My layout was built with flex track. I cut off several ties at each end, put rail joiners on, and then soldered them together. I saved those ties to finish the job.
Now I want to finish this up and ballast. I have tried a few ideas to fit ties under the rail joiners but haven’t been satisfied with the result.
I sand down the back until they slip under. I don’t understand why atlas doesn’t sell pack of the last three ties from their straight sectional track that you can slip onto the end of flex
I typically use wood ties under joiners, as in the near track above, just below and to the right of the reporting marks on the flat car. If the wood is just slightly thinner than the plastic ties, it should slide easily into place under the joiners without creating a bump at the joint. For example, HO scale 6X8" lumber works with Micro Engineering or Shinohara ties, as it’s just a bit less than the ~7 scale inch thickness of the plastic.
I use my nippers to cut off the spike detail, and then a narrow file (usually the wide side of a triangular one) to add clearance for the thickness of the joiners. Then they slide right in and hold their place well enough until ballast is applied.
Like Randy said mostly…except I leave the two spikes on the tie that I will see from my isle. (one spike will be on the outside of the closest to me rail and one will be on the inside of the far rail) and the two spikes that are removed can not be seen anyway. I just need to raise the closest rail a little to slip the far spike under it.
I do cut the spike lip off that would hold the rail down, so I only have half a spike head left to nudge up against the joiner.
But in reality, I’m sure a spike or two were missing in places on the real PENN CENTRAL.
If the track is not secured down yet you can file back the molded spikes and tie plate to clear the rail joiner. If you do it very carefully the tie will be a tight fit around the rail joiner. This will help the joiner blend in with the rest of your trackwork. If you take a couple stokes too many with the file (like I did), then there will be a slight gap around the joiner. It’s not huge and looks okay from a couple feet away but is really annoying if you’re looking at it up close.
Unfortunately I gave that module to a friend several years ago, and don’t have any pictures of the rail joints.
If the track is fixed in place you can clip off the spikes and sand the back side of the ties until you can slide it under the joiners. This is a nice quick method and blends in well with the rest of the flextrack from most angles. At low angles and when sighting down the track the missing spikes and slightly different tie height are noticable.
A third option is to use wooden ties cut to the same size as the molded plastic ones from the flextrack. If you want to get real fancy you could even go back after the wood ties are installed and add tie plate and spike detail (appropriately trimmed to clear the joiner and line up with the molded detail, of course). If you’re using Atlas code 100 track a 1/16"x1/8" strip of balsa or basswood matches the dimensions of the ties almost perfectly.
This is what I do as well. It literally takes maybe 20 seconds to nip the nubs, pick up a nearby needle file, scrub the lie for the joiner three swipes, and then slide the finished ties under the gap.
Now might be a time to recount ‘best practices’ for PCB ties, an interesting alternative anywhere additional reinforcement of gauge (and perhaps line and surface) at rail joiners in either rail might be desirable.
I have not actually practiced this but a number of people on here have, and a few past threads describe details of how to do it.
Note that very fine shims under ‘inserted’ ties can bring their support surfaces (or added tieplates if you use that detail) up under the rail after you have slid them across an appropriate ‘gap’ and spaced/lined them up. Ballast will neatly cover any ‘evidence’ this was done…
I have tried various techniques, but I have found that no matter how hard I try, I cannot totally conceal these tie replacements.
Once ballasted, they pretty much become invisible to the naked eye and even, for the most part, in photos.
But what drives me nuts is that they still show up in videos that I take with a small Mobius camera mounted on a flat car that is pushed by a loco around the layout.
Many years ago in MR somebody published one of the great pieces of modeling wisdom – take close-up pictures and blow them up in scale while checking for missing or poor detail: you WILL see it!
Here’s a different use of that ‘unforgiving eye’ … run that camera to where you’re going to set ties, and watch the feed while aligning and shimming until it’ right in ‘perspective’. Bet you’ll see if you need better spike or plate detail in that view, too…
One of the guys at my old club developed a different method of joining flex track that doesn’t require ties to be removed, and has the added advantage of offsetting the rail joints which helps eliminate kinks in the curves.
Here is a picture of how he prepares the end of the flex track:
The upper track still has to have the tie plates removed on three ties so that the rail joiner can slide in.
Note that he never soldered the rail joiners, even on curves. The rail offset was sufficient to avoid any kinks. I was skeptical about there being no kinks at first, but after close to 500’ of flex track being laid with no kinks on the curves and no soldering, I had to admit that his method works. FYI, we were laying HO Atlas Code 83 on cork with a subroadbed of Homasote. Several track nails were used at the joints.
The method I’ve been using is to lightly scrape the spike detail off with a #11 or similar, slip 2 or 3 ties under the joint depending on the gap needed to be filled.
This slightly raises the area of the joint. I then press the hot soldering iron on top of the rail head just enough to warm the joint but not melt the recently soldered joiner.
This allows the rail to assume its level position and “nests” the joiner into the softened plastic. Been doing it that way from the get-go in 1995.
I’ve seen that method before. Personally I don’t care for it. As you connect flex track together on longer curves, the offset would get greater and greater and it would grow the wrong kind of hair, as in the offset would get deeper and deeper into the piece of flex track.
The down side to that method is if you want to solder joints for more reliable electric connectivity, the joint is on plastic ties which is a recipe for melting. I do like to leave some joints unsoldered to allow a bit of room for expansion and contraction, but only on straight sections, and no funky joint offsets would make sense there. Really, I’ve never had problems with kinks on curves where rail joiners are not soldered anyway, so it’s moot. If you have a nice tight joint, and the curves are not sharp, it’s not much of a problem. Even if it were, I can use ME spikes to hold the rail in alignment but rarely need to do that.
It is not necessary to keep offsetting the joints deeper and deeper into the curve.
The outside rail determines the length of the curved flex track. You only need to allow for one offset joint and then all the others can be the same amount of offset, an inch or two overlap is plenty. You’re only cutting the inside rail anyway.
They do, very handy. I’ve used several packets. They convert each end of cut flex track into mirror images of sectional track pieces. They incorporate the room for joiners.
Peco officially recommends slicing off the spike head detail from the end two ties to accommodate joiners. If you use foam track bed you don’t need to allow for any minor joiner thickness. Peco turnouts already have the space under the rail ends to accommodate joiner thickness so just slicing off the spike heads is sufficient for turnout joints.