What do folks think of the technique of NOT soldering track joints. The reason here is things are easily repairable. (It’s the UNsoldering that is hard). Now, since the track joints aren’t soldered you just solder power on EVERY piece of track. Presto, solid power connections. This is with foam roadbed and glued track.
I dunno, which is better? Do I really need to solder track joints?
Several points…
If you are using flextrack on curves there is no question that you solder the joints, or you will have kinks. Even with sectional track I think I solder groups together, I think things would stay aligned better.
On the repairable side, what are you planning to be ripping up? By the time you’ve ballasted, etc., you are not planning to take it up anyway. The exception being turnouts, which you would be justified on not soldering, many people don’t
I think the right approach is to solder sections of track together, maybe six feet or so, and solder power feeders to each of these sections. The unsoldered joints should be gapped a little bit (I’ve seem the width of a business card used as a guide), to allow thing to move a bit with temperature and humidity changes.
There is such a thing as “solder wick” that actually sucks up molten solder. So, if you feel that soldering most of your joints will help your layout, just have some solder wick handy for the hopefully rare occasions when you have to undo a soldered join.
Rail joiners are really nifty things, but they permit the rails to slide back and forth in them as conditions dictate…items rolling over the joints, heat changes causing the ends to extend and then recede, and so on. Over time the joiners don’t keep quite the original grip, and then continuity problems start to hound you during your “fun” time. So, keep some unsoldered to allow for expansion, remember where they are so you can deal with them when they begin to let you down, and solder the rest.
Selector has a good point… solder wicks make desoldering not such a big deal, especially with good equipment, you may not even melt a tie! Anyway, I like the great connections I get with soldering… A few expansion points are much easer than lot of dead points 
Brian
[#ditto] Mine is caulked flex on foam in a space with a potential 100 degree temperature range. I don’t solder a drop to every length of rail, but I DO solder jumpers around every uninsulated rail joiner.
As for kinking on curves - not if you pre-curve the rails before laying the track. I work on my flex until it lays still in exact conformity to the (outer tie end) guide lines without fastening. I also stagger the rail joints - easily done if one or both rails can be slid endwise.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
To allow for expansion and contraction, I solder a small wire joining two sections of adjacent track about every nine feet, with a small gap between track ends, within the joiners. Bob
This might depend on the track. Atlas N scale (80 and 55) will spring back to straight even after being curved for weeks, so there is no precurving. I’ve seen ME flex on Joe Fugate’s video stay surves just as he formed it.
Hi “pilot,”
I do drop a feeder from every piece of rail; I don’t solder rail joints in plain, straight track; but I do solder rail joints in curves and at turnouts.
Unsoldering rail joiners is no big deal – just heat the joint and use pliers to push the joiner to one side or the other. You don’t even need solder wick unless you used a lot of solder in the first place. I use small-diameter solder and work hard to use just enough and never too much – I hate to see solder blobs on track.
On the unsoldered joints in straight track, I leave a gap the thickness of an NMRA gauge between the rail ends in the joiner to allow for expansion or movement.
So long,
Andy
Hi: I don’t know how you curve ATLAS flex track so it will stay curved where you want it, without fastening it some way. I built a layout for my two grandsons, in their basement, back in 2002-03. Last summer, June of 2006, when the flood came, the Layout was floating up against the rafters in their basement. The Mountains held it under water.
When examining the layout afterwards, all the WHITE glue that I used was GONE. The only thing holding the track in place was the nails that I had originally used to hold it down, while laying it, and missed pulling them out. Mainly near the turnouts.
While trying to salvage any of it, when the nails were pulled, the track was falling off the roadbed. I had Atlas flex and Model Power flex. None of the Atlas flex stayed curved where it was fastened down, but the Model Power stayed curved.
I salvaged almost all of the track, and turnouts, but some of the switch machines were bound up with MUD. All of this was washed with soapy water with a little bleach in it, and some of the turnouts are on my present layout. Both Atlas and Peco.
Sam
You can’t.
And your track came up because “white glue” is water soluble.
I’m running DCC and solid electrical connection to every inch of track is a must. I solder a jumper wire to every OTHER joint. That gives me a direct connection to every section of flex track since every piece will have a soldered jumper wire on one end or the other. I don’t want to rely on a rail joiner to conduct electricity from one piece of track to another. On the other hand, soldering a jumper wire to every rail joint seems like overkill to me. Like wearing a belt and suspenders.
On my old DC layout, I had a single feed to every control block. Some blocks were fairly lengthy and which meant I relied on the rail joiners to conduct electricity. I made sure every rail joiner was snug and never had a problem with a loose connection. DC is a little more forgiving in that regard, at least that is what I have read. I never soldered joints on curves simply because I didn’t know any better back then. I was able to get good joints without kinks by using track nails to keep both pieces of track alligned although knowing what I do now, I would say soldering the joints on curves is a superior way to do it.
When I said, “I work with my flex track,” what I meant is bring it down to a curve radius so tight that it will take a set at my desired radius.
At present, I have a length of Atlas flex pre-curved to 24" radius sitting on my roadbed, not fastened down in any way. It has been there for five days - and a 45 degree temperature extreme swing. To get there, I torqued it down to something like a 4" radius, then allowed it to relax.
I agree that simply laying Atlas flex to a radius, without previously putting a set in it, calls for heroic tracklaying effort to prevent kinks at the joints, especially if both rails are jointed at the same place. I stopped doing that while Atlas was still selling brass rail stapled to fiber ties.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I would not have thought that you could control the set well enough to be useful. I’ll have to do so experimenting.
copper wire conducts electricity much better than nickel silver, brass or steel rail. I use all steel rail on my layout except in the hidden staging where I use NS flextrack. I run a buss wire beneath the layout that connects to each piece of rail independently. Using rail joiners to conduct power between pieces of rail is poor IMO. But using a wire to connect rail ends or soldering the rail ends together to conduct power is also not as good as running a copper wire to each and every piece of rail. The electricity is still forced to flow through the rail. This is my oppinion based on my years of modeling and also based on the lengths of track I am wiring. Right now I have over 300 ft of track and should be around 450 when I am done. If you are building a simple 4x8 you will probably not notice any difference.
As far as smoother running around curves: All of my handlaid track (even on the curves) is completely devoid of soldered joints or rail joiners. I have had no issues because of this. On my flextrack I did use rail joiners in most locations just because they make it easier, but there were also some joints that needed to be isolated because of block boundaries. In these cases I used long spikes to hold the last 4 ties on each section of track in place. So it can be done, just railjoiners or soldering make it easier.
I don’t solder track joints except on curves, and I don’t solder feeders to every darned section of rail, either. I put a set of feeders every twelve to fifteen feet or so. My layout runs fine. I’m not building the space shuttle here. I prefer to apply the time I would waste soldering feeders everywhere to other aspects of layout construction, and sometimes even to running trains!
This is a very old argument. At some point years ago, someone (who apparently couldn’t figure out how to properly install rail joiners) came up with the bombastic “solution” of soldering bazillions of feeders to his track to make up for his poor connections. Many others have jumped on the bandwagon, saying “better safe than sorry!” To each his own, but if we applied the same argument to benchwork, for example, it would all be made of 4X8 lumber.
Good points but I should clarify that I run O scale which pulls signifigantly more current than HO or N. More current and longer lengths equal greater voltage drops. I know how to use rail joiners, I just prefer not to (I don’t like the looks of them). Running a feeder to every 3’ piece of rail in Oscale is (IMO) not overkill and is the norm for most Oscale layouts that I have seen.
[#ditto]
Ditto for me in HO/HOn3. Not using rail joiners in smaller scales eliminates having to shave the ties to avoid the vertical bumps from rail joiners at the track joints. I find adding a piece of 26 gauge magnet wire to the bottom of each 3ft rail (I do it before I spike/glue/solder the rail in place) is a very small price to pay for not having to mess with rail joiners.
just my experience
Fred W
I’m intrigued, Fred. How do you maintain a good alignment between rail ends?
Mark
Straight track - no issues. Butt the rail ends, and spike them in place. I usually adjust the lengths to put the joint over a tie, but it wasn’t essential. With code 70 rail, the rail rigidity with spiking closer than the scale 22" tie spacing to the rail end was sufficient to hold alignment.
Curved track frustrated me at first. Then I learned to pre-bend the rail, which solved my problems. Since bending the last 1" or so of rail in a smooth curve is nearly impossible, I would cut the 1" or so off. In the past, I bent my rails by hand, which worked acceptably. Next time, I will try a rail bender (sold by Fast Tracks and others) to see if it makes any difference. If the rail is properly pre-bent, it behaves just like straight track. Just butt the ends and spike in place.
On my first few attempts with curved track (18" radius), it took some “re-spikes” to ensure the rail joints were properly aligned. I would sight down the rail, just as one would do for flex track, to check the alignment. In one case, I had to replace a tie because of the number of re-spikes. But as I learned the necessity of properly pre-bending every inch of curved rail, the re-spikes dropped to almost nothing - pretty good for this clumsy codger.
I don’t know from personal experience if code 40 rail is rigid enough for my methods, but I’ll find out on my next layout. Given the experiences I have heard about with ME code 40 flex track, I think using a rail bender or form will be more critical to getting a smooth curve, but that there is plenty of rigidity to hold the alignment over the maximum 3/16" or so, even in HO scale. Will find out in a year of so when the next layout begins! I can always back up to ensuring joints are on top of