Hand Laying Model Railroad Track With No Fixtures

"SECOND UPDATE (4/29-2024)", I recently contacted Right-O-Way Scale Parts and Machining about their small spikes. They have some NOS Micro Engineering spikes in stock, get them while supplies last....because they may be the last.

"UPDATE", recently I purchased several packs of Micro Engineering's "Small Spikes" and the quality of the spikes are so poor I could not use any of them. If you are following this video and you have purchased these spikes and find spiking to hard the issue may be your spikes. I am searching for a new source of spikes and if I find a new brand I will list them here. I hope ME gets the spike situation worked out.

This is an old school method of laying model railroad track. This method uses no modern jigs or fixtures, pretty much just a file and soldering iron are all that is needed. The ties are all wood, no PC board, and rails are all spiked in place on the layout. I have build a hundred turnouts, maybe more, this way. The nice thing about this method is you can build turnouts to fit any location without being constrained to straight lines, or needing fixtures for every size and shape of your turnouts. It takes much longer to show how to build the turnout than it does to actually lay one turnout, and for me I can do one in under an hour and 30 minutes. This is not the definitive method, just one that I was taught with a few of my own tweaks along the way.