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String and pencil is accurate enough for train work.  As for "best", if you're using

flex track you will be able to put easements on the straight/curve transitions.  For that, you can use a program like AnyRail and print out a 1:1 template and use

that with a scroll saw or router.

 

-Mark

I bought the Rotape from MicroMark. It's a tape measure that has a pencil lead holder at the tape end and a steel center post on the spool end. You simply pull the tape out to the radius desired and scribe the arc. I would suggest using a helper to keep the pin in the wood once you're out beyond arm's reach to both ends. Used this to lay out the curves on the rebuild. I then used the first curved pieces to do the rest of them so I didn't have to worry about arc centers that fell off the ply sheets.

 

Rotape

 

Once the curves were drawn, I used a saber saw for all curves and a circular saw for all tangents. Since scenery is going to go against all curved roadbed edges, the smoothness of the curves wasn't a critical issue.

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  • Rotape

I use a homemade compass, too, but it's nowhere near as slick as Jim's:

 

I just drill holes in a wooden yardstick. I drill a hole at 1" and insert a wood screw: this is the pivot point. Then I just drill holes as needed for other radii, remembering to add 1" to everything--so an O-36 gets a hole at 19", for example.

 

Naturally, this will not work for O-72 or larger curves, but, then, what's to stop one from taping two yardsticks together!!! Nothing but our fear of greatness, I say!

Originally Posted by nickaix:

I use a homemade compass, too, but it's nowhere near as slick as Jim's:

 

I just drill holes in a wooden yardstick. I drill a hole at 1" and insert a wood screw: this is the pivot point. Then I just drill holes as needed for other radii, remembering to add 1" to everything--so an O-36 gets a hole at 19", for example.

 

Naturally, this will not work for O-72 or larger curves, but, then, what's to stop one from taping two yardsticks together!!! Nothing but our fear of greatness, I say!

If you can get hold of a "meter stick" that will cover an O-72 centerline + 2 inches using your technique above. They sell them at some educational supply stores. My high school chem and physics teachers had them.

I use a very expensive high-tech system (ha!). I sink a small nail, cut a small notch in each end of a wooden yarstick, place one notch against the nail and put a pencil in the other end. That gives you a O72 diameter curve. For smaller curves, drill a hole at the proper measurement. For larger curves I clamp another yardstick extension to the end. Simple but effective.

Sorry for the delay...we took a Labor Day trip back East to visit family.

 

That sounds like a terrific idea, but it would cost me a bundle in ink and paper... not counting the scotch tape to hold all the letter-sized sheets together.

 

During the last two weeks, I've been building a Berkshire Valley 40s gas station. It wasn't supposed to be a big deal since I was hoping to work on it with my younger grandson, but it wasn't as easy to create as I thought and I've ended up building it instead of building the railroad.

 

I tried using a PC Projector to project the ply images from the computer (done in CorelDraw), but it distorted the image too much, the OSB sheets were too badly bowed to hold a straight image, so I scrapped the idea and went back to laying out the sheets using the Rotape and some templates.

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