Garden Railway Forum

Hi,
Having just started to build a railway in the garden I have just joined the group. As progress in the GR direction is slow at the moment due to waiting for materials. I thought the group might be interested in how some frogs were made for a friend's diamond cross over. The track he is using on his GR is Peco SM32 so the rail for the cross over is IL8 Code 200 which is semi flat bottom requiring the use of chairs. This isn't the only way to make frogs but it works quite well.
First a drawing was made so the angle of the frog could be measured, in this case 13 degrees.
This drawing was replicated on a sheet of 1/8" plywood on which the crossing would be made. No sleepers, chairs nailed directly to the board.
A steel jig of the frog angle was made and about a third of its length was cut away from its apex.
The last 1/2" or so of the rails used to make the frog were bent to match the angle on the drawing.
The outside of these bends were filed down to the web.
The end of this bent portion was cut off and filed to the rail.
The two rails were mounted on the jig and soldered together along with a brass strip that would be drilled to hold the end of the frog to the plywood.
Hope this construction is found interesting, if it hasn't already been descibed in the group before.
Regards Tony.

Welcome aboard Tony from the slightly overcast Notts/Derbyshire border, caution, this Forum contains nuts!

Nice work there and with posts like that, I hope your stay is a long one!

welcome to the group Tony
I for one will be watching this thread carefully

Hello Again,
The crossover was finished late yesterday afternoon and Nev collected it this morning. The following photographs show the crossover being constructed and I hope explain themselves, if not please ask.

















After the crossover has been fitted and checked out the board will get another heavy coat of paint which will have grey stone dust spread on it. When the paint has dried the excess stone dust will be removed with a vacum cleaner and the crossover will be sprayed with diluted PVA glue to finally secure the stone.
Regards Tony.

Thats excellent! Looking forward to the rest of your posts

Welcome Tony

Interesting stuff there, posts likes these are always helpful.

Hi Tony - nice to have yet anther member from the Principality, even if you are at the other end from the rest!

Hi there Tony! Looks fab, the new DVLR will require a cross over which will be very awkward to make considering it will be on a curve.

Hello Tony, welcome to the forum! Interesting to see how the crossover is made! Keep us updated on it!

Most interesting.

Hi Brian,
I hope things are well with you. I haven't used the points I had from you at the AGM yet, so far all the points fitted on the GR have been curved. See you at Llanfair?
Regards Tony

Hi Mr Bond,

I haven't made any curved cross overs only points. Attached are a couple of photographs that might give you ideas of construction. First a full size drawing of the intended track made on the back of some wall paper. A rail roller which is good for accuratley making curves. A part finished point. I find that if you get the angle of the frog right you are half way there.
Regards Tony.

Wow! That will be impressive! This crossover of mine will be on a 2ft8inch radius (eeek) so I am not sure that the locomotives, espesially my millie( long wheel base) will like it. I have a load of chairs and some nice strip wood so I guess I'll just have to have a go. I also have to build some multi gauge track in Snape Maltings which will be interesting. I look forward to more photos of these home grown points, most interesting. Another question though, I recently saw a article about making peco SM32 points curved, do you think this will be possible for G45 points?

Hi Mr. Bond,
Do you mean curving a standard Peco SM32 point? If so I don't know if it is possible not having tried it, I would have thought it was too rigid.
I have made G1 points using peco track and chairs for use on our clubs GR they are of the Hornby tin plate type because members use commercial products some of which have different back to back measurements.



This curved point using pinned down brass flat bottom rail with a very tight radius is used on my portable layout and is constructed the same way as above but has thin (2mm) sleepers to improve its appearance.



This photograph is of the finished point using Tenmille bullhead track and chairs who's frog was shown in a previous posting and is for use on my own GR which is being constructed at this moment.
Regards Tony..