I don't remember seeing the 1985 article. When I made mine I used music wire and bent up the end piece to engage a hole in the dowel and another hole in the slide switch.
Turnout_slide by Edmund, on Flickr
I made the aluminum brackets and slotted the mounting holes to give me a little adjustment to keep the points tight against the stock rails.
IMG_1317 by Edmund, on Flickr
Where you see the 90° bend in the wire where it passes through the Bakelite switch I left the wire long enough on the far (unseen) side so that I could carefully give it a slight bend, just enough to hold the wire in place.
I did use a dab of epoxy to hold the vertical wire in place.
Another 90° bend holds the wire into the dowel and I was fortunate enough to have those copper ferrules (Sta-Kon wire crimps) however in later assemblies I used a piece of heat shrink tubing to secure the bent wire to the dowel. It made things nice and secure.
I passed the rods through a blank, polycarbonate cover plate to make things tidy.
IMG_1333 by Edmund, on Flickr
IMG_1336 by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
My guess would be a bend in the brass wire, one on each side of the toggle. However, I would think that .031" piano wire would be a better choice, as brass wire fatigues much faster than steel.
I use piano wire with Blue Point switch machines, for turnouts that are mostly out-of-reach, and also use one Tortoise, along with some Rapido switch motors, and a couple of Fulgurex turnout motors.
The easiest ones to install though, are these with a bent piece of piano wire...
...easily flipped by a fingertip.
All of the turnouts on the staging tracks are controlled by Caboose Industries ground-throws.
Wayne
Finally ran across the MR article I was looking for in the Sept. 2004 magazine, called "Simple, Reliable Turnout Controls". The only issue I have with the installation process is, John Saxon says he drilled a horizontal .031" hole through the toggle's base and pushed a .031" brass wire into it to throw the switch rod. He says it should fit tight but does not glue it into the hole. What keeps it from sliding back out of the toggle's base?
Capt. Brigg Franklin, CEO Pacific Cascade Railway in HO scale.http://www.pacificcascaderailway.com/
Peter, thank you for your response. The article I have in mind is somewhere in the last 10 years and places the SPDT slide switch in a hole at the level of the plywood sub-roadbed and also placed a flag or sign above the SPDT switch handle in addition to the wire to the turnout switch rod. I may have to re-read al my past MR magazines. :)
Again thanks;
Capt. Brigg
Capt., May 1985 issue of MR, page 126-128, Simple Turnout Control article shows using a DPDT slide switch for manual throw.
Regards, Peter
Somewhere in one of my hundreds of past MR magazines is an article about using a SPDT slide switch to manually throw the points on a turnout and power the frog. If someone can remember what issue the article is in, I would really appreciate the help. Thanks;
Capt. Brigg Franklin; CEO Pacific Cascade Railway, in HO gauge.