I am using a six foot, 1/4" x 1/4" Lexan strip as a spline to lay out "fair" curves on my current layout. Compound track work through turnouts, spiral easements, and the like are easily corrected to visual smoothness with the spline. I just eyeball the tangents from one end, with a light shining on the far end to highlight the rail head; a steel straightedge is good, too. The Lexan strip came from a local plastic fabricator for a couple of dollars. Micro Engineering weathered (painted) flex track requires patience and a good set of callouses to ease into shape; I found I could get it right by running my fingers along the tie-ends to open or close the radius until it is "close enough" to perfection. Before I figured out how to do it, I nearly scrapped the lot and bought more flexible track, but, now that it is done I am happy with the result. It does retain a curve, no question (unlike the easy-bend stuff I used for staging on the lower level).
Why not use a fairing batten long enough to reach from tangent to tangent? Made of 1/4x1/4 straight grain hardwood or plastic and temporarily tacked in place, it would provide a smooth guide. Letting the batten take its natural curve will make the gradual transition from straight to curve to straight. Then it is just a matter of butting the ties to the batten and spiking in place.
Geohan.
Actually British OO scale models are LARGER than corresponding HO ones.
Britain, having invented railways, like many other pioneers got it slightly wrong and their trains are somewhat smaller than European ones and considerably smaller than North American ones.
In early days, pre WW2, the crude mechanisms of the time could not be fitted into HO models of British stock and OO was adopted instead. American OO of the same time used the same 1/76 scale but on 19mm track and has virtually totally died out in favour of HO.
British OO is by far the most popular scale for modelling standard gauge railways. It scales out at 4'-2" gauge but that is not really too noticeable unless the stock is viewed head on.
For those requiring greater accuracy, EM (Eighteen Millimeter) and Scalefour (18.83 mm) gauges are available but not in RTR. These models are either scratchbuilt or converted from commercially available OO models.
British structure and scenery models are readily available in 1/76 scale.
BTW if you recheck your maths I think you meant to say reduced TO 87%, not BY 87% which would give an extremely small model.
Hope this helps,
Alex
I tried ordering ribbon rail a few times from Walthers but they were out of stock, maybe I'll give them a try this week, I did realize the price was per unit but still thought it wasn't too bad of a price.I will eventually have one section of the layout where there will be three track on one sweeping curve hence my interest in track alignment tools. If it goes as planned it should be a pretty nice looking scene that is if I can get my spacing and curvature exact. I know some guys subscribe to the school of thought that real track is not perfectly straight or level giving trains that rocking motion but I have found the need to be as exact as I can make it for better operation. My skill set and my eyes just aren't that great so I guess so I have to rely on tools
jrbernier 1/76 British OO scale used the same 16.5 mm track gauge as 1/87 American HO scale.
Interesting; something like narrow gauge; structures and scenery need to be reduced by 87% or so.
Co-owner of the proposed CT River Valley RR (HO scale) http://home.comcast.net/~docinct/CTRiverValleyRR/
I've found that a strip of 1/4" plywood, marked-off in 1" increments from a pivot-point near one end, works for most situations. Drill a pencil-size hole at each mark, starting at the one for your chosen minimum radius, and working up to whatever you feel would be the maximum for which you have room. Drill a hole for the pivot, too (I used an ordinary nail, but a screw might be better), then start laying out your trackplan.
Wayne
As Jim mentions Ribbonrail makes something that works the same way, and those have been available for years; I think at one time it was the Baumgarten or Baumgartner line. They also make a variety of other track laying tools and aids for soldering or nailing or ballasting track.
When laying flex track that is very easily curved but which tends to return to being straight on its own, such as Atlas, I slowly run the alignment gauge through the rails and nail the ties to the roadbed as I go -- the track simply doesn't hold a curve so in a sense you are fighting the track every inch of the way.
For tangents I run the longest tangent alignment gauge through the Atlas track a few times just to make sure I have worked out any little kinks or bends, but you can find yourself introducing little bends if you try to lay a perfect Atlas flex track tangent using even the longest Ribbonrail tangent alignment gauge -- a metal 3' straight edge is a useful supplement, not to mention constant eyeballing the results and not being afraid to go back and do over.
Other lines of flex track are considerably harder to bend, sometimes to the point of risking damaging the track. Micro Engineering is one example, PSC (maker of a 3' flex track with super elevation already built into the ties) is another. There I run the curved alignment gauge through the track over and over (maybe a dozen times) in an effort to get the curve fully established -- the track will hold the curve fairly well although I have to tell you, you can run, say, a 36" radius alignment gauge through the track many times and still not end up with a perfect 36" radius curve -- might be closer to 38" or larger. Sometimes I actually run a much smaller radius alignment gauge through just to get the curve I really want. That is a why a large selection of curve radius is very useful -- don't just buy the curve size you want, in other words. At least that is my experience. (I bought mine in a set with a big selection of tangent lengths and curve radii).
Sometimes a little manual forcing is needed to get that more rigid flex track to the true radius. But the advantage is that once the track has held the curve I want, I can then take the curved tracks outside to paint the rails. If you do that before bending, then you have the little shiny spots show where the molded spike heads formerly masked the rail side.
The tangent alignment gauges are also useful for truly straightening out those more rigid makes of flex track. Anyone who has tried to lay a perfect tangent using rigid flex track that has even a slight bend to it knows how challenging that can be.
Dave Nelson
Ribbonrail makes metal alignment gauges in several lengths of straight, and in curves from 15" radius to 48" radius. I have several of the straight ones, and some of the curved ones. Walthers carries the line:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?manu=RIBBONRAIL&item=&words=restrict&split=30&category=&scale=H&instock=Q&keywords=track%20alignment%20gauge&start=0
Doc,
1/76 British OO scale used the same 16.5 mm track gauge as 1/87 American HO scale.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
It is per piece.
Isn't the fact that it is 00 (1:76) a potential problem?
Looking at another site, I think that the price shown is for each piece, not a set: http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/category/760/Tracksetta. It looks like the TRA00T42 in your link would be for a 42 inch radius. So the price of a set could climb pretty quickly if you needed a selection of curves.
That said, I have one of the plastic straight pieces that seems to work pretty well most of the time. The curved pieces should also work okay, assuming of course that they happen to make one in the curve radius you really need.
The other day I posted a link for track laying tools provided by a machinist who lets say improved on the tools you buy from Micromark making them out of stainless steel and aluminum instead of plastic. Well before I closed out the search page I did a little clicking around and came across a site in the UK that sells these track laying templates. A pretty neat idea, has anyone ever seen or used anything like this before? @ $7.14 plus shipping it seems like it would be worth a try.
http://www.ontracks.co.uk/index.php?page=product&prodID=61333