I started to weather some track last night. I laid the track out side to side. I spray painted flat black horizontally to get the side of the rails. Then I lightly dusted from above some gray and some rust brown to lighten. I like the way they look. I tool the rail joiners off before I started. I oiled the top of the rail so I could remove the paint easily. My question is the rail joiners. The bottom of the rail is free of paint. Is this enough for conductivity, or do I need to remove the paint from the side of the rails where the joiners will be? Thanks.
Best way is to weather the track after it is in ptace. Since you dont, you should slip rail joiners on the ends to act as a mask before painting. Get as much contact area as you can. For trouble free operation down the line the joints should be soldered or solder feeder wires to each section. Much easier to do it right than try to locate & fix later… Good Luck
No it’s not. Lay your track where you want it. Solder the joints and wires your going to put in and then paint the track. It’s a real pain to clean the paint off so you get a good connection at your joints. If your using flex track and you pre paint it, when you bend it around a turn, your going to see unpainted spots on the rails when the ties move.
(been there, did that, learned my lesson.)
Steel doesn’t grow or shrink much with temperature change, at least not in the dimensions of most layouts in a controlled environment (big problems building a gymnasium though, where the layout tape changed as much as an inch or more over a hundred foot span one fall), but benchwork expands and contracts appreciably with even slight humidity changes, and that’s what your track is nailed to, soooo…
Solder a power drop to the joint between two sections fo flextrack, and leave both ends unsoldered. Jump to the middle of another two section piece and solder another power drop. Layout considerations will override this, but it gives the general idea. A fully soldered section, with its own power drop, each surrounded by unsoldered expansion joints, will give good connectivity and allow for changed caused by moisture content in your benchwork.
IT ALL DEPEND’S on how much reliability you want.
RAIL JOINERS are metal/metal friction fit’s that loosen with time.
SOLDERING JOINTS is electrical transfer at the expense of expansion.
SOLDERING to joiners that slip onto rail still offer’s friction fit problem’s.
SOLDERING to EACH piece of track - the first time - IS 100%.
UNSOLDERED JOINT’s allows expansion of rail, and wood while POWER DROPS to the RAIL insure electrical flow.
The basic point everyone seems to be working toward is:
Don’t rely on rail joiners for electrical conductivity.
It isn’t necessary to solder a drop to every length of rail; just solder jumpers around every rail joint from the drop to the next insulated rail joiner in each direction.