I am in the process of dismantling an old table top layout in favor of building a new, larger layout in my new home. It is all Atlas sections as well as turnouts, but no flextrack. The track is laid on cork roadbed with brads and soldered joints and feeds. Conventional balast techniques were used meaning lots of glue adhering the track to the roadbed and the roadbed to the plywood as well. Any tips or suggestions as to how to salvage this track and have it reusable on the new pike? I seem to be ruining more sections of track than making it worthwhile given the cost of simply starting out with all new track in the first place. And I haven’t gotten to any turnouts yet to see if I can remove them in (reliable) working condition. On top of that I’ve got a lot of joints to unsolder. Anyone with experience with this type of situation, please advise. Thanks.
Is it nickel-silver or brass track? I’d say brass isn’t worth the effort to salvage. I don’t advocate ripping up scale miles of brass track if it’s serving you well, but going to the hassle of salvaging it… I’m not so sure. Frankly I doubt it’s worth it at all, but certainly don’t hassle over brass. The best move I ever made to enhance my pleasure with my trains was getting rid of my last bits of brass (constantly dirty, spotty running, finicky) track.
Even if you decide to try it, you’ve got many uncertainties.
First of all, what kind of glue for the ballast and cork? If white glue, it’s water soluble and a good soak should soften it up and make removal much easier (though still a PITA I think). If otherwise, and not water soluble, I think you’re done.
If the brads were driven properly (i.e. not mashed down against the tie), you should be able to remove those with a needlenose or similar with relative ease and little damage. If someone was overzealous, you won’t get 'em out without mangling ties and that kind of defeats the purpose. Again… done.
Last, the solder. That’s not such a big thing, I think, IF you have two people, or one very tricky soldering iron. The trick is to heat BOTH track joints simultaneously and simply pull the tracks apart (and then quickly take pliers to pull joiners off). You have the standard risk of melting ties if you’re not careful, of course. They make “solder removing tools” (basically a little suction bulb device), but I’ve never seen one work on track joints with the solder likely flowed down inside the joiner…
So, that’s how I’d approach it if I were going to do it.
I fully believe in re-using what can be used, but given the permanence of the way you installed this track, I think it would be not only a waste of time but likely a mistake to try to re-use it.
If you really want to save/recycle the existing track try soaking it in windshield washer fluid. That will remove the white glue without damage to the rails or plastic ties. I’m not sure what will happen to the cork roadbed but it won’t hurt to try putting that in the ww fluid also. As kchronister mentioned, if it’s brass track consider scrapping it unless you can’t afford to replace it.
Good luck and congrats on the new layout (and home).
Tom
Having dismantled (and salvaged the Shinohara and Atlas flex used thereon) several layouts, a few comments:
If you can get the track nails (brads, spikes) out BEFORE you try to soak off the ballast, the track will come up easily. Use a putty knife to pry the ties off the roadbed once the glue is soft. (This assumes water-soluble glue, which is the usual case. Even if the nailed ties are damaged, they can be repaired, or replaced when the flex is re-laid.
IMHO, the best way to deal with soldered rail joints is to shorten each end of each piece of flex track by the length of the soldered joint, with a Xuron tool, Dremel wheel or whatever. A just-about-clean slightly short piece of flex is much easier to deal with than a full-length piece with four solder-fouled rail ends requiring cleanup.
When preparing track for re-use, a few grains of ballast between the ties won’t hurt. Ballast stuck to the underside of the ties is a different story. Anything which keeps the track from laying down level will come back to haunt you.
I’ve just dismantled a layout which had Atlas flex glued down with caulk, all but a minute percentage of which will be recycled (some for the fourth or fifth time) on my under construction garage-filler. The money saved will be very useful - I doubled my floor space, and my rail requirements have (at least) doubled as well.
Chuck (who connects hand-laid specialwork with flex in 16.5mm gauge)