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For those of you that have never done this, here are a few photos of the procedure of building the Tillig point kits.
Here is the EW1 85430 kit. 11° left branch point kit selling for 8,47 Euro. It is the same size as the EW1 85342 11° left branch ready-made point selling for 15,19 Euro. Prices at Lokshop.de. The big question is this: Is a saving of 6,72 Euro worth it if you are going to have to build this yourself?
See below the photos for my opinion on the saving.
Here is the content of the kit. Plastic sleepers and chairs all in one piece. End rails, point blades, frog rails and a pack of connectors, tie-bar and conductive strip.
The one slightly painful aspect of doing these points is that you have to round-off the point blades, at their thinnest part. A Dremel with a small grindstone makes light work of this. The rail indicated with the red arrow is done, the other not.
Rails are easily pushed through the chairs. Do this on a flat surface. I'l holding it up in the air for the photo.
If pushing gets tough, grip the rail with some small pliers and pull them through.
The point blades are bent just before the frog (at the arrow). Easy process due to the pre notched rails.
A conductive strip is slipped through the homes in the sleepers under the frog rails.
The ends of the strip are bent over in the direction of insertion of the frog rails.
The frog rails are then slid in. The finished frog detail.
I added the fish-plates - two insulated joiners on the inner frog rails and two metal joiners on the end rails.
The most delicate part of the process is bending the little metal strips on the ends of the point blades into the tie-bar and again to hold it on. Bending it once works fine. If you try to bend it back to get a better angle, it will snap off. I tried this once and was horrified to see both little bits snap off. I now have one point with no tie-bar, but I do have a place for this on the layout so no tears were shed. Bend the little strips once slowly and get the angle right first time.
Typical Tillig point - looks good.
Coaches and other rolling stock run so well over these points. Where a couple of twin-axle private owners wagons will sometimes de-rail over Peco pints when pushed, they will stay on perfectly on these Tillig points.
So is it worth it?
Looking at the comparison between the larger W3 85450 9° Flexi-points kit and the EW3 85352 9° left branch ready-made point, the W3 85450 kit sells for 13,25 Euro and the EW3 85352 sells for 16,94 Euro. A saving of 3,69 Euro. The bigger points have rails that have to be cut and trimmed, notches have to be cut for bending and the kit also has more parts to fit including the check rails. The disadvantage is that there is more work involved and it is more tricky to do. The advantage with the larger point fit is that it can be made into a left or right, straight or curved point.
Personally, I find this process for these smaller points very easy and once you have laboured through the instructions once, you can dispense with them for the other ones that you may be doing. I think there is a saving. The bigger points... I think that the saving is minimal, when looking at the work involved. Better to spend the extra 3,69 Euro and get a professionally made point.
I hope that this convinced some people to go out and build your own points from kits.
Here is the EW1 85430 kit. 11° left branch point kit selling for 8,47 Euro. It is the same size as the EW1 85342 11° left branch ready-made point selling for 15,19 Euro. Prices at Lokshop.de. The big question is this: Is a saving of 6,72 Euro worth it if you are going to have to build this yourself?
See below the photos for my opinion on the saving.

Here is the content of the kit. Plastic sleepers and chairs all in one piece. End rails, point blades, frog rails and a pack of connectors, tie-bar and conductive strip.

The one slightly painful aspect of doing these points is that you have to round-off the point blades, at their thinnest part. A Dremel with a small grindstone makes light work of this. The rail indicated with the red arrow is done, the other not.

Rails are easily pushed through the chairs. Do this on a flat surface. I'l holding it up in the air for the photo.

If pushing gets tough, grip the rail with some small pliers and pull them through.

The point blades are bent just before the frog (at the arrow). Easy process due to the pre notched rails.

A conductive strip is slipped through the homes in the sleepers under the frog rails.

The ends of the strip are bent over in the direction of insertion of the frog rails.

The frog rails are then slid in. The finished frog detail.

I added the fish-plates - two insulated joiners on the inner frog rails and two metal joiners on the end rails.

The most delicate part of the process is bending the little metal strips on the ends of the point blades into the tie-bar and again to hold it on. Bending it once works fine. If you try to bend it back to get a better angle, it will snap off. I tried this once and was horrified to see both little bits snap off. I now have one point with no tie-bar, but I do have a place for this on the layout so no tears were shed. Bend the little strips once slowly and get the angle right first time.

Typical Tillig point - looks good.

Coaches and other rolling stock run so well over these points. Where a couple of twin-axle private owners wagons will sometimes de-rail over Peco pints when pushed, they will stay on perfectly on these Tillig points.
So is it worth it?
Looking at the comparison between the larger W3 85450 9° Flexi-points kit and the EW3 85352 9° left branch ready-made point, the W3 85450 kit sells for 13,25 Euro and the EW3 85352 sells for 16,94 Euro. A saving of 3,69 Euro. The bigger points have rails that have to be cut and trimmed, notches have to be cut for bending and the kit also has more parts to fit including the check rails. The disadvantage is that there is more work involved and it is more tricky to do. The advantage with the larger point fit is that it can be made into a left or right, straight or curved point.
Personally, I find this process for these smaller points very easy and once you have laboured through the instructions once, you can dispense with them for the other ones that you may be doing. I think there is a saving. The bigger points... I think that the saving is minimal, when looking at the work involved. Better to spend the extra 3,69 Euro and get a professionally made point.
I hope that this convinced some people to go out and build your own points from kits.