Okay gang. I kept working at fixing this turnout, building on your input to see if I could make something work. I think I have something now. If this doesn't work or last, I'll try the small joiner old Wathers method. I hadn't look at the recent posts when I had this other idea going.
One thing about this particular fix that I came up with - it is no doubt very time consuming and definitely an Advil headache. Here's what I did.
I found a couple of old brass screws in my junk pile with a diameter just a tad bigger than the pivot hole. I had to file down the threads by just a quck rub of the file to get the screw into the hole and also grind off the screw head. Grinding the head gave me a good surface to weld the screw shank to the bottom of the track surface. I also roughed up the bottom of the track.
Next I used the third hand of the alligator clips on the solder stand and used a pair of needle nose to align the screw to the track bottom. I used only a very small amount of flux on the joint. After much effort and making sure I had plenty of heat on both parts, I dipped the solder tip into a bit of solder and let the solder flow through the joint. I kept it aligned and in place for at least a minute to give the materials time to cool.
It took me a good amount of time to clean up the excess solder to get things aligned because it was making the track off center to the frog and running too high. That part was as much frustrating as anything. The final cleanup looks decent and after weathering perhaps it won't be noticed too much. I put a couple pieces of track attached to it and run a car over it to see and hear how well it performs. The gap is actually closer and pretty tight but the rail still turns freely. It still has a tiny vertical hump but didn't appear to affect truck/wheelset performance. All wheels appeared stayed grounded to track surfaces.
This is my last post. I am attaching my flickr link (I'll keep it open to the public for a couple more days) so you can see the final two pictures of the screw stud welded to the bottom of the track and through the tie. I sincerely appreciate your input and support. I just hope the rest of the turnouts hold up while I complete the layout. I have almost completed all of the homasote and still tuning my lift out section. I plan to go back to do the pc board tie plate because I read those parts tend to break also, thanks to the post and link you have provided for me to use.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/145992018@N07/
On a little side note of railroad history, my dad was the roadmaster for Santa Fe who had responsibility to put Big Boy into the museum of the Americal Railroad at State Fair of Texas in Dallas back during the 1960's. I watched them move Big Boy around the last corner to get it into the park. Because it had so many axles, they cut the drivers to each drive wheel and thoroughly greased the track to make the final turn home. I was there all day watching it make that small, short turn, all the while sitting up against a warehouse building just a stones from it all. After the first hour of watching it, it got so boring to me because they were moving only a couple feet at a time, if that much. Even worse, the enormity of the high pitch squeals of the wheels against the track was ear piercing. But I don't regret having seen it, looking back. That was one awesome locomotive and I was happy knowing it was being preserved. Since then as you modelers know, it's been moved to it's new, present home in Frisco, Texas. I hope to get back there someday again to see it in its new home. Railroads and the people that have been a part of them have created so much history for our nation for so many years and will continue to do so for a long time.
Happy New Year modelers and thanks to each of you again for your help.
ChooChoo Johnson
Here's a link to more pictures of the turnouts. No worries about access to this site. I have only established it for the sole purpose of public viewing of model trains only. My private photos will never be found on any servers or clouds.
Zoom in on the rail piece to see the cutout in the base of the rail. I have tried welding a small piece of wire on both sides of the rail base slots. Note the solder on the sides. Almost worked, not quite robust enough. I think the opening of the tie was a little over 2.48 mm. I really can't recall at the moment.
I tried to drill into the bottom of the rail to insert a screw last night but by golly this stuff is hard and the rail is actually smaller in width at the bottom for the orgininal molded fastener to capture it under the tie.
I am definitely looking at all options you guys are giving me. Anyway that I can make it work, it's worth a try. My gut says over time I will have more fail due to age of the molded plastic. I have halogens for lighting to avoid UV damage to scenery, so that won't impact it. Neither will temps as the room is set in a controlled environment.
My soldering gun gave out on my after many, many years of loyal, dedicated service today, too. Still have an independent Radio Shack store here with some goods so I picked up a new one today - thank goodness some are still around.
dknelsonHere is one that sounds nuts - likely IS nuts. Back in the days when even we guileless and callow youths were expected to hand lay track, a common short cut for handlaid turnouts was to use a regular old railjoiner ("fishplates" we called them) for the place where the closure rails were expected to pivot; they had enough "give" in them to hold the rail to gauge -- mostly -- while still allowing it to move.
My Walthers code 83 turnouts use a tiny rail joiner at that joint. Not so crazy
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Could You also post a photo of the top of the turnout where that connection is made? I may have a fix for You.......
Take Care!
Frank
The photo helps. I THINK I can figure out what the topside of the turnout looks like at that spot. A number of elegant and highly impractical solutions come to mind and the risk is high of creating a sort of Frankenstein's monster turnout. One risk for the inventive mind is that the photo, as posted by Henry, is so big and nicely detailed that it leads you to think all sorts of things are practical until you remember it is Code 83 rail and HO gauge we're dealing with here, not Code 148 and O gauge.
