I've no idea how many jigs Bernard sold but given I've never seen any other than in his ads I suspect not many at all. I didn't see the benefit, if any, worth the cost then and I don't now.
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Philip Hall » Sat Jul 03, 2021 11:57 pm

I agree with Martin that paper and pencil is still a pretty good way to plan pointwork. In the case of my new layout we built the baseboards first, simply made what would fit the room, and then started to plan out the trackwork on paper. It seemed very easy to draw a few lines and try and fit in the station facilities in the space available. It’s turned out that in places we needed a slightly wider baseboard, so a bit of carpentry, chunks of Contiboard and a lot of wood screws later it’s done.

I suppose it’s what you’re used to. I’ve not built many layouts, this one is only my second in P4, and I get enough grief with computers to make me determined they won’t be a major part of my modelling!

Philip

Terry Bendall
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Terry Bendall » Sun Jul 04, 2021 8:07 am

PROTO87STORES wrote:Using this technique for building turnouts easily turnouts of course requires a a more complex chair/plate jig, but just the same straightforward build process.


OK for standard turnouts of course if several of the same type are needed but not if something other than standers is needed. That is where a modified template, or one drawn by hand, or the use of software scores.

martin goodall wrote: I certainly didn't find it hard work to use these paper and pencil methods.

Philip Hall wrote: I agree with Martin that paper and pencil is still a pretty good way to plan pointwork.


I would support these views. Some people will want to use Templot or another piece of software and like all software, once you have learnt how to fly it it can save a lot of time, but it depends on whether you are prepared to invest that amount of time. A combination of pencil and paper, and laying down lengths of track and some paper templates has always worked for me but then I have not built any layouts that are particularly complicated.

Terry Bendall

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby davebradwell » Sun Jul 04, 2021 9:47 am

I'm going to join-in the attempt to play all this down. If I want a standard turnout, I'll probably dig in a corner and find an old society template. If it's to be curved then, although I haven't used Templot in full, it's very easy to produce accurate templates without a "learning curve" and it gives the vital minimum radius. Same for something obscure - and it's quicker than the post. I've even drawn templates with pencil and paper and if all else fails, or the mood has taken me, have just sat down with a pile of rail and pcb sleepering and built the damn things. Horses for courses, or perhaps just the need for a change.

Was a bit alarmed further up with the suggestion that the jigging methods virtually eliminate the need for a track-gauge. Dangerous talk! Suggest a final check on any important dimensions is vital, no matter what care you took on the way. 1+1=2 is just theory!

DaveB

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby martin goodall » Sun Jul 04, 2021 1:36 pm

Just to pick up some of the points raised above, when I was planning my current layout (The Burford Branch), I found that no fewer than five of the turnouts (one cross-over and three individual connections) could be produced using standard paper templates (B6, B7 and B8). The cross-over and one of the single turnouts were on straight track, and the diverging road on each of the turnouts on curved track was tangential to the curve, so here again a standard template could be used. This did not involve any compromise in the overall geometry of the track. Setting out the curves on the baseboard using the simple formulae derived from the Versine Theorem or off-sets was easy and straightforward.

It was only when I came to devising the layout of a crossover on curved track that I had to resort to the formula for calculating the ‘equivalent radius’ of these two turnouts. It took no more than a few seconds on a pocket calculator. Both of the turnouts forming the curved crossover turned out to be C10. (I would stress that in this situation, cutting standard templates to produce a curved turnout will not work. It is essential to calculate the equivalent radius of the crossing to determine the correct angle of the crossing vee – in this case 1 in 10.)

I used a variety of gauges when building the track, but as anyone who has actually built track in this way will confirm, even the greatest care in the use of the gauges will not guarantee absolute accuracy. Careful adjustment, checking some clearances with a vernier gauge and generally ‘fettling up’ the track will still be needed to ensure reliable running (but I certainly wouldn't dream of building track without using the gauges). One of the advantages of using the Brook Smith method of soldered construction is that it is easy to make these adjustments, before cosmetic chairs are added later.

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Winander » Sun Jul 04, 2021 3:15 pm

martin goodall wrote:One of the advantages of using the Brook Smith method of soldered construction is that it is easy to make these adjustments, before cosmetic chairs are added later.


It is also very simple to move plastic chairs on wooden sleepers by slipping a knife under them.
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proto87stores

Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby proto87stores » Sun Jul 04, 2021 6:53 pm

Just a few quick specific responses:

1. Re: “Was a bit alarmed further up with the suggestion that the jigging methods virtually eliminate the need for a track-gauge. Dangerous talk! Suggest a final check on any important dimensions is vital, no matter what care you took on the way. 1+1=2 is just theory! “

My actual claim was “And provided the common crossings are built accurately as separate items, I've never needed traditional track gauges either.”

