Z scale End of track bumping post.

[nscaler711]

So today I received quite a bit of track from eBay, almost all of it was in perfect condition minus a few pieces were bent out of shape. so out with the broken pieces of track.

Nearly an hour into making sure all of my turnouts were in good standings with my Z scale JNR Series 485 train set, I realized that if I had any track where it just dropped off, that I would need to buy some end of track devices. Then it hit me. I grabbed the pieces of broken track out of the trash, thank somebody upstairs  that I had not buried them deeper in the trash bin so they were sitting on top, and did what I always do and made a quick ( and so far not prototypical)  Bumping post. 

Here is a Shot with one already made.

Here is another shot.

To begin this project I grabbed my nearest Xuron rail Nippers, and cut a VERY small cut ( and i mean tiny)  that ended right before the base of the rail, this is so you can bend it without tearing the metal rail.
here is a shot of my rail that i cut and bent

After I got all the pieces bent and trimmed to fit, I  added a tiny  amount of flux to the areas I was going to solder and I know you could use CA glue, but I prefer to solder because the joint is stronger...
I used a couple of heat sinks on the rails and soldered the "A" frame to the rails at a angle.

After I got that situated I moved a heat sing to the A frame and held the other bent rail with a small heatsink (lost my small needle nose pliers) and heated up the joint and set it in place.


When all that was done I used 70% alcohol and cleaned all of the flux to prep for painting.
for the paint I used Model Masters Acrylic "Rust" ( BEWARE I did a sloppy job... and its z scale so you'd have to really stare at in person)

 

Now my tiny trains wont go careening into the Grand Canyon! 
 

 

[richhotrain]

Very nice work, nscaler, and a great tutorial. 

It just goes to show what can be done with a little ingenuity.

Don't forget to gap the rails, though, or you will create a dead short as soon as you connect the tracks.

Rich

[cowman]

Good idea.

I am working on a rail load and rails waiting for use project, using some old steel rail someone gave me.  Had only thought of using the short peices in scrap load or pile.  Sounds like this could be another use for some of the short peices.

Have fun,

Richard

[Blazzin]

  Impressive and thank you for posting this.  Great tutorial!

  I've been leaning to making my own,  I was never impressed with the ones available at the LHS.

Thanks again

 

[nscaler711]

richhotrain

Very nice work, nscaler, and a great tutorial. 

It just goes to show what can be done with a little ingenuity.

Don't forget to gap the rails, though, or you will create a dead short as soon as you connect the tracks.

Rich

Thank you everyone for your comments!

-Rich if you look closely i did gap the rails on that last picture, one bumper rail on the other has a piece of styrene glued to the end of the rail so it wont make contact, not to mention i removed the rail joiners so at least one rail will be isolated. But its a great tip for others, trying to do the same!

Also just a heads up this works in just about every scale too, in HO you could use N scale rail to make it more prototypical, (  I built one in HO & N also this is how i came up with the idea) 

[Mavryk]

Do your eyes hurt when you go from G scale to Z?

[nscaler711]

No not really, give me 10 years and yes probably. But I havent messed around with g for awhile.