For example drilling out the nub of the former rivet, drilling into the rail web, tapping the hole for the smallest threaded rod out there, and putting a nut on that rod in the round opening that has been circled. Possible in O but ship in a bottle stuff in HO. And I'm talking like threaded rod that small is even available.
Is there any of the nub that extends down into that "hole" or circle such that spikes on either side of the rail driven through the plastic tie could hold it in place yet be flexible enough to let the thing work? For those who like to live dangerously, driving a spike into a plastic tie with a soldering iron and letting the melted plastic harden back into holding the spike tightly is possible if risky.
Here is one that sounds nuts - likely IS nuts. Back in the days when even we guileless and callow youths were expected to hand lay track, a common short cut for handlaid turnouts was to use a regular old railjoiner ("fishplates" we called them) for the place where the closure rails were expected to pivot; they had enough "give" in them to hold the rail to gauge -- mostly -- while still allowing it to move.
If the rail was cut through at this spot and a railjoiner inserted .... man, I don't know, but it could work. Or make repair impossible.
When calculating the cost of a replacement turnout don't forget to factor in the cost of the tylenol you'd need for the headaches caused by trying to fix this thing.
Dave Nelson
Here's my first attempt to paste a picture in spite of my massive disdain for social media due to so much open source code and formatting that gets into everyone's everything...but here it is. If anyone knows the solution to polution for repairing this I'm open to it. I though of welding some solid wire on each side of track and running it through the opening of the tie as an option also. Aaaargh!
Henry,
Thank you for your reply. They are Roco branded. Unfortunately when I purchased them years ago I looked at the rails and ties for quality without opening the box, not thinking of how it was mechanically attached to operate (duh). I had some old Atlas customlines with the big rivet head exposed - more robust but less prototypical and didn't like.
Dave,
Thank you for replying. It's the closure rail pivot at the frog end. If it was at the throwbar it definitely would have been much easier. Attach points of tie to rail are made of molded plastic, and captures the rail on the sides. Definitely different.
Dave I am not having much luck yet posting a photo. Still very much a novice to using these types of media for communications. Don't have a URL address to connect the pic and browser doesn't support pasting. Just my luck.
to the forum
Are these Atlas branded Roco?
According to this thread, they may have been produced around 1990
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/76474.aspx
In that thread Texas Zephyr had problems with the points coming off the throwbar. I am guessing that could be fixed by soldering the points to a circuit board throwbar.
Posting a picture of your problem is not hard, but you won't be able to do it unless you read and follow the directions in this sticky post"
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/249194.aspx
Having neither experience nor interest in hand laid track, I would lean toward replacement rather than repair.
I am hobbled by the fact that I do not have a Roco turnout to study, nor do I think I have ever seen one. I am further hobbled by the fact that the magazine index on this website rarely works any more, and when I can find an article using that index, the Archive of past MR issues sends me to an error page associated with Discover magazine! Let's not even get into "customer service." I was looking for an article by Pelle Soeberg which I thought was on this topic.
Repair is as a rule not impossible although in my (very limited) experience a repaired Atlas turnout was never 100% even if usable.
Now that I have a truly permanent layout with ballasted track etc. I'd buy a replacement for that very reason. I have enough anger management issues as it is!
If just one of your 8 Rocos is going to fail in this way, replace it. If there is a risk that all will fail in this way once installed, that is a tough pill to swallow but I wouldn't trust them.
Is this the pivot at the throwbar or the pivot where the closure rails approach the frog? (If you don't know what I am talking about this helpful tutorial goes through quite a bit of education about turnouts, including Roco:
https://dccwiki.com/Turnout
There was an interesting article in the March 2013 issue of MR "Rebuild turnouts in place" by Frank Benenati. In essence he takes a commercial turnout and does the throwbar and points all over. There might be ideas in there you could use. But his goal was improving turnouts not repairing.
You posted this in the Forum for getting help with using the Forum. I'm moving it to the Model Railroader General Discussion Forum so you can possibly get the answer you need.
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
I have several Roco code 83 turnouts I purchased years ago, new in box from an estate sale. I am just now installing them to my 10x22 layout and I have made an alarming discovery. I found one of the pivot fasteners broken off. I read somewhere recently this was a problem for that particular turnout. I own eight of them and there’s no way I can afford the expense to purchase replacements.
Has anyone of the modelers in this forum found a robust way to repair these pivots? I though of drilling and putting some screws in the bottom but by gollly try drilling nickel silver... The other thought was to put a bead of solder on the bottom of the track, but I wouldn’t have any dimensional stability to keep the track properly aligned.
Thank you. ChooChoo Johnson