Lately there have been many myths on tyhe forum about nickel silver. One member said it is a, alloy of brass and tin. Actually, it contains neither one of those. Another myth is that it corrodes easily. I don’t know which old wives cookie jar that climbed out of. I looked up nickel silver in the dictionary and this is what’s said about it.
It is a silvery, hard, corrosion resistant, malleable alloy of copper, zinc and nickel, used in tableware and as a structural material for hospital and restaurant equipment. And we know that it’s also used in hobbies. So if you’re having trouble with corrosion forming in the rail joints, look to your cement base. I’ve found over the years that many time the glues that we use in the hobby can cause corrosion.
Nickel silver in rail is extruded. It can also be bought in sheet form for scratch building. In sheets it appears to have a grain. I vaguely recall that when rolling it to set a curve in a shape it was better to set the grain one way. There you are [}:)] another set of issues! Not that there is much scratch building these days [;)]
Everybody is right; everybody is wrong!!Nickle Silver (sometimes referred to as German Silver - who knows why) is essentially a brass (copper and zinc) alloy with nickel, not tin. Bronze is copper and tin; it might be right under my nose but I can’t find anything in my metallurgy books that gives a name to any copper alloy of zinc and tin. I suppose they would alloy alright but this doesn’t seem to be a (common) practice.
We love our nickle silver rail but it is more expensive than brass for one simple reason; it is more difficult to process. It has a considerably higher melting temperature and is more unstable (that’s not really the word I want but I can’t think of the proper one); sheet and bar stock machines very well but any cast objects (rail, wire, locomotive drivers, etc) have almost certainly gone through a machining process to render a finished product. The stuff is sold by weight and is almost twice as expensive as (red, cartridge, yellow) brass. This is why nickle silver is used for locomotive drivers but not for superdetailing parts.
Way back in the dark ages, when nickel-silver rails were first coming onto the market, they were promoted on the basis of reducing the amount of track cleaning. Then somebody made a remarkable discovery.
Nickel silver rail looks like steel!
In contrast, the only time brass rail looks like steel is when the steel has been exposed to rain or heavy fog, then allowed to age unused for a day or so. The first bloom of rust has that fine golden glow.
Of course, the first train over the line restores that (nickel-) silvery look we know and love. If it doesn’t come, the railhead turns red.
I checked Webster’s, it says brass is an alloy of copper and zinc, and that nickel silver is an alloy of copper, zinc and nickel. So it sounds like you could say nickel silver is an alloy of brass (copper + zinc) and nickel.
BTW “Nickel” comes from the German work “Kupfernickel” which means “Copper Demon”, because Nickel ore looks like copper ore, but contains no copper…which apparently disappointed miners looking for copper. Kinda like iron pyrite / fool’s gold I guess.
According to the table in Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, nickel silver is 55 to 65% copper, 17 to 27% zinc, and 10 to 18% nickel depending upon the grade.
Sure, most older hobbyshops have many big old dusty boxes full of it in the back room, under a bench, behind the cabinets. If you ask it is most likey priced a quarter a piece and a buck for a turnout, if the owner is tight. Maybe if you buy a BLI lokey he would give you a box full free LOL. Anybody really believes it’s as good as NS, and NS is all hype, well, there you go, there’s you some cheap track for your layout. Have fun. Fred
At the last show that I attended one vendor had a huge box of brass sectional track. He had
the track in bundles of probably ten pieces held with rubber bands. These bundles were
$2 if I recall correctly. Pretty good deal… if someone wants brass track. Dave
flee307: I was under the mythof hobby shops having back rooms full of new and used brass track, just go and try to find some, I tried for months, they would say " I just threw out 20 cartons of old brass track. you will find very little of it anywhere, I did manage to find some just by coincidence.lucky, I guess. A lot of brass track is simply ripped up and destroyed in the process and pitched out.
Sure you can get free brass track on ebay when you by old HO trains in lots. Whether or not any of those old ho trains suits your fancy is another question all together.[:D]
Now if chemical blackening will prevent the brass from oxidizing, were good to go.