when to fit tie bar

[jon price]

It seems that everything I have read indicates tie bars are fitted after the turnout has been assembled. Since everything is made to specific tolerances, using jigs, or self jigging timbers I am wondering whether, when using plastic timbers, it would make sense to solder up the tiebars to the point blades prior to assembly (using suitable jigs) to avoid the eventuality of accidentally introducing the soldering iron to the plastic timbers after everything is completed? Or not.

[Allan Goodwillie]

Hi John,

It depends on what type of tie bars you are going to fit. If they are a simple wire type then you can fit them after you have your points operating. If the operating unit you are using keeps the rails at the correct distance then the wires can be glued in place, even long after the track is in operation. I drill holes for the wires in the point blades when making them. If both ends are being glued then there should be no chance of any shorting happening. If using wires I put a thin smear of araldite on both ends and allow that to dry prior to then glueing them and fitting into the pre-drilled holes. Check after you fit the wires that they are not keeping the blades slightly open when they are supposed to be fully over, otherwise you may have derailments.

The point bar kits available for mainline points available from the stores are very good and again can be glued using epoxy. They come with fitting instructions and can be made to keep the blades at the correct distance apart and allow for several different means of operation.

One type of bar I have had mixed results with - it comes in two forms either two wires fitted into either end of a plastic tube or alternatively a plastic fibrous material. The idea is that the material in between keeps the two wires in line, but electrically separate.The problem is that heat can effect the plastic tube if the unit is soldered to the blades and if a re-attachment is required you can melt the tube at the ends and then the wires penetrate deeper and eventually short as well as loosing the correct throw.

The other material used can also give trouble perhaps aralditing the units would work - but I have moved on from them as I found they also worked loose in time, but perhaps someone out there has used glue and found them effective.

[jon price]

thanks Alan for your discussion re tie bars. Drilling before fitting, using the TOU to get the spacing, then gluing the bar afterwards seems like the route to go down. The first turnouts I made never got as far as the TOU stage, although they seemed to pass the rolling stock test. That layout never got further than a couple of crossovers, but this one has every chance of approaching a useable state. This time the TOU construction will take place simultaneously with the build and installation of the first turnout so no faffing around trying to botch solutions after installation.

[Allan Goodwillie]

I will look forward to seeing how you get on John, I am about to build my new baseboards over this next week for a new layout based on the Wemyss system in Fife - a coal railway with a lot of character so I am hoping to start a new thread covering its construction soon. I have already built some locos and a fair amount of stock for it and have already made most of the points - so will cover track laying etc. when it happens. The idea is to show it as a developing layout at the Glasgow show in February where I will be exhibiting it with my friends from the West Scotland 4mm Group- so there will be a bit of pressure to get enough developed by then.

[jon price]

My own layout development is probably a bit more lackadaisical. All the trackwork comes out of a turnout which is "offscene" and sits on the entrance to the track turntable fiddle yard. This has meant everything waiting on this board, the kit for which I finally took delivery of this week. So when the board is built the turnout can be installed and then the whole of the rest of the trackwork will follow. Layout is based on Connah's Quay, North Wales c 1906 and traffic is mostly coal and bricks (and other industrial ceramics), with a chemical works which in reality was closed by then but stays open so that I can feature the strange rolling stock and loads of the chemical industry. No-one is driving me onwards so I started posting things to force myself to maintain a semblance of forward momentum. Unfortunately this only serves to show the design errors and corections in ebarrasing detail.

[Allan Goodwillie]

Hi John,

I wouldn't worry about that at all. Could I say that what you describe is just the same experience that most of us have when building things - I myself have made some big mistakes along the road, but you learn from them all and go on to do better. The courses for beginners I have put up elsewhere on the forum are based on about 50years of working in the scale and what I have found works even if you do not have expensive equipment or loads of money to buy your way out of trouble. In doing so it may have given the impression that what I recommend had all been arrived at just straight away - but nothing can be further from the truth.

Using the forum to help push on your project is no bad thing as it probably will help and you will get encouragement from the majority of the modellers on this forum. It is also true that life can get in the way of building things after all it is a hobby, I know that only too well myself. I have decided to put up my own new project which I have been working on. I had about two years when I produced some stock, engines and smaller buildings etc. then had two difficult years when I managed to get no work done at all, but I am now starting again and hope to write it up as I go along on the forum - warts and all.

[David Thorpe]

To answer your question - "or not". Leave the tiebars until you have built the point and then fit them. That way you'll ensure that they are accurately aligned - I'd bet that if you fitted them to the point blades before building the point they'd still need some adjustment when the point was finished and laid. I think it'll also be much easier. I use Masokits tie bars which require to be soldered to the point blades (better than glue IMO) but they only need a brief touch of the soldering iron and while I use ply timbers I'm sure that provided that you are careful and use the appropriate tip on your iron you shouldn't damage the plastic timbers.

I should add that my points are handbuilt throughout - I've never had a kit as such and if you're building a kit I suppose it's possible that the situation might be different?

DT

[jon price]

I think the only difference between a kit and building from bits is that the kit has the right number of bits. The common crossing and blades are preformed/constructed, but then you could buy these that way anyway. The big difference is that the kits use plastic components rather than ply and rivet, or paxolin, so with a kit everything (except the TOU connection and/or the tiebar depending on how you do it) is glued not soldered

[Terry Bendall]

As Allan says it all depends on what type of stretcher bar you use. I have standardised on the Masokits ones used in functional mode and have found them very useful. These need to be fitted after the turnout is assembled. However they are rectangular in cross section so if the track in your period requires round stretcher bars you would either have to use an alternative or ignore the error.

Terry Bendall