Starter question - track work

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grovenor-2685
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:27 pm

Tim,
Just for interest, why are you quoting your own post? My instinct was to delete the copy as adding nothing, but seeing as they are so many hours apart I thought maybe you had some subtle reason.
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Le Corbusier » Sat Jan 23, 2016 8:58 pm

grovenor-2685 wrote:Tim,
Just for interest, why are you quoting your own post? My instinct was to delete the copy as adding nothing, but seeing as they are so many hours apart I thought maybe you had some subtle reason.
Regards


Nothing subtle I'm afraid. Just that my first post was a response to Terry's advice. I thought I would re-post with my final question being more general. Apologies if it caused annoyance.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby grovenor-2685 » Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:08 pm

Not annoyance, just a little confusing. In such cases better to edit your original post. The nature of the forum is that anyone will but in who feels they can help. Your proposed method seems to be used by many people and is essentially what is in a P4 track Co. kit, but all my track is either ply and rivet or copperclad so I have no experience with these hybrid methods, hence kept out of it.
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Knuckles » Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:21 pm

Will L wrote:
Le Corbusier wrote:... I understand that using Butanone as the solvent does work to bond the chairs to the plywood but that the bond is not as strong as to plastic.


While true, I think that gives the wrong impression. The bond may be less than plastic to plastic, but the chairs are quite well enough stuck down on the wooden sleeper for all practical purposes, with the advantage that you can get them off again with a sharp blade.




Maybe my track blog might help as apart from the 1st turnout it is all ply and functional plastic chairs.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2002&start=100

I'm still pretty new to it but if it helps great. The blog was pointed to in Scalefour News (Feb 2013 I think) so it can't be that bad. :)
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby junctionmad » Sun Jan 24, 2016 12:31 am

Terry Bendall wrote:
Le Corbusier wrote:Iain Rice in his book on track work advocates a mix of rivet and plastic construction with plywood ... the thinking being that where a solid joint is required rivets are used with cosmetic chairs and elsewhere bonding the plastic to the plywood is fine


Yes he does and quite a lot of people use this method - I have done so successfully. However the problem with using a river at every 4th or 5th sleeper is that the rail is held firmly at these points but can move in between which can cause problems. If plastic chairs are used throughout the rail can expand as on the prototype. If rivets are used on every sleeper the rail is held so firmly that it cannot move. I have successfully used the Rice method without any problems although that part of the layout where this was done has now been dismantled. Talking last week to the owners of an EM layout where the same method was used, they had a lot of problems with rail moving and buckling on a hot weekend at an exhibition



I find this very hard to believe, the co-efficient of expansion on N/S would be about 2-3 thou over a range of 20 degrees. Given the sleepers are not in effect rigid to the baseboard ( adhesive has give ) I dont find the facts stack up. personally I had a layout that suffered in a room with direct sunlight and the tracks never " buckled" , and hundreds of layouts have used copper clad. most layouts will have breaks in the rail that will easily accommodate this type of expansion

junctionmad wrote:I have tested transferring the whole turnout on its template and effectively burying the template under the ballast.


Personally I don't like this method. When fixed down the ballast and whatever you use to fix it will prevent sideways movement but what stops it moving upwards? When building a turnout, even an Exactoscale kit one, I tape down the template and hold the sleepers down with double sided tape. When the job is finished I side a scalpel blade underneath to release the sleepers from the tape. Another tip is to remove some of the stickiness of the tape first by putting it on a piece of plastic first and then taking it up and transferring it to the template.


Hmm, on examination the sleeper is held very securely to the paper, as the glue soaks into the paper during ballasting, The paper is therefore in effect a rigid bond to the underlay

junctionmad wrote:Though many now build the sound deadening into the baseboard and forego underlay.


Personally I think a lot of unnecessary fuss is made about the noise of trains moving. :) It may be a problem for layouts used at home but at exhibitions you don't hear any noise from trains moving.

