Parsimonious points

 One of the reasons, perhaps the main one, I settled on a light railway theme is that the tight radius of set track points don't look too out of place. The reason for set track points? Well they tend to be the cheapest of the commercial offerings on the second hand market. At the recent Shrewsbury model railway show I saw a box of them on a traders stall at two quid a pop. This would be fairly typical of the price asked on e-bay though buying face to face is better as it does allow for weeding out any damaged duffers.

We should all know by now that live frog points work far better than their dead frog counterparts and unfortunately OO set track points are universally dead frog. However this isn't much of a problem as it's remarkably easy to turn them into live frog jobbies. Unfortunately I can't offer step by step photos, but I can outline what's involved. Work starts with pulling out the frog rails horizontally so the plastic rail fixings aren't damaged. The thin electrical jumper strips will become detached but this isn't a problem, cut their remains away. Next cut away the plastic part of the frog but leave the flangeway mouldings which will hold the replacement rails in place; a sharp craft knife will trim away the plastic easily. Two replacement frog rails (longer than those pulled out) need to be cut from some spare rail, filed so they come together to a point and slotted back into the rail fixings. They will need soldering together where they meet and any excess solder dressed back with a file.

Here's the finished item. On the reverse side electrical connections need to be made to replace those broken at the earlier stage.

A wire links the new all metal frog to switch rails, Job done. Of course this technique can be used to liven up any piece of dead frog pointwork; I've done a few diamond crossings this way.