Hi All,
I am about to start building my railroad layout but I have a question that I am sure you folks can steer me straight on. I will be installing LGB brass track in a gravel roadbed, the track will have rail joiners and the LGB graphite paste. I will be using TRACK POWER to start off with but the question is RAIL JOINT JUMPER WIRES. I am wondering which is the best tool to use to solder the jumper wires to the rail? Somewhere I read to use a 300 Watt soldering Iron and somewhere else I read to use a small fine-point butane torch. Your response or opinions would be most apprereciated. I do realize that to much heat will melt the ties.
Thank you in advance for your response,
Ron
[:)]
Hi Ron;
I’m fairly new and wonder if you use rail joiners plus grahite paste why would you want to solder the track also? I made a small layout in the yard using Aristo track and rail joiners plus paste without any electrical problems. When and if I need to change the layout, no wires to unsolder.
Chuck
Simisal,
Thanks for your reply. The Jumper wires seem to be very common, they are used to insure a good electrical connection between track sections. Sometimes the Graphite Paste gets melted away from the summer heat or washed away by acid rain or just the weather in general.
Hope this helps you understand my reasons.
Ron
[:)]
The 300 Watt soldering iron should be sufficient to solder jumper wires to the rail. Be sure to use resin core electronics solder instead of acid core or acid flux. A soldering iron’s wattage rating affects only the recovery time, not its temperature. A small wattage iron will cool rapidly when touched to the rail and will require a longer period of time to reach soldering temperature again.
As with smaller scales, applying too much heat for too long can result in melted crossties. It seems to me that the propane torch would be more likely to do this than an electric soldering iron because it would be so much hotter.
I run my locomotives on battery power exclusively so I have never had to do any soldering to my G scale track, but I have soldered jumpers to a lot of HO scale track over the years. I had the best results when I drilled a small hole through the track webbing and soldered the jumper wire into that hole, because less heat was required. That should hold true for G scale track, too.
Cacole,
Thanks for your reply, I may try one of those small BUTANE type torches. I think the idea of the hole in the web sounds real good . Also thank you for providing me with the proper information regarding the type of solder to use. I am hoping to start the roadbed within the next week or so.
Thanks again,
Ron
I used LGB track paste with Aristo brass track (because it’s half the price of LGB) and simply screwed the track joiners together. It has worked perfectly for three years. Personally, I think soldering is overkill and requires near contortionistic movements to secure wires to track. Besides, you gotta get brass pretty hot to have solder attach to it and you’ll most likely melt the ties near the joints. But, hey, that’s me.
Good luck either way you do it and let us know how it turns out.
Mark
Hey Ron,
I have soldered jumper wires. It gives me piece of mind I guess. I beleive that over a period of time the joints could work loose or tarni***o the point that conductivity could be an issue. A hot soldering iron (Weller 250 or larger) is the trick. Also a very clean (like new clean) track. I have put some new track up just this week-end using a small torch. The torch works really well. However. I didn’t use jumpers, just soldered the joints. I suppose that will work great until I try and take them apart. No plans for that in the near future. My best advice after trying several ways would be to solder the joints and use clamps on your switches. Oh, one other thing. You can cut a few ties and move them back out of the way to prevent melting. Solder with the torch on the inside of the rail heating the rail. Place the solder on the outside. I melted very few ties after I got used to doing it this way. Good luck.
Mark & George,
Thanks for your replys.
Mark,
The reason for my so called OVERKILL is that I live within 1 mile of the Atlantic Ocean and I don’t want problems down the road.
George,
You are another person that has provided me with what I wanted to hear. Now to check out the torches and soldering irons.
Thanks again for your replys,
Ron
[:)]
Ron, I picked up a nice micro torch from Home Depot. I tried several soldering guns, mostly Sears with a lot of frustration . Weller 250W should do the trick if you choose to go the soldering gun route. I must say though that the torch works the best once you master a few joints.
I don’t use jumper wires on the rail joints, I use Aristo track and each section has a screw tapped into the bottom of the rail, that is where I attatch any jumper wires. I have extra power feed wires every 4 or 5 ft. On the rail joints I use conductive grease, so far I have no problems at all.
The few times I soldered rail I found a 300W soldering iron to be the best choice. I’m not going to beat that dead horse here.
Good luck and have fun!
[oX)]
George & Tangerine-jack,
Thanks for your replys.
George,
Thanks for the info regarding the Micro Butane Torch. I have a Weller Soldering Gun but I am sure it will not provide the heat that the area requires for soldering. I will be looking into the torch at Home Depot within the next couple of days.
Tangerine-jack,
Thanks for your reply, I am sure that the A/C rail joiners with screws makes things very easy but the problem is I purchased LGB Track and they don’t have the screw type joiners. As I stated, I will be checking out the Micro Torch due to being unable to locate a local supplier of 300 watt electric soldering irons.
Thanks again for your replys,
Ron
[:)]
Ron
I was wandering how you are doing with the soldering ?? [banghead]
Witch method did you end up using? [;)]
Sean,
Thanks for asking, its been a LONG ROAD to this point but I am here after removing 6- 30’ to 40’ scrub pine trees and there stumps. Then the back-filling and grading. I then layed out the track and marked the outline on the ground, dug the trench, installed 4" of 3/4" crushed blue stone and topped it off with 2" of 3/8" crushed blue stone. On saturday (8/6/05) I finished laying all the track. I had a chance to buy about 150’ of GOOD used LGB track. I bought the track and then replaced all of the rail joiners with NEW. I was sure to put plenty of conductive paste in all the connections. The next project will be the leveling of the track and washing in the blue stone dust the connecting the power supply and start the testing. If things don’t work out the way I would like then I will consider the jumper wires which is much cheaper then rail clamps. With some luck I will have all of this completed before the weekend. Have you heard that a NEW train shop has opened in Sandwich, I have not visited it as yet due to the summer traffic. It on Rt. 6-A in the piano shop.
Have a GREAT DAY,
Ron
[:)]
Ron
Sounds like a lot of progress! [:D]
I’ll have to stop in to the new shop, when I visit my folks ( live in sanwich) [xx(]
I know!! You don’t leave the house unless you have to!! [|(][|(][|(]
Carfull @ the grade crossing — [:-^] the train still runs!! To bad, I hope it does not hurt ridership!!
I still have my small (for now)layout , and am always working on it!!
Life is good![:-,]
In Easton we have been listening to 101.9 on the cape! Only draw back–
your weather! [;)]
Sean,
You are right, a lot of progress has been made. In fact I just finished the first round of leveling and now I am going to clean the rail heads and maybe try to run my loco on it. Regarding the Grade Crossings, Its a wonder that more don’t get hit, most that do get hit are elderly and they just don’t pay attention to the flashing lights, bells and they even go around the gates, When I worked for the N.Y.N.H.& H. R. R. I use to see it happen all the time and it always seemed to be worse on the cape. I think back about a year and a half ago you told me that your parents lived in sandwich , that is why I mentioned the NEW train shop. Got to run and try to clean things up so my 8 year old grand daughter might see something move on the rails today. If you ever venture down this way let me know.
Ron
[:)]
I’ve been told that resistance soldering is the best way. It’s like welding and doesn’t involve a hot torch or flux. I’m a newbe too but decided just to go with split jaw connectors ($$). My experience in the past as an electrican and instrument tech says don’t use any of the “goop” material. A good mechanical, metal to metal, connection is also the best electrical one!
We use Aristo-Craft Track with the track screws with the connectors along with the paste and feed another juper wire at the halfway point in our long span of over 400 feet however we have allways use wire with eyelets and screwed the wires to the track at all the connections.
mikadousrp
gvtrainman & mikadousrp,
Thank you for your replys,
“gvtrainman”, I know nothing about resistance soldering, and regarding the so called “GOOP”, it is recommended by MOST if not ALL track Manufactures.
“mikadousrp”, As stated above I am using LGB TRACK, it does not have screws in the rail joiners so that is the reason I was thinking about soldering jumper wires if they were needed. At this time I have completed the track installation with the recommended rail joiners and the so called “GOOP” and I have almost NO VOLTAGE DROP half way (50’)around my starter layout.
Again I say thanks,
Ron
[:)]
To clamp or solder rail joints.
Good question.
Having been at this for 20 odd years I have seen a lot of Garden RR’s.
If you clamp the joints the rail is fixed and cannot expand or contract without moving the whole of the roadbed. Sometimes with disastrous results.
The track MUST be allowed to float freely on the sub roadbed to allow for this expansion and contraction.
Soldering each rail joint with a flexible jumper allows the track bed to be fixed down so providing a much more stable running surface. The rail being free to float at the joints can move just a little bit and will not damage the track bed.
I am biased of course, but the best way is to go with battery power. No need to power the track at all.[;)]
I am of the opinion that you only need solder out of necessity. Spend your time aligning track, watching it heat up and cool down a few times, use good rail joiners, and (what I did) use Permatex dilectric grease. My railroad is only a couple of weeks old but it is there. We wiped down the whole track a couple of weeks ago and have wind and rain storms since. This afternoon I went out and ran trains on every track without any drama.
As others have said, (and I paraphrase) ‘If you don’t have track outside leave this forum and get to work.’