I just finished laying and wiring all the track for my new layout, and I'm getting ready to use Tortoises for the first time. Trouble is, the points on many of my turnouts wound up being directly above 2x4's of the underlying frame. I couldn't anticipate the positions of these 2x4's when I was drawing up my track plan, and I didn't want to change and re-lay the various rights-of-way just to have only plywood under my turnouts.
So I ended up drilling thru the 2x4's; I figured I could just substitute a longer wire for those situations. But a friend of mine is telling me it won't work, and that I have to change the positions of the 2x4's. I'm not a carpenter by any stretch, so I can't figure out any possible way of "moving the 2x4s" without pulling up the trackwork, then tearing down and rebuilding the existing benchwork in those locations.
Is there any way I could possibly make the tortoises work without having to do something that extreme?
TIA
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
Yes.
The LION mounts some of his Tortoise machines along a rear fascia, and then with a router cutting a groove in the table top for a throw rod that reaches to the Tortoise. You can see where the rods go in this picture.
By cutting these rods east or west a little you will be able to mount the turtle under the table like normal, or what I am doing is mounting them on the rear edge of the table.
Now what I have is a turtle glued to the rear fascia with its actuator pointed up, and I have a rod (I used 1/16" welding rod) linking between them. Center the actuator on the Tortoise, slip a hallow snip of wire insulation over the actuator. Using some very fine solid copper wire, lash the insulator to the switch rod, and then center the switch points. When both actuator and switch points are centered (the control rod still slips through the wire lashings to the actuator sleeve) solder the lashing to the control rod and you are done.
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
There are many alternate ways to link the Tortoise to the points, which don;t require the Tortoise to be directly below the throw rod. A couple are talked about in some other threads in this section, or you can google for them. ANother alternative is servos, which are not only much smaller, they are cheaper in the logn run. If the throwbar is directly over a 2x4 though, you still need to use an alternative linkage.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
RTM—Remote Tortoise™ Mount
http://circuitron.com/index_files/Tortoise.htm
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Thank you all for the replies, gents!
I suspected there had to be some way to use these devices without major surgery on the benchwork. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that only one of my 9 mission critical [i.e. not reachable from the aisle] turnout locations has this problem, and that one is only half-obscured:
...so I should be able to use a "Z"-bent throw lever if I offset the tortoise mount point by a few inches :
The other 8 unreachables are standard-mountable. The rest, I can probably use Caboose hand throws.