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And yes, it IS all it's cracked up to be.
As to hinged points... I've had good success drilling holes up through the base of the point rails at the hinge end, and silver-soldering pieces of steel wire into the holes. Then I drilled holes through the ties in the turnout, inserted the wires, and bent them on the underside of the switch to secure them. The wires also provided spring tension to the points so they didn't need to be secured to the throw bar--they remained pinned against a block in the middle that pushed the points to one position or the other.
In your opinion. I have had different experiences. But I suppose they don't count.
Do you have any photos of this installation? I'm not quite grasping how the spring action is supposed to work, nor how the points don't need to be secured to the throw bars. But I'm intrigued!
Taking all of this in (and never having build a turnout myself yet), I really like the idea of using continuous closure/point rail and then simply notching the base of the rail to make the rail more flexible. After all, don't the 1:1 turnouts have continuous closure/pint rails which simply flex when the points are thrown? I don't think they have any sort of a hinge.
Thanks for the diagram David, now I get what you're doing. One follow-up question: do you set the springs so the tension on each point is towards the centre-line of the track or towards the stock rail? Given the throw-bar design, it would seem to be towards the center.
I'm assuming DKS's "wire rod throwbar" also rubs against the underside of the stock rails, to keep the closure points at the right height (if not, please 'splain how you do that, or if you think it's necessary).