Terry Bendall


mine is at home , also to simulate the ballast edge especially outside station areas, you need some sort of raised track bed

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Noel » Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:48 am

junctionmad wrote:I find this very hard to believe, the co-efficient of expansion on N/S would be about 2-3 thou over a range of 20 degrees. Given the sleepers are not in effect rigid to the baseboard ( adhesive has give ) I dont find the facts stack up. personally I had a layout that suffered in a room with direct sunlight and the tracks never " buckled" , and hundreds of layouts have used copper clad. most layouts will have breaks in the rail that will easily accommodate this type of expansion


I have been at shows where the temperature has been high enough to close up what the builders had thought were perfectly adequate rail gaps. I don't remember track distorting, but the closed up gaps caused significant electrical problems... Adhesives will fail if the stress becomes to much, leaving track unsecured, and not all layouts use N/S, some people preferring steel rail.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Will L » Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:53 am

Noel wrote:I have been at shows where the temperature has been high enough to close up what the builders had thought were perfectly adequate rail gaps. I don't remember track distorting, but the closed up gaps caused significant electrical problems... Adhesives will fail if the stress becomes to much, leaving track unsecured, and not all layouts use N/S, some people preferring steel rail.


At one show at a sea side venue our layout was placed under a beautiful large roof light. It was a lovely sunny day, the sun pored in and yes quite a few gaps closed. We got no track distortion and once I'd sawn through the gaps that had closed, the layout was fine and it never, ever happened again.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Knuckles » Sun Jan 24, 2016 5:51 pm

Hi guys, based on the last few entries I have a question. (Knux has a question? No surprise. :-/ )

Basically I've read similar in the past so apparently I gather that if you are track building and laying in a hot enviroment you can join your tracks without a gap and when it cools the metal may shrink slightly thus leaving a rail gap. If ypu build/lay in cold then leave a rail gap and when it expands in heat the rails may join b8t with no buckling.

If the above is true then is there a recomended rail gap distance for different temperatures been worked out or some general prevailing opinion that often proves safe based on collective experience?
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby dal-t » Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:39 pm

Strangely enough, Knuckles, I asked the same question a few weeks (months?) ago, and only thisafternoon I was thinking I really should have made a note of the answer (or at least a note of which thread it was in). A quick search of my posts has failed to find it - I'll keep looking, because if (when!) I find it, and if (when!) you have had an answer, it will be interesting to see if they match, won't it?
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Chris Mitton » Mon Jan 25, 2016 1:22 am

Hi all

Re Dal-T's question, this was my answer some years ago - http://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=425&p=3062#p3062

I don't know if ths is "received wisdom" or not, but FWIW I haven't made much progress on the trackwork for Stowe Fen since then (having been insane enough to take on the Treasurership of this Society and so swap needle files for computer files far too much!), but the trackwork that was laid has shown no sign of moving, despite a couple of very cold winters and at least one exceptional summer, I suspect the temperature range in my loft has been around 40 Celsius.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby dal-t » Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:21 am

Thanks, Chris - hopefully that is now two satisfied customers (and this one now has a firm note of the answer, so that next time I have a 'senior moment' I should be able to track it down easily!),
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby junctionmad » Mon Jan 25, 2016 3:15 pm

Knuckles wrote:Hi guys, based on the last few entries I have a question. (Knux has a question? No surprise. :-/ )

Basically I've read similar in the past so apparently I gather that if you are track building and laying in a hot enviroment you can join your tracks without a gap and when it cools the metal may shrink slightly thus leaving a rail gap. If ypu build/lay in cold then leave a rail gap and when it expands in heat the rails may join b8t with no buckling.

If the above is true then is there a recomended rail gap distance for different temperatures been worked out or some general prevailing opinion that often proves safe based on collective experience?



really I have some issues, with all this , unless we have good data on the rise in temperature of NS rail on typical layout exposed to either radiant of convection heat sources, . ( and this is not simply rises in ambient ) I feel its difficult to speculate

over a whole metre of NS rail , using a coefficient of 16 parts per million, this results in a movement of .48mm for a change in temperature of 30 degrees,

Now I suspect in practice , given the track is laid in a comfortable temperature ( I mean humans are present !) , its more likely that say excursions of +- 15 degrees , i.e. from say 20 degreesC to 5 ( which is your fridge ) to and upto to 35 degrees rail temperature are actually very unlikely . Certainly in my house room temps over the whole year vary about 10 -14 degrees if the house remains mostly occupied , even in unheated winter days

Hence I would suggest that normal electrical breaks of 0.5mm-0.8mm for track laid at normal vaguely ambient temperatures is more then sufficient. I would be careful of long soldered unbroken rail of many meters though.


