Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Trackmaking XXI

Further advances in the last couple of days. I've got round to gluing down the first baseboard joins. I had previously soldered a long brass bar across the 3 tracks. These were positioned on the board edges, and the tracks largely held down with double sided tape. I the put some 20mm brads into the wood close to the brass bar (I should probably have used screws, but the ones I tried split the ply which didn't help matters much. Once I had all the tracks lined up they were all soldered together. The last step was the application of 5 minute araldite which was liberally (and quickly) applied around to get everything stuck to the track bed. Hopefully this will hold everything in the correct orientation for a while. No doubt Mr Boul will have a better suggestion that I should have used :v). Now all I have to do is gap the brass bar, attach the droppers for the track power, and I'll be able to run locos for almost 6'!

(I would have a picture to show you, but I loaded it on this morning at home, and then managed to delete it while I was writing this at work, so you will just have to wait)

UPDATE;

Ok, so here it is then.



Not really sure if it was worth the wait....

3 comments:

Mr Boul said...

Actually I do - but you'll have to wait a week or three until I've done it and then consult my blog.

For what its worth, last time I put in some brass screws and soldered the rail to the heads. The principle was OK, but the heat required burned the wood and a good joint was hard to achieve. As a result the whole assembly wasn't as robust or tidy as I'd hoped.

Motorised Dandruff said...

Hopefully by the time everything is balasted it will be rock solid.
The double sided tape is proving to be exceptionally good for holding the track in place.

steve w. said...

question: why didn't you put the modules together first, put the rails on, fix them secure on brass screws or the brass bar you did use and then cut the rails ? just a thought...

steve w.