Ive had a spare couple of hours in which to have a crack at building a finetrax point. Ive been very much inspired by @Belstone and the great work he has done Longframlington.
Here it is



Some observations
There is no 2 ways about it, its fiddly. But perhas only as fiddly as we could expect, after all this is N gauge.
The worst bit for me was the chairs. Each one is sepately attached to the base, There are three different types of chairs too. And each chair must go in the right way round as one side is shorter than the other. If you get it wrong, the wheels wont go over the chair, so the instructions say. Getting them off the sprue onto the knife the right way round is very diffeicult and I did all my work under a magnifier so I could see which way was the right way round.

Here is a closer view



You can see I havent got the rails lined up perfectly with the frog, and it you look closely at the V end, youll notice I still have a couple of chairs to add.

And the other end



I didnt have a problem with making the switch blades, but I think I might try and get an even sharper point on the next one I do. The jig works really well.

Ive pushed a wagon over the point and it seems to work well across the frog in both directions which is pleasing.

All in all I think this is a really good piece of kit and Wayne Kinney cant be praised enough in my opinion. Yes its fiddly but I guess itll get easier the next time.
The esiest thing was installing the stock rails which just pushed in through the chairs in a few minutes. Really easy

Next I have to wire it up and then sort out the base board for it.

Thanks for looking

Cheers
Kirky

Looks nice and neat, they get easier the more you make.

Thanks for an informative post. 

Top quality work, thanks for showing us. Please keep us informed on progress! Hope your eyesight is OK with all those fiddly little chairs, even with a magnifier!

Great job Kirky and nicely illustrated.  Not sure about the look of the cast frog, think Belstone's rail frog looks better but I guess a lot more difficult.   

I must admit that since I first became aware of this product, I have thought that the cast frog detracts from the visual aspect.

I guess it could be improved with painting, but you may end up with an insulated frog!

The "frog" gets better once chairs are added to the sides. I also used a track colouring pen to colour the metal in the flange ways and it is a lot better.

The casting gets around building the crossing nose - 2mmFs filing jigs produce a great crossing but the cast nose is a great way to have a consistent nose and flangeway - it is the price paid for the ease of building.

Certainly echo comments on subsequent ones work better.

For wiring up I cut the base for building and used 0.3 brass wire to make bond between stock and switch rail and cut and soldered dropper to frog mounting stud and more droppers to rails beyond.

There is some benefit from having longer rails after crossing nose and perhaps building crossovers as a combined set rather than each as it saves on the short rail and lining up fun!
great job and well done and welcome to finetrak
Robert 

Thank you so much everyone for the kind comments.
@robert shrives @Bealman @Caz @GroupC and of course @belstone

I agree that Richards frogs are definitely better than the cast version. Interestingly its worth pointing out that that the 2mil version Easitrak, also has a manufactured frog, albeit milled as opposed to cast. 
Readers may know that Richard has described how he made his frogs on his Longframlington thread. I was a bit reluctant to go down this road until I'd built a few points conventionally.
I've had a go at starting the next point. Spent an hour this morning making the switch blades and planting chairs. Definitely easier the second time. If I get half an hour this afty I'll try and take some more pics and see if I can finish off.
All of course if my back is ok enough to do anymore.

Thanks again for the for the kind comments guys. Much appreciated.

Kirky

The cast frog looks a lot better once it is painted (apart from the top surface, obviously).  I soldered the two rails to it (at the end furthest from the blades) to hold them in alignment and reduce the amount of wiring.  You won't melt anything if you are careful.  My main concern with the standard design is the insulating gap between the switch rails and the frog - there isn't a lot apart from the tiebar to stop the rails moving, and if that gap closes up you will end up with shorting problems.  Even if you are going to keep the cast frog, it could really do with a PCB sleeper to secure the switch rails and keep the ends aligned with the frog.  That also saves a couple more wires as you can use the PCB to bond each switch rail to the adjacent stock rail.

But overall the Finetrax product is a good balance of appearance, strength and ease of construction.  We need to see more Finetrax layouts - where are they all?

Richard

I've had a bit longer at the workbench. I've not done wiring as I said I would, but instead I've constructed another couple of points. Undoubtedly it is much easier second and third goes. The chairs seem to behave much better once the technique is mastered. Just a question of muscle memory I suppose.

Here are some more pictures


Here you can see where I've filed away a little notch for the switch blade. Seems to work OK.



And a soldered up frog as per Richard's suggestion. I will need to spend a little more time fettling, and I'm awaiting the arrival of a finer file.



A pretty poor frog in this pic, which will need a lot of attention I think.




a couple of points built together


and a third...



I've really enjoyed doing these points. Progress has been quicker than I anticipated, and I've had to get in to the garage to create a board to stick 'em onto. More of that tomorrow...I think I might start a new thread cos effectively it will be a shunting layout.

Thanks for looking and all comments welcomed.

Cheers
Kirky

they look really good and look forward to shunting layout ...
Robert

Thanks Robert, much appreciated.

Cheers
Kirky

Not sure if itsbeen said but soldering two droppers to each rail does mean if one fials you can still run - with one dropper having to make a repair will always be a pain and a bit of bomb proofing now will help with the future fun levels!

cheers
Robert 

That looks really good.  Well done!

Rail-joiners / fishplates. Are you using them? If so, who makes or sells them. Finetrax don't seem to sell them.
My finetrax points are only part assembled as I haven't decided whether to use the cast frog or use a rail built frog.
Ian