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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Noel » Mon Jan 25, 2016 5:07 pm

junctionmad wrote:Hence I would suggest that normal electrical breaks of 0.5mm-0.8mm for track laid at normal vaguely ambient temperatures is more then sufficient.


I would point out that both Will and I specifically referred to exhibitions, where temperatures may on occasion vary by much more than you would expect a house temperature to, although loft spaces, for example, can vary a lot. It depends on what you intend to do with your layout and where you keep it.

Noel
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby dal-t » Mon Jan 25, 2016 5:56 pm

Even without making an exhibition of yourself, not everywhere is as temperate (could be = 'dull') as the UK. If (when) my heating fails in winter the temperature in my upstairs workroom will sink to -10C or even -15C if I don't deploy some secondary heating. In the summer (aka canicule season), if (when!) I fail to open the Velux and all other windows/doors, it will quickly rise to 35C+ from lunchtime onwards. This could be one reason I'm so interested in this issue ...
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby junctionmad » Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:56 pm

dal-t wrote:Even without making an exhibition of yourself, not everywhere is as temperate (could be = 'dull') as the UK. If (when) my heating fails in winter the temperature in my upstairs workroom will sink to -10C or even -15C if I don't deploy some secondary heating. In the summer (aka canicule season), if (when!) I fail to open the Velux and all other windows/doors, it will quickly rise to 35C+ from lunchtime onwards. This could be one reason I'm so interested in this issue ...



seriously, letting a layout settle out to many degrees below freezing , will generate far more issues then a slight contraction of NS rail, I suspect
Last edited by junctionmad on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Knuckles » Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:16 pm

Based on all the above I'm getting the impression if I aim for a 0.5mm gap if laid in 'normal' (subjective I know) temperatures we should be alright.

Or is that too simple?

Sounds good to me!
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Le Corbusier » Mon Jan 25, 2016 9:41 pm

Knuckles wrote:
Maybe my track blog might help as apart from the 1st turnout it is all ply and functional plastic chairs.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2002&start=100

I'm still pretty new to it but if it helps great. The blog was pointed to in Scalefour News (Feb 2013 I think) so it can't be that bad. :)


Thanks for the link .... really good reading. What happened in the end re the steel rail and rust debate? Did you end up using rivets in the areas that the chairs were week on future builds?

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Knuckles » Tue Jan 26, 2016 5:51 am

Nope.

I just smothered it in Hammerite paint and it hasn't failed yet. Nothing else seemed to work at the time.

I guess a few more heavenly cycles will tell if it truly is good enough though.

I haven't actually built any more points since but I am getting closer to starting my propper P4 layout so there will be plenty of genuine 'Railway Modelling' to try a few rivets. Emphasis on modelling the railway there...I don't think set track is really modelling the railway anymore. It's more like plonking the railway. Having said that real life used set straights and P&C formations sometimes.
The layout plan as it currently is...

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2133&start=75

And some development of it is in earlier pages.

I planned it with the Exactoscale range using a program called Anyrail as it is a program I love very much.
Although I am trying to learn Templot and add transition curves and all that as was suggested in the thread.

Re-Rust....
I have set on a standard for flux. If I am doing electrical soldering or steel rail - anything that will rust then I use DCC Concepts No Clean Flux and I never get an issue.

It doesn't flow quite as well as some others but I'd still say it is good and pretty easy to use.

I still use Carrs Green Flux and such like for etched chassis etc as they are easier to clean.

I don't fancy taking ply and chair turnouts to the sink and giving the steel rail a good ol' scrub at the bonding areas for fear of bits breaking and winning away down the plug hole!

The construction is pretty strong I find but a small dab of superglue on outside of slide chairs by the bolts is desirable, for when removing the turnout from the template a few often fall off. It even happened to Normon Solomon on Right Track DVD 10 so it can't be that rare.


EDIT: Nope, the mentioje wasn't Feb 2013 but Dec 2012.
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Le Corbusier » Fri Jan 29, 2016 8:01 am

I have managed to get copies of Howard Boltons two pieces in MRJ on the process of sub assemblies as an approach to track building. Hopefully Howard or somebody else familiar with the approach will be able to answer a question?

I think I have got the idea of making the sub assemblies secured using the nickel strips ... and also the idea of setting everything true using the chairs to ensure things lie flat but preformed without any internal stresses.