I use an etched version of 3D printing to make all my common crossings as shown below.
Image

Apart from being phenomenally accurate, it’s also very inexpensive., fast, and virtually no craftsman skill or experience required.

So since the chair/plate position jig is actually about 100 individual compensated track gauges (using the rail base to rail base dimension), I stand by my remark. The only condition is the chairs/plates need to have standard base dimensions if obtained from multiple sources. But that’s what a “Standards Society“ is for :thumb .

2. Re: “Metal jigs come at a significant cost and cannot be home printed on a computer. I've no idea how many jigs Bernard sold but given I've never seen any other than in his ads I suspect not many at all. I didn't see the benefit, if any, worth the cost then and I don't now.”

There are two aspects to that otherwise perfectly reasonable point of view.

a) I make 3.5 mm scale chair/plate jigs available starting at UKP 30.00 for a # 6.size turnout. That’s about 2/3 rds of the price of a single Hornby 00 passenger coach.. and about 1/3 rd the cost of a quality brass coach kit with bogies and wheels (and cast details and roof?) added. Clearly a slightly larger 4mm scale version would cost about 20% more. But don’t even consider comparing even that to the cost of a single brass pacific loco kit, with added Ultrascale wheels, Portescap gear box and Portescap motor. 3D printers and practical lathes for 4 mm modelling are not inexpensive either.

b) Even if the cost were excessive, any jig system like this removes all the uncertainly and significant craftsmanship and learned modelling skills needed to “fettle” a paper template built turnout to fully operational and reliable running condition. And likely obviate 80% of the continually repeated track “help” postings on this forum. (and about 98% of those on RM web) ;) .

As a result, I would estimate the increase in the number of potential successful (and happy) p4 track modellers (and great running layouts) would be around a whole order of magnitude. One only has to look at the major success and growth of the coarse scale (and very expensive) “Fast Tracks” jigs in the USA to justify that prediction. Apparently their much higher costs and lack of all detail have not been an issue, compared to the ease and reliability of skill free making your own turnouts.

Finally I would mention that a paper template is only a two dimensional “shadow” of the foundation of a 3D turnout. You couldn’t build a house at all, let alone correctly, if you only had a 2D map of the foundations. Every etched brass locomotive and coach kit is stuffed full of hidden, implicit, single use jigs. How many P4 modellers would there be today if the only information for a vehicle was a set of drawings and a plain sheet of brass to have to transfer the dimensions to, before you could use your drill and files to cut them out.

For example, the position of the edges of all the windows in the side of an etched coach is set by a “jig” made by photographing the digitized drawing and etching through at those lines. The positions of the coach ends are set by the etched length of the sides, etc. The fact that the pieces all fit together is taken for granted., but that only happens because each piece frequently acts as a jig for the next. No one since about 1970 expects that the window positions need to be hand measured, hand scribed and then carefully and skillfully and individually cut and filed to precise shape.

But track chairs are hand soldered or glued to timbers by simple eyeball and hands on methods and then optionally adjusted later by indirectly checking a with a track gauge to the rail head.

Andy

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:11 pm

proto87stores wrote:But track chairs are hand soldered or glued to timbers by simple eyeball and hands on methods and then optionally adjusted later by indirectly checking a with a track gauge to the rail head.

That is not how its done, the chairs are glued or soldered with the gauges in place and holding the rail, no indirect checking later unless you mess up.

NB For my layout with approx 50 turnouts I needed 50 different templates, most were hand drawn based on society prints, and the last few using templot prints. The cost of paper templates is a lot less than £30 per. Etched jigs like you suggest would have been £1500. At least a 100 times more than the paper ones that work just fine. Comparing them to etched loco kits is irrelevant.
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Martin Wynne » Mon Jul 05, 2021 9:00 am

grovenor-2685 wrote:the chairs are glued or soldered with the gauges in place and holding the rail

But maybe not for much longer? At least for anyone with access to a 3D printer. I've made a bit of progress with the direct 3D printing from Templot.

No CAD design skills needed, Templot exports the STL file ready for use on the printer. For any turnout size, curved to any radius, and any scale or gauge or flangeway gap.

The idea is to print the chairs and timbers separately. So that the chairs can slide onto the rail one at a time, and then plug vertically into the timbers:

Image

Image

Image

Just like normal track building -- but no templates, solder, butanone, jigs or gauges needed! And it's free! :)

For any turnout size, curved to any radius, and any scale or gauge.

Image

Image

A Templot update with some initial experimental options will be released in the next few days. It should be possible to create plain track at least.

