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Frog Electrical Isolation
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I scratchbuild my turnouts and use DCC. I find it best to insolate the frog. I fill the frog with solder and use a short piece of hack saw blade to cut the flangeways. To help hold the 1" piece of hacksaw blade I cut a grove in a piece of wood dowel and glued the blade into it. Using the hacksaw blade really cuts the solder. I used to use file but the files would just get loaded with the soft solder and I would spend alot of time cleaning them. After I solder the frogs and cut the flangways I run a pair of truck that have perfectly gauged wheels through the frog and listen and feel for any clicks. I should note that you must have the gard rails in at this point. If you find clicks and ruff spots fix them, don't think any click is small and isn't worth fixing. Fix it now and you will never have trouble later. Also, if all of your cars have RP-25 wheels then cut the flange ways deep enough to clear the NMRA standard gauge. if you do these steps up to this point you will have a quite smooth switch. Next I cut the rails on both the front and the back of the frog. To cut the rails I use an Atlas razor saw that I modified by cutting the blade so it is only about 1/2" to 3/4" long. This allows me to get the blade to cut all the way through the rails with out hitting the outter stock rails. I fill the gaps with thick ACC. I leave my frogs dead, no power to them. With DCC, if you have powered frogs and someone run through it, and the power is routed for the other route, the short created will shut down every track connected to that tracks booster.
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