It is the final permanent securing I am slightly vague on. Is the whole lot finally secured to the base board/track bed via the chairs using butanone? If so, where the sub assemblies are concerned and therefore the chairs are cut/don't simply slide on, how is this achieved? .... or are they left floating - in which case how does the final gauging work - or are they soldered in some manner (i.e. to rivets).

Sorry if this is being a little thick.

Tim
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Terry Bendall » Fri Jan 29, 2016 8:38 am

Le Corbusier wrote:Terry,I would be interested in what method you now use and why?


My apologies for the delay in responding to the question. Lots on at the moment so time to look at all postings has been short.

Ravenscroft Sidings, built between Dec 2006 and August 2008 for the Society's D&E layout competition used Exactoscale track throughout and an extension to the two original boards, built last year used the same. Since it is set in 1988 we probably should have had some flat bottom track but it was built in a limited time frame so using the Exactoscale products was quicker and in any case components for flat bottom track were not so easy to obtain. There have not been any problems with any of the track in the time that it has existed.

Elcot Road, built between December 2010 and June 2014 and also set in 1988, uses a prototypical mix of trackwork. The main line, the loop and the bay platform line use Colin Craig's flat bottom track which is soldered to copper clad sleepers but using the baseplates that Colin has developed, rather than soldered directly to the sleepers. Colin's flat bottom rail turnout kits were used on these parts as well. The sidings are build using Exactoscale components and again no problems with either system of track building. The reasons for the choices were (a) to match what would have been seen on the prototype, (b) ease and speed of construction, (c) what was available.

What I would use in the future would depend mainly on the period being modelled and other factors that may have an influence. I have at home a part build layout obtained from another Society member where the track is wooden sleepers and rail soldered to rivets. This will need some changes so I will use the same system (a) to match what is there but also because it will set in the pre grouping period so 9 foot sleepers will be needed. If I was modelling the pre-grouping period generally I would probably use the Iain Rice method since I know it works. Future layouts set post 1965 will continue to use a mixture of Exactoscale and Colin Craig parts.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Le Corbusier » Fri Jan 29, 2016 11:13 pm

Le Corbusier wrote:I have managed to get copies of Howard Boltons two pieces in MRJ on the process of sub assemblies as an approach to track building. Hopefully Howard or somebody else familiar with the approach will be able to answer a question?

I think I have got the idea of making the sub assemblies secured using the nickel strips ... and also the idea of setting everything true using the chairs to ensure things lie flat but preformed without any internal stresses.

It is the final permanent securing I am slightly vague on. Is the whole lot finally secured to the base board/track bed via the chairs using butanone? If so, where the sub assemblies are concerned and therefore the chairs are cut/don't simply slide on, how is this achieved? .... or are they left floating - in which case how does the final gauging work - or are they soldered in some manner (i.e. to rivets).

Sorry if this is being a little thick.

Tim



just wondered if the subassemblies might be glued to the sleepers via the linking strips .. or perhaps are rigid enough to float?
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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Phil O » Sun Jan 31, 2016 8:26 pm

I have built common crossing assemblies and fitted them to ply timbering using C & L chairs using plastic weld. the outer ends of the 'V's used whole chairs as did the crossing rail ends of the wing rails, the rest were part chairs. So far nothing has moved, they have been in place for several years now without problems.

Sorry for the delay in replying but have only just returned from sunnier climes.

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Le Corbusier » Mon Feb 01, 2016 2:36 pm

Getting a little more into the meat of things I have another photo-type question which I hope someone will be able to point me in the right direction on.

I am starting to think a little about the stretcher bars on the switches and attendant gear. Would anyone either have or know where to look for period photos of these for the Midland circa 1900 ish.

Also, I note that as well as a very fine top layer of ballasting to the track work during this era, various sources make reference to ballast actually covering the sleepering! Does any one have any thoughts on this? Had the practice stopped by the turn of the century?

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby Alan Turner » Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:32 pm

Le Corbusier wrote:
Also, I note that as well as a very fine top layer of ballasting to the track work during this era, various sources make reference to ballast actually covering the sleepering! Does any one have any thoughts on this? Had the practice stopped by the turn of the century?

Regards

Tim


The practice had stopped long before the turn of the Century. I suggest you get hold of a copy "Through Limestone Hills" by Bill Hudson - publish OPC

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Alan

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Re: Starter question - track work

Postby grovenor-2685 » Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:35 pm

The first two places I would look are "Midland Record" and "Modellers Backtrack".
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