Droppers on track

[derekrussan]

if you have to solder the fishplate to the rail you might as well use plastic or semi-cosmetic fishplates and solder the dropper(s) to the rail as normal.

I disagree, a soldered fishplate will be soldered to the web of the rail and not be in tear or peal when under strain. The whole problem about droppers is the balance between strain when soldered to the underside of the rail and the poor cosmetics if soldered into the web. I have not seen the design in detail, but such a design should give best of both worlds. It depends if the wire can be attached without tear or peal stress.

Derek

[Rod Cameron]

I have not seen the design in detail,

Me neither Derek - we'll have to see what David's review turns up!

[Plant]

Re previous message, I apologise for not signing my name, it was the excitement.

After leaving the droppers attached with wire glue, Hafixs superglue and a smearing of Araldite, for twenty four hours. I tested, not very technically, by pulling quite hard, and they joints held up. Could there be more uses for this glue?

I know this is not the subject area, but I have just made a common crossing jig using the very professional article by Michael Godfrey. The article appeared in SN 147. It works superbly, now my points are more easily, and accurately, made.

Roger.

[jim s-w]

Hi All

I thought a little tutorial on how I do droppers might be helpful so here goes (Other dropper based options are available! :tongue )

Right then requirements before we start.

1 - each rail or rail assembly must have 2 droppers to the power supply
2 - if the solder joint between the rail and the dropper were to fail then the dropper must not be able to fall through the baseboards
3 - the rail must not be secured to droppers at both ends so that its free to slide in the chairs
4 - it has to be quick and simple


Stage 1 comes when laying the sleepers as consideration need to be given as to where the droppers are going to be. As I use plastic sleepers I use copperclad for those than need droppers - if you use wood then you can probably stick with wood throughout.

The sleeper marked A is not for power droppers but for droppers that hold the stock rail in place. The slide chairs in this area dont actually hold the rail.


Each sleeper is drilled and a brass lacemakers pin dropped through. Where there are 4 droppers together this provides an electrical connection between the stock rail and switch rail via the copper clad. Only two of these droppers actually need to be wired to the power supply.


The rail with the chairs already threaded on is then glued in place. The droppers are now trapped between the rail and the sleeper.


A touch of solder and the job is done! Dont forget to 'gap' the sleepers. A cosmetic chair can be added later. I tend to leave them off the non viewing side so that I can see where the dropper is if I need to know later.


As an aside, one compromise I take is to use as long a piece of rail as I can. I really don't like short pieces of rails as I think they are asking for trouble. You can nick the tops and add cosmetic fishplates when its all tested. On a normal point there are only 2 'proper chars between the slide chairs and the rail end. While plastic track is strong I do feel that relying on these 2 chairs to hold the rail on thier own is asking a lot so my solution (purists look away now) it to continue the rail onto normal track bases. I always try to have rail joints in the middle of a 'panel' for ease of alignment.

Hope this helps

Jim

[Bilton Junction]

That looks like a very neat solution to the droppers as well as reinforcing the rail. I presume you must be using thin sleeper base if it is the same thickness as PCB. Do you build all of your track in situ on the templates then ballast it? I couldn't otherwise see how it could be lifted off the template with the lace making pins in place. I have been using Exactoscale kits, which have thick bases, but will need to build some parts of the formation from scratch to suit odd crossing angles and additional check rails, as well as the making the slips as they still do not seem to be available. I don't fancy mixing thin and thick bases in a single formation as it will be nightmare to get it all level.
Carl

[jim s-w]

Hi Carl

These are exactoscale components - including the sleepers. I will get the code for the C&L copperclad that matches the Exactoscale sleepers when I am next at home.

I build everything in situe.

Cheers

Jim

[andrew jukes]

Hi Carl

Exactoscale do a set of sprues of timbers to match our points, including lots of long ones - part no. 4XX PCT0.

When I've used pcb timbering (on behind the scenes track) there have been two 'level effects' to deal with - one because the pcb is soldered direct to the rail, so the 0.6mm height of the chair base isn't there and the other because my pcb thickness of 1.5mm was less than the 1.6mm of Exactoscale FastTrack and NewTrack bases. As I was making whole turnouts with pcb, I put a layer of 0.7mm thick cardboard under the cork over just the area where the turnout was going to be. With Jim's method, as I understand it, neither of these problems arise - provided the pin heads stand around 0.6mm proud and the pcb timbers are 1.6mm thick.

The 0.6mm gap (strictly 1.75in on the prototype or 0.58mm for us) between rail and sleeper top surface is important as it gives the track its 'open' appearance. This 0.6mm is consistent across the whole range of our chairs. An odd sleeper with a higher top surface can be remarkably prominent. For reference, our BH tracks are all between 4.10 and 4.15mm from bottom of sleeper to top of rail, made up of 1.6mm of sleeper, 0.6