Chris Mears is building a new layout at the moment in N Scale and has chosen to hand-build the switches and track work.
In this post from the Prince Street blog he share some valuable lessons learned while building a major switch on the layout (which looks smashing by the way). Lessons like taking your time, protecting your creation until it is ready to be installed on the layout, and the value of learning from your own experience while teaching others.
I hope that you enjoy his post.