A Little Explanation ....

Well, Gordon sent me a good question. What I might think is self evident, obviously isn't. In regard to my using a "modified" FastTracks Sweepstick: Technically speaking, a sweepstick is really only billed as being a means for curving flextrack to a specific radius. When I talked to Tim Warris, he did say that they can be used as a track gauge, but that people would jump down his throat if he billed the wooden sweepsticks as a track gauge. Well, in my experience thus far, they work just fine for that purpose. However, they are not without their issues when used in that way ... First of all, here is the unaltered sweepstick that I am using for the 60" radius.

The main issue is that they will drop down within the web of the rail, where they will settle in and cause the track gauge to be too narrow. Hopefully this photo will help ...

I modified the one of the two sweepsticks by placing O scale ties along the centerline, like so ...

The ties do two things, first of all, they keep the sweepsticks from dropping down into the web of the rail, thus permitting them to be used as a track gauge. The second thing is that since they are centered, they allow me to lay the rail in the right spots on the ties. I have always had a tendency when handlaying track to "lean" a little to one side. While for most people this is not ferociously noticeable, I am not most people and when viewed from the right angle, the lop-sidedness becomes pretty apparent. This was something that I picked up on when reading Mike Cougill's book on hand laying track. He uses a three point gauge that is the width of the ties. It is a ferociously simple solution, that, to be honest, I probably wouldn't be able to apply in my case without using it on the sweepsticks. Of course, with the milling machine, I would be able to mill out a gauge of this type, well, were I to do that ... I would have to make a different gauge for each rail size if they are to be done correctly, since the rail head of each code of rail is a different size. Thus, if you want to make sure that the gauge remains correct, you need to have a gauge sized to each rail code. P48 3-point gauges are ferociously expensive and I already have a set of two for code 125, which I don't like to use. The sweepsticks, on the other hand, allow you to maintain a nice flow to the rail without that "wavey" look which is very unprototypical.

So, now, here is a photo of this little section of rail/track that I have put in the tieplates into ... now if only I could find my joint bars ....

The only problem is that the rest of the curve that has been laid already, has that lean ... grrrr. I really do need to get after distressing the other ties, though.

Thanks for the question Gordon! Sorry for not being more explicit.