Hi everybody,
I was wondering if it is a good idea to solder HO Atlas flexible track together for large radius curves?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
God bless, Thanks, Alan
If you solder the joints of the outer rail, (the non-sliding rail if only one rail slides,) it might help you to lay kink-free curves. OTOH, it will certainly give you a rather unwieldy ‘snake’ to try to wrestle into position.
My own method is to pre-bend individual sections of flex to the desired radius, including the judicious use of pliers (DON’T kink the rail!) to convince the rail ends to curve properly. Let the inner rail slide, then feed it into the next length to stagger the joints. I don’t solder rail joints - close to 100 degree temperature differential between pre-dawn January and mid-afternoon August makes that inadvisable for me. If your layout is in climate-controlled space, solder away - after the track has been laid to the desired configuration.
Above all, take a little more time to get it right. Nobody is giving prizes for speedy tracklaying, but trackwork that never, ever causes a derailment is a prize beyond price.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with the best trackwork I can assemble)
Alan,
Over the past 7 years, I have built two large layouts, laying flex track for the curves. I never soldered the flex track and wound up with kinks, humps, loss of power at rail joints with loose connectors, and a lot of derailments and unintended uncouplings.
Recently, I ripped out all of my curves and replaced the faulty trackwork with sections of soldered flex track. No more kinks, no more humps, no more power loss, no more derailments, no more unintended uncouplings,
I use Atlas Code 83 flex track and the radius of the curves is 32". In every instance, soldering two pieces of 36" flex track was sufficient to complete the curved portion whenever needed. Beyond the soldered sections, I do use rail joiners without soldering so that I can leave a slight in the rails for expansion purposes.
Another advantage of soldering is that the soldered section of track (72 inches in this case) tends to follow a near perfect circumference line. When laying unsoldered sections, that is hard to do.
I am a convert to track soldering, and I highly recommend this technique to you.
Rich
My last layout had the curves soldered and I had no trouble with them over 10+ years.
Enjoy
Paul
Alan,
There are some people who will not solder joints but I am not one of them. When I solder a joint on a curve I don’t let a joint end up in the middle of the curve and I keep the sliding rail on the inside. It works for me - and even when I disassembled the layout and moved it from the old house to this one, many of the soldered joints were still tight and only required a good cleaning.
Soldering serves at least two purposes: continuity improvement and securing alignment. It needn’t be done everywhere, but it has some great uses, whether on tangent or curved rails. So, figure out what works in your best interests for your circumtances, and use some soldered rail. I like Chuck’s ideas when I read of them, and figure I can’t do much worse than he. Pre-stress the flextrack lengths so that they want to stay curved in approximately the radius you need. Solder them if it makes sense for any reason. Leave several joints free to slide to accommodate changes on the layout.
Find a way to get the last two inches on each length of flex to actually curve. It’s a great deal more difficult than you think! Hence, the kinks we try so hard to eliminate…and hence the soldering so many of us have elected to do.
Finally, another tip: stagger the two joints. You can join the the rails with their met ones almost anywhere if you are prepared to do some nipping and paring, as well as solder the joints here and there. The staggered joints help to relieve the stress by using the one rail as a resistor of sorts.
In sum, a combination of all of these can make for trouble-free track.
-Crandell
Well trying to solder more then two piece of Atlas flex at one time on the bench is like trying to wrestle with a cobra it ain’t gonna happen. I limit bench soldering to two pieces at a time. When using Micro engineering track it holds it’s shape after you bend it so you are some what of an advantage or Atlas as you can fit it to the curve , remove it solder it and reinstall it. So when using Atlas your forced to improvise. you will need to pin in in place by either using tack nails or push pins, keep the sliding rail to the inside of the curve and when you have it in place exactly where you want it you can then go solder the rail joiners. I do not solder every joint but rather ever other joint to allow for expansion and contraction. Some suggest alternating sides as well I have also done this. What I have been doing lately that works for me is what Tony Koester suggests in Realistic Reliable Track is solder the rail joiner to one rail to prevent it from working itself loose.And not solder the tow tracks together. Believe it or not track expands a lot more then you think it does. Especially after you have it glued down in place something has to give so by soldering one side of the joiner you still allow for expansion.A good rule to follow is NEVER relay on a rail joiner for good electrical contact. Solder feeder drops to the buss wire as often as you can. I go about every 6’ no more.
When I solder flex track together, I clamp a board about 2 feet long to my workbench then push the two sections of track up against the board (the ends of the ties, that is) and make sure the rail ends are properly aligned (in rail joiners) then clamp the track down to the workbench. After double checking for a perfect meet at the rail ends I solder them together. By using a board for a straightedge and clamping I know that I’ll get a perfect joint that won’t move during soldering.
My method is to use a pencil, a string, and a tack or something I can pin down, and using the string and pencil to draw a perfect arc.
This will act as my centerline of my track and roadbed.
I then put down my roadbed, being very careful to keep the line dead center on the center of each piece of roadbed…
Then I make another line dead center in my roadbed, and very careful and bend my flex track and pin it down as I go along one piece at a time.
After joining two pieces I solder them together, keeping the sliding rail on the inside.
I use a long straight edge to lay my straight pieces, keeping the ties flush up against it.
I have had no derailing problems.
Thanks everybody for the quick advice.
God bless, Alan.
I have soldered code 83 and used the offset joint process without solder on code 100, 40-inch radius curves. No problems at all on the latter. I am sure part of the problem on the soldered code 83 was obviously my execution.
Next move is to either rip out the code 83 curves and replace with offset joint code 100 or 35 1/2" radius EZ track sections.
If you do solder your joins make sure the track is clean, use a good flux, and tin your wire and soldering iron. Your solered joins will be a snap. I’ve soldered all of my joins on curves and had no problems. Many of my other joins are also soldered as that is where I placed feeders for the rails. Good luck and have fun. [:)]
Hello Alan,
My answer to your question is yes, and I show how to do it in “Make kink-less curved rail joints” on page 78 of our special issue, How To Build Realistic Reliable Track.
Good luck,
Andy
I had a large curve to lay that needed more than two sections of track. I soldered 2 sections together, then began laying the 6’ stick AT THE SOLDERED JOINT. That way the joiners did not try to move into the ties. I planned it so the connection to the tangent would have about 6" extra beyound the curve that i could trim later. At the other end, that still had to curve, I stopped laying about 8 or 10" from the end, and made sure the rail was straight. Strip off a BUNCH of ties from the new stick, cut back the inside rail on the laid stick (a little shorter than the outside if you want), solder on the 3rd stick STRAIGHT, and continue laying the curve.
Phil