What size hole should I drill for a tortoise?

Just a thought; why not follow the directions. If that doesn't work to your satisfaction, THEN you can enlarge the whole slightly.

Easy answer, Adam.  You only need enough throw so that it doesn't hit the sides of the hole.

Grab a spare bit of baseboard and set one up.  BTW, the hole can also be a slot.

Cheers

Hot water,

The directions, as I mentioned are for HO/S. Not O.  

I figured I would ask to see if It being O made a difference. 

I am so sorry if my silly little question bothered you so much. 

Adam

Don't be sorry, Adam.

The only silly question is the one you don't ask.

Everyone's here to help.

Cheers

I installed numerous Tortoise switch machines by drilling a 1/4 inch diameter hole in the plywood deck. Use 1/32 inch diameter steel wire for the pivot arm. When setting this switch machine below the track switch make sure that the switch point slide bar is centered shim the points on the slide bar the same thickness from straight and diverging stock rails. Also the left and right throw of  pivot arm and points slide bar are inline , no angularity. I also RTV as an adhesive to hold the Tortoise  in position for this alignment apply the RTV to the mounting base of the Tortoise for this alignment, allow the RTV to set up, test the point and lever arm for proper function, also prior to apply applying the Tortoise to the bottom of the plywood deck make sure that the vertical slide wire tension is positioned near the mounting base of the Tortoise once installation is complete by applying the mounting screws(4) to the Tortoise mounting face and plywood sheet adjust the points tension against the normal(straight) and divergent(arced) stock rails.

With the last one I put in (Ross hi-rail turnout), I drilled two 1/4" holes in line with each other (actually overlapping) and filed it into an oval-shaped slot. Plenty of clearance for the throw wire.

adferraro posted:

Hot water,

The directions, as I mentioned are for HO/S. Not O.  

I figured I would ask to see if It being O made a difference. 

I am so sorry if my silly little question bothered you so much. 

Adam

Your question didn't bother me as apparently YOU are bothered by a simple answer. Just because the instructions are for HO/S, is the throw wire size any different than the throw wire for O SCALE? I will stand by my previous post/suggestion, i.e. try the 1/4" hole first, and modify as needed.  

My roadbed is 1/2"plywood and 1/2' Homasote .  I drilled 1/2" hole and then sometimes I had to elongate for proper throw.  "I am 3 rail Gargraves so the ties are thick also." 

Clem

I am not an expert but I have installed about 50 odd tortoise machines on the layout and started off using a 3/8 hole finally decided to use 5/16 hole for the last 20 odd machines.

My turnouts are either Peco or Marcway copper clad turnouts O scale of course.  I also use.040 wire for the spring wire tortoise supply a .025 thick wire I found it not strong enough.

Some of my machines have now been doing service for 6-8 years without anything going wrong.

If you centered the throwbar accurately  you could probably get away with 1/4 hole I am a bit shaky and often by myself fitting them so I made the hole a bit bigger it looks ugly in the photo but I don't care they all work fine that's all I care about I don't even notice the hole to busy running trains.

Take care.

Roo.

Adam -

I personally installed and/or assisted a close friend to install about 220 Tortoise motors on his very large 2-rail O-scale layout, all hand-laid rail, the largest mainline rail code 125 and secondary code 100. In most cases the roadbed was 1/2" Micore on top of 1/2" plywood. A few things we learned that I sincerely hope may help you as well:

• Start by drilling the largest hole that fits between the ties, at the center of where you want the Tortoise wire to go through the throw bar. There is no need to damage ties, whether hand-laid or in commercial track.
• Use a "roto" bit normally used to cut drywall in a "Screaming Banshee Handmill" a/k/a Dremel, to cut a slot parallel to the ties and extending to each side. The result isn't a round hole, but rather a slot.
• Toss the small diameter Tortoise wire and substitute a long but thicker piece of piano wire, bent to fit the Tortoise motor. It may be necessary to drill a larger hole in the black Tortoise actuator arm and perhaps even through the pivot. We do both.

By the way, mounting the Tortoise motors can be greatly simplified by first attaching them to a thin piece of wood, with slots cut for #6 wood or machine screws to adjust the throw bar center position.

Wishing you all the best!

I should have mentioned that my roadbed is 1/2 inch plywood, I use Gargrave 3 Rail Phantom track and Midwest Products cork roadbed. For switches(Ross and Gargraves) and wyes(Ross) I traced the outlines of the switches and wyes on 1/4 inch Lauan plywood , cut the shape out as a pattern, and used the pattern to make the number of required shim bases for the switches and wyes. The elevation height of the switches and wyes on this Lauan and track on cork roadbed are nearly identical, this saved custom cutting cork sheets for the switches and wyes. Also for the 1/32 dia steel pivot wire, this is available from K&S metals or from distributors the formed shape of this wire on the Circuitron Tortoise Instruction sheet can be made using hobby needle nose pliers and wire cutter rated to shear steel wire. 

Thank you all for your advice, it is very helpful.

My recommendation, based on my experience, is that it's better to have too large a hole than too small a one -- and this applies in both the plane of the rail as well as the plane of the tie.  This is because minor adjustments to the flow of trackwork can have domino effects on adjoining turnouts, especially in high turnout density areas.   I used the drill + RotorZip [ tool ] approach to elongate the holes.

The visual problem of the too-large hole was solved by putting pieces of plastic channel to either side of the throw rod to simulate the protective guards for dragging equipment [ that might throw the turnout under the train ].  The channel also neatly solved the problem of keeping ballast, loose or glued, away from the throw bar and hole, so much so that I used it even where it was unnecessary to mask a hole.

Best regards, SZ

Come on guys.  It really depends on what size tortoise you're dealing with.  Sometimes you just need a trough.