More info: https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?t ... /post-1873

cheers,

Martin.
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Rod Cameron
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Rod Cameron » Mon Jul 05, 2021 10:53 am

We're lucky that we have options, as all are useful.

On Lewes https://www.scaleforum.org/demonstrator ... ron-lewes/ I did the original Templot plan years ago from a picture shape derived from a 1:10,000 OS map. This was before you could do tandem points, so later I shoed in some updated sections which changed some alignments very slightly (I know, I could have reprinted the whole thing but I no longer had access to the office roller plotter). More significantly, and when I was already into the track building, I acquired some 1:480 plans which showed up some discrepancies in the OS map (hardly surprising) so out came the pencil, whippy stripwood and eyeball to realign some of the platform tracks. A knock-on from this was that I also had to redesign some of the pointwork in situ in my new role as stressed PW project engineer. Some desoldering on rivets ensued, and even (cough) the removal of some rivets that were now offset from the rail completely.

Main thing is I still have a flowing track plan that looks right. I might get round to gluing the plastic chairs one day.
Rod

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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby ralphrobertson » Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:35 am

Wow Martin, that is very impressive. I have been thinking for quite some time about 3D printing S1 chair halves for use with ply/rivet track which I am using with a recessed back that saves fettling the chair to sit cleanly. So far I haven't made much progress but having seen what you have achieved there I will do some experimenting with my resin printer and laser cutter using your developments.

Thanks for producing this, very helpful.

Ralph

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Guy Rixon
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Guy Rixon » Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:15 pm

Martin, that looks very good. Do you think that it assembles accurately enough by itself, or does it have to be set with gauges while gluing? Is there any play to allow for shrinkage of the print?

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Martin Wynne
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Re: Alternative to Templot source

Postby Martin Wynne » Mon Jul 05, 2021 3:54 pm

Guy Rixon wrote:Martin, that looks very good. Do you think that it assembles accurately enough by itself, or does it have to be set with gauges while gluing? Is there any play to allow for shrinkage of the print?

Hi Guy, Ralph,

Thanks. The first thing to say is that the whole thing is still experimental, so if something doesn't work it will get changed.

The fit of the chairs in the sockets is fully adjustable to get the best results with your equipment and materials. The fit can be adjusted to anything from a tight bash fit to a loose-fit for gluing. It's likely to differ depending on whether the timbers are resin-printed, filament-printed, or laser cut in plywood. And on whether for printed timbers you adopt the option for through-hole sockets, or blind sockets with an internal base -- the latter makes the timbers more robust, but the fit is then more affected by shrinkage:

Image

Ideally you would adjust the socket size to give a firm-ish push fit, but not so tight that the chairs can't be prised out if need be for modifications or repair. For through-hole sockets it would be possible to turn the finished assembly over and apply glue through the holes for long-term stability. If you intend to do that, you might settle for a slightly easier fit in the first place.

Having got the chairs firmly located in the sockets, there is then a fine adjustment of the track gauge if needed by moving the chair jaws relative to the base -- this is what happens if you overdo it: :)

Image

The entire jaw, key and rail seat assembly moves sideways on the chair base.

Clearly there will be a need for some initial trial and error to get the optimum result from your own materials and printer. Hopefully once set it would be sufficiently repeatable not to need constant adjustments.

The default clearance settings for the sockets at present are:

Sideways = chair plug + 0.05mm each side, so 0.1mm (4 thou) theoretical side-play in the socket. For a solid push fit you might want to tighten it up, for a glued fit you might want to widen it a bit to leave space for the glue.

Endways = chair plug + 0.025mm each end, so 0.05mm (2 thou) theoretical end-play. It's tighter than the side-play because it affects the gauge accuracy. Ideally you would adjust it to achieve zero end-play. The actual gauge can then be adjusted on the chairs, as above.

The socket outline will be in the 2D DXF file for those who want to laser-cut the sockets in plywood timbers.

In addition there is an adjustable fit all round the chair plug. Ideally it would be left on zero, but can be used if it's necessary to fit some chairs to existing sockets. For 4mm/ft scale I imagine the chairs will be resin-printed, but in the larger scales it might be possible for them to be filament printed.

And finally there is a fine-adjustment on the chair fit to the chosen rail section. This is not intended to change any dimensions, but allows for a close fit on the rail without any play, but without needing excessive force to slide the chairs into position. In effect it makes a small percentage adjustment to the specified rail-web thickness.

But if you don't want any of that, you can export a more conventional one-piece base with chairs and timbers for end-threading of rail, or even including 3D-printed rails if you wish for battery/radio control.

No doubt I will be writing a lot more when I have got Templot version 228a released, which will hopefully be in the next few days. Please watch on the Templot Club forum for news and full details.

cheers,

Martin.
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