soldering rail joiners

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I am in the process of soldering rail joints (at joiners) on my HO scale train. I am using rosin core solder, but still find myself having to use flux to get the solder to flow good. My question is how to clean off the flux from the rail, it is mostly on the inside & outside of the rails.

thanks,
Joseph

2

I use commertial flux remover from Jameco. This works great. I do some circuit board soldering for custom made controllers and the like and cleaning those circuit board is a must. Spray it on and srub a little with a old toothbrush and the flux is gone. Using other solvents do work, but don’t work as easily as commertial flux removers at cleanup.

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10001&productId=120491

I use no clean solder for circuits that are generally easy to solder. It leaves less of a mess. I use regular solder and flux paste for the tough stuff (oxidised metels are a pain)

3

I just use my brite-boy cleaning block to clean the upper portion of the solder joint that will make contact with the loco wheels. On every other flex-trac joint, I solder the joiner on one side with a small guage jumper wire soldered beyond the joiner on the other side to allow for track expansion/contraction. I’ve had no derailment or elecrtical continuity problems with this method.

4

In the past, I’ve NEVER soldered rail joiners. However, I DO make my own terminal joiners witht he feeders attached to the joiner and use these for EVERY joint. Although not for a REALLY short section such as if there is a 2" piece of track between two turnouts, only 1 side gets the terminal joiners. Thus I never have to solder wires to the track, and every track section has 2 sources of power. Don’t buy terminal joiners, they are FAR too expensive. I can take a whole pack of Atlas joiners (4 dozen), cut a bunch of wire to length (I use #20 thermostat wire), strip it using one of those lever action strippers (the SINGLE best electrical tool I EVER bought, about $20, you put the wire in, squeeze the handle, and it’s stripped. Works also for stippign back small sections in the middle of my #12 bus wires - clamp, squeeze, short piece of insulation is stripped back and I wrap the feeder around it and solder), and solder the wires to the joiners in no time, about 4 dozen per half hour. I have a stock of these built up so I don’t have to stop in the middle of tracklaying. So far on various layouts I’ve never had power issues doing this.

–Randy

5

joseph20,

I used to solder the rail to the joiners. I got into expansion problems during the summer months. I now never solder the joiner to the rail, but solder the feeder wires directly to the rail, leaving a small gap between the ends of the rail. After learning how to solder properly, it is fast, clean, and does no damage to the track. Rail joiners should be used for track alignment only, not power transfer. After you ballast, you may find that you have a dead section of track once the glue seeps into the tiny gap between the rail and the joiner, insulating your rail from the power.

I know there are different philosophies about how to power the track. You will find over time that some that are highly espoused don’t stand the test of time. Listen to all of the comments, then decide for yourself. It’s your railroad.

Mark C.