Central Valley Turnout Refinements

After my first attempts building Central Valley Turnouts, as documented earlier in the blog, I was a bit disappointed both in my work and some of the kit components. 

The major problem I was having was with the points of the turnout. I liked the stock pivot and the points supplied in the kit but the method the kit used to attach the points to the throw bar left a bit to be desired. I tried to use a PC tie as the throw bar, soldering the kit points to it, and using the stock pivot in the plastic tie strip. After several attempts I could not seem to get a good solder joint between the points and the PC tie.

I let the project sit for a while until I could come up with a better solution. The solution came two weeks ago when I found Joe Fugate's blog on building CVTs; I had found my answer. I have included a link to his blog in my Model Railroading Links sidebar. (Note: I still build my frogs as I did in my previous posts.)

He uses a combination of  CVT tie strips, PC ties, and Fast tacks filing jigs. I did not invest in the filing jig but can see where it would be handy to have if building many turnouts of the same size.

I have now built the 3 turnouts (#6, #7, #9) needed for the main line of my module set, and could not be happier with the strong and functional results. Now work can begin on getting the main line in place.