General Discussion (Model Railroader)

Take a piece of wood.  Use a razor saw to make a slot in it a couple inches long.  lay the rail on its side , with the base of the rail in the slot and use a mill file to file away the head and base of the rail to form the point.

Dave H.

Jake1210 wrote:

You can file it by hand with a mill file, but that is very difficult and can misshape the points or the notches in the stock rail. Recently FastTracks came out with a tool similar to the PointForm that allows you to file the notch in the stock rail and taper the point rails, I believe it was called the StockAid. Look on their website, (handlaidtrack.com) it should be under 'point building tools' on the left.

Say what?

This arthritic old coot (I can say that, but you had better not!) has been shaping rail for hand-laid turnouts with a BIG mill file since well before FastTracks came into business.  All it takes is a delicate hand, a close eye for what is going on and a good idea of where you are trying to go.

Granted that quick, sloppy, careless work can result in worthless scrap.  In my experience, the more usual reason for unsatisfactory results is the use of little needle files where a 1" by 12" flat file would be a better choice.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on hand-laid specialwork)

mike33469 wrote:

How can I file down the switch point rail when building a Fast Track turnout without a belt sander?

I used a bench grinder before getting a Delta Sander. The sander is much better actually.

The sanders disk came handy for other projects (work bench), that thing sands like crazy. In any case go easy so you dont heat the rail up to much.

You can buy the sander from HD. Most stores dont stock it tho, had to get mine on-line. I thought the UPS guy was going to suffer a rupture when he put it on the porch.

Jules

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=2485

For this price, why knock yourself out? When I worked in a machine shop, THIS was easily the most used tool.