I used a one-inch strip of 1/8" Masonite board when I laid out the curves for my switching layout. I think Masonite is a bit more flexible than pine, i.e. less likely to snap. The problem I have with the string and nail or trammel approach is that you wind up with a perfect circle. That's great for building furniture, but that's not what you want with track. You'll wind up with that train-set-track sudden snap from straight to immediate curve, which causes derailments.
What you get with a strip is the automatic easements for curves. The curves on my layout are extremely tight due to my space constraints. However, the natural easements allowed me to still run my trains despite the tight curves. I did find out that an 8-foot strip gives you better results than shorter strips, even if your curve is much shorter than 8 feet in length. I think this was what was causing Bill Lane some problems. What I did was clamp about a foot or more of the strip (using at least two clamps) perfectly straight, so that the curvature is an honest curve, not a "kinked" curve. "Clamp" the strip between two blocks of wood to make sure it indeed stays straight in that section. I then used a pencil and lightly traced the Masonite on the roadbed material, making sure not to deform the Masonite strips. I found that trying to clamp it can cause it to go out of whack, unless that's what you want (like I did for the S-curve I have in the middle of my layout). Since I handlaid my track, I only traced one line and glued the ties against that pencil line. The ties were laid perpendicular to the line, so that they maintain the same approximate curve as the overall track. I did something similar using flextrack in my N-scale days. By the way, I also use the Masonite strip method for determining the curvature of the divergent track of turnouts (since I handlaid those too). Enjoy, - Peter. On 08/28/2011 2:02 pm, Alan Lambert wrote: > From: Alan Lambert > Lone Star Flyer Club > Arlington, Texas > > Charles, > > the best way to do that ( find large radius) is with piece of string and > nail. Measure half of the raidius . tie one end to the nail and the other end > to a pencil. Keep the string taut while you mark the radius. Another use for > string Bob. > > Thanks, > > Alan > -- Peter Vanvliet ([email protected], or [email protected]) Houston, Texas "It is easy to give up; anyone can do that..." http://pmrr.org/ (my model railroad - RSS feed <http://pmrr.org/rss.xml>) http://fourthray.com/ (my company) http://houstonsgaugers.org/ (model railroad club) -- [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
