With some of the track in its final position it was time to start thinking about permanent power feeds. I was thinking of brass mini strip with the end bent at right angles and attached to the top of the sleepers, but I discovered that the mini strip I had purchased for the job was far too small. Well, too small compared to the buzz bars that seem to be advocated on the Internet (and if the currents were that high, we would be welding the locos to the track, or burning through motor wiring. I have yet to see any reports of this in the model press). Anyhoo, the next stop? Copper wire, and more specifically copper wire 1.6mm in diameter (whatever that is in imperial measure). Now as a not particularly well know fact outside of the esoteric industry around Hi-Fi systems, the best wire for carrying signals without degradation is single core. Most ideally it should be flat, but single core is much better than multi core wires. If you are going to have to use multi core wire, then it should have as few strands as possible.
Right, back to something outside of physics. I cut the copper wire into 50 odd mm bits. One end was squashed flat (about 2-3mm worth) and then folded at a 90 degree angle to arrive at something that looked like this.
I then bored a hole through the trackbed and inserted the device like so.
Lower the head down till it is below the bottom of the rail and then rotate 90 degrees, to arrive at something that is almost completely unobtrusive.
Then its just a wave of the soldering iron and its all done.
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