Can nickel-silver rail joiners be used on brass track
Sure they can, as long as they are for the same code of rail size. The only instance I know of where rail joiners aren’t quite compatible even with other brands of track are Peco joiners, because Peco’s rail foot is slightly narrower than Atlas and other brands.
The question here is galvanic action. That could be a problem for electrical conduction.
Nickel-silver are (AFIK) not reactive, so moot. (I think)
ROAR
I don’t really know the answer, but if you can solder brass track with the joiners in place such that the joiners become ‘one’ with the rails, it would indeed be largely moot.
Although nickle silver and brass are not the same they are closely related.
From Wikipedia.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zink. The porportions of each element may be varied to to create a range of properties depending what is desired. There may also be small amounts of other elements to change the properties.
Nickel Silver is an alloy of copper, nickel and usually zink - normally in 60%, 20%, 20% porportions. It is sometimes considered a subset of brass.
An industrial engineering handbook published in 1918 gives 2 formulations for nickel silver ----
40% copper, 30% Nichel, 30% zink (suitable for casting only)
57% copper, 24% nickel, 19% zink
Brass is described as being not less than 66.7% copper and not more than 0.75% of materials other than copper and zink.
I have used brass joiners on nickel silver rail, and some of my brass rail ‘no locomotives here’ track is connected end-on to nickel silver rail with nickel silver joiners. As long as the joiner fits the rail geometry, the material is irrelevant - unless…
Unless what? Well, if your layout is located in a beach house fronting on salt water, or in a tropical or temperate rain forest, you might have corrosion problems. This might be aided by things used for scenery construction (I remember some odd results after staining wood ties with Rit dye.)
One other thing. I never, ever, expect a rail joiner to conduct electricity. Instead, I solder a jumper around every joint. The alternative, having a power drop to each rail, strikes me as wiring overkill.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
No reason why not. If they fit, they will hold the track together.
Having said that, and you think you will be in the hobby for some time, I would look to replace the brass with nickle silver track. Brass is in constant need of cleaning, and is just much more trouble than NS.
Another case of joiner incompatibility involves MEs joiners. I have used MEs bridge track on my layout and have seen statements that the ME joiners don’t work with the Atlas track. As a result I have used Atlas joiners to join the ME bridge track into the track system.
I believe brass track hasn’t been manufactured since the early 1980s…
I would agree but,NS track needs as much or maybe more cleaning so the many track cleaning topics say.[(-D]
I submit neither type of track needs constant cleaning.
I know of a 64 year old club that has brass track that’s been in place since the 50s.