This is my first attempt to solder rail joiners and feeders. Just a little test. Please give me positive or negative feedback so I know what I should do better next time.
From what I can see in your pictures, you seem to have it right. Nice shinny solder joints without any excess solder. Bravo for Electro! (Now tell us that wasn’t really that hard for your wife to do was it?) We all master new “arts” in this hobby.
Will
Suggestion now that you have mastered a hard one is to use a smaller size wire like telephone wire. It will heat up faster and bond quicker. It is also easier to maneuver around and bend. Then go to something heavier under the surface of the railroad.
It appears to be a good job, it also looks like you have used 14 gauge wire, a little hard to tell from pictures though. If you have not used any solder flux, other than what was already in the solder core itself, I would recommend purchasing some at your local Radio Shack store, or electronics parts supply store. Flux can be applied directly to the tracks where you are going to atach wires, and the solder will flow much faster, maybe 2 seconds vs 5 or 6 with just solder alone. Enjoy a great hobby !!
Looking at the last picture, the fourth one, the solder on the joint with the blue wire is a little bit “blobbed” ( a drop of solder that did not completely flow into the joint) which indicates the joint wasn’t quite hot enough. The joint with the black (maybe purple?) wire looks better. See how the solder seems to have flowed more into the joint. I usually don’t solder the wires on the rail joint, but solder the wires at a point away from the joint. The wire at the joint increases the total mass at the point where you are soldering which it harder to get hot enough. Also there is more metal to conduct the heat away from the soldering point which also makes it harder to get hot enough.
Overall, though, your soldering appears to be good. If you never do worse than any of these pictures, your solder joints will be good. Practice makes perfect!
I’ve found it a lot easier to solder the feeders to the rail joiners separately. On the workbench, I slide a joiner on to a scrap piece of track to hold it. I turn the track upside-down. Then I lay the feeder across the joiner , perpendicular to the track, and put a small weight on the wire so it stays in place, and finallly solder it. After it cools, I remove the joiner and take it to the layout.
This way, I get a very small solder joint. When the wire is applied parallel to the rails, the solder joint is long, and it will force the rails up if you try to replace the ties below the rails where you’ve removed them from ends.
Finally, when I solder the rails together, I only apply solder to the outside of each rail. It’s plenty strong enough, and then I don’t have any problem with the solder joint interfering with the wheel flanges.
I am curious if the position of the wires on the joiners allow you to slide in the replacement ties with correct tie placing? I did not solder my wires to the joiners. I soldered the joiners and laid the track and then added all my power drops to the side of the track after installation, so have not had experience with this method. The reason I ask, is that I had to carve my replacement ties a little to get them to fit under the joiners without causing a “bulge” in the track at the join. With the extra bulk of the wire and solder, this will surely require some significant modification to the ties to get them to fit without distorting the track?
The wire I used in the picture has a diameter of 1 mm (without the isolation), so it should be 18 AWG.
Thanks. My wife, no. She is very good at this, worked for 20 years with it. But it was me and my son that did the soldering.
If I use a telephone wire at the rails and a thicker one below as you said. Will this give me any electrical problems? Will the power to the rails be enough?
Ok I see. I will try to solder the feeder to the rail directly. I think you are absolutely right about this.
Good idea, thanks.
I think I will solder the feeders directly to the rail next time, not to the rail joiner.
The first time I did this, my joints were done like Electrolove’s, and probably for the same reasons. I also used 18 AWG wires back then, too. I didn’t discover the problem with the ties until I tried to lay the track. After that, I started putting the feeders on crosswise, and it works much better.
Looks pretty good, if a bit large - I echo the call to use thinner wire. #20 or #22 solid is plenty big enough for track feeders - there won’t be a power problem because the feeders should be short, and there should be a lot of them.
Where I have feeders soldered to joiners, the way I get replacement ties in is to use a small round file to put notches in the places where the rail clips used to be. Then they snap right in place even under a solder joint.
–Randy
Be careful that the blob of solder does not become an issue when laying the track. You’re getting there though.
Yes I will be more careful on the real thing. Thanks.
Learning all the time so next time I solder will be better, I hope [:D]
Thanks for the tip, appreciated.
YES, I got 3 green stars. Does it mean I’m really good now? [yeah]