Terry Bendall wrote:Knuckles wrote:The 3 way turnout interests me too as I'd like to build one at some point but it looks a bit scary. Most complex bit of rail I have done is a single slip and that took a lot of working out.
Building a three way turnout is probably no more difficult than doing a single slip.
Terry Bendall
I would echo this entirely. Prior to installation of this 3 way I had built nothing more complicated than a turnout! I've found it no more difficult, even with the whole lot being on a gentle curve - the crossing Vs are made in a similar manner and so are the points. It really was just a matter of breaking it down into the various bits of sub-assembly. Installation was pretty similar, just a matter of working out which sub-assembly to fix first and gauge off. With a bit of tweaking (I always seem to get the dropper wire holes slightly out of line!) the test (uncompensated) wagon was running through in all three directions at most un-prototypical speeds.
Actually the most difficulty I had was with the stretcher bars - again similar to the turnouts. Since mine are rods I'm epoxy glueing them into soldered sleeves on the blades. Ensuring no electrical conductivity is a bit of a pain but I want to avoid a sleeve in the middle of the rod!
Thanks all for the comments by the way - it's most encouraging. Hope you're not disappointed when you see the real thing!!
Cheers
Chris