The roadbed is down the track laying is on the edge, but I’ve run into a snare. I’ve tried to follow everyones’ suggestions so far in soldering my flex track. I’m soldering three 3’ sections at a time on the workbench then plan to place them in on the layout. Now many of you said to put the curve to the inside and only solder one side leaving the other with unsoldered with a rail joiner. The question I have, do I solder the stationary piece of track, bend and place a rail joiner on the unsoldered (movable) rail? I think I did the opposite and first soldered the movable rail then began to bend…needless to say the rail joiner on the stationary side sure didn’t stay. Can someone let me know if I’m on the right track? Man o’ man stupid me, what a mess I’ve made, luckily I didn’t solder many pieces including my mouth shut! Thanks, Steve[B)]
I remove the last 3 ties from each end of a section of flextrack. (saving them to slide back under later) I then solder 2 sections together on the bench (I find 3 to be just too long and unwieldy, but that is my preference). Making sure to get the sliding rails on the same side, I solder both connecting rail joiners. I use Atlas track and this method has worked fine for me.
My method is a little different.
I slide the moulded ties carefully back from the two ends.
Carefully pu***he joiners onto the rail making sure that you are lining up the track section the same way - ie moving rail to moving rail as people describe it.
Solder BOTH joiners.
Wash off excess flux, clean the joints using a file if necessary, now slide the ties back to the joint. Remove only so much as is absolutely necessary (on N scale track often only one tie!) but keep it for later.
When you place the track make sure to slide the ties into the correct position so that when the last one or two odd ties are pushed back under the track they all space out correctly.
Whether you do two or three lengths doesnt matter a lot. But dont forget to leave some expansionjoint space either every second or third length of flex track. If you don’t then you can be in for a surprise in the future! My very first atempt at laying flex track I forgot to leave the gaps and about a week later I went into the room to see ‘ripple’ track!
John
My method is pretty much the same as Johns…And do remember to leave a gap every now and again…I too had “ripple track” after putting down about 50’, soldered solid with out any gaps…Opppsss! I also only do two sections at a time, just can’t seem to handle more than that at a time.
I must question your comment, Steve:
“needless to say the rail joiner on the stationary side sure didn’t stay.”
Did the joiner come loose? If so, perhaps you didn’t get a good flow of solder. Use a flux (I use a liquid flux from Radio Shack) and be sure that your joints are hot enough to have the solder “flow” through the joiner, making for a good bond on both the rails and the joiners.
Wish I’d seen this thread earlier. Managed to melt a couple of tie ends by not cutting and sliding them away from the joint. Decided to do more research prior to proceeding. In HO track, 3 ties on either side of the joint is a consensus?
Many will only remove two. Basically, suit yourself. …every modeler has to find his/her comfort zone.
What I do is two 3 foot sections at a time. But not every section, but everyother is solder. The others with just joiners were carefully placed and filed. I also cut the outside of the rails to make them undeven.
It is Code 83. I turned the rail over and removed the tie spacers so that the rail spacers would slide easily back easily. I DID NOT worry about trying to keep the joints even or across from each other. I solder while both were straight. I heated the outside of the rail and joiner until the solder flowed into the joiner on the outside, but did not go to the inside where it would be harder to clean up. Then placed and went about nailing temporarily in place at the correct radius.
Once this was done the joints through out the curve were very staggared. I then took a glue bottle and applied it full strength between the ties inside the rail and outside the rail. Placed weights on the track and left it set for a day or two. Then removed the nails. and cleaned the rail of solder. The glue dries clear. I test it for at least two weeks of running prior to ballasting. The glue if needed can be loosened for minor adjustments. Make further adjustments throughout the two weeks if needed. I find two weeks give me at least some temperature change or other changes. But glueing it down helps with buckling and then the ballasting and glueing also reinforce. That hides any sign of glue too.
Well I soldered the movable rail first and put a rail joiner on the other side and tried to bend the assembly, the joiner on the stationary rail basically came loose. All in all it sounds like I’m on the right track, I did solder both sides so things are now looking up. I’ll leave every third rail with only joiners no solder for expansion since I’m in Phoenix and we see extreme temps on both ends of the scale. I found using a a 30 watt pencil tip just didn’t get the joint hot enough or it took a while, so I went with using a variable 100/150 watt gun with heat sinks…worked great no melting and made nice shiney welds. Many Thanks for the help. Steve
here is my step by step soldering process for installing flex track with pictures and explanations…click the next button to go thru the series of pictures… http://community.webshots.com/photo/137793353/200142080vaBTvT
I always solder BOTH rails…my room stays 75 degrees year round so i don’t have to worry about rail expansion or contraction…even in my garage days, I soldered both rails and didn’t have to worry about it…better to have great conductivity than worrying about rail expansion or contraction which can be fixed by nudging the rail one way or the other…once the track is ballasted it’s not going anywhere…chuck
Steve,
Soldering 3 sections at a time will cause problems when you try to bend them into a curve. The sliding rail need to be able to move. Having two joints trying to move at the same time will cause binding as one of those joints is going to be pushing on the ties. The sharper the curve, the worse the problem. On broad, sweeping turns, you may not experience any problems because the sliding rails aren’t moving very far.
Two sections won’t cause the problem. The joint will stay in place and the sliding rail ends will just protrude further from each end where you can cut them off.
Three sections are a little more difficult to handle than two, but on relatively straight track, they sure make tracklaying fast!
Darrell, quiet…for now
It seems to me that if it really made sense to solder three sections, that you should do so, but take the time to file the solder so that the sliding rail can do that, all the way along. That way, if you make a long, not-so-sweeping curve, that rail will slip as much as it needs to. If you merely solder (good job or no) and then try to curve even TWO sections, you are likely to have a great deal of difficulty. The solder will only go as far as the next fixed set of ties, and won’t go through the “spikes”.
It may be a delay to have to file clean the soldered joints, but if a three-section join is the way to go, then that is the way to do it.
BTW, (I wish I could remember who it was) says that a good trick is to slip the sliding rail into the spikes of the other rail, and pu***hat rail half-way down that section’s length. Do the solder there, and you get nicely staggered joins that make the rails much more closely "continuous’. No two solders are aligned, and close together, so the strength at that point is super!
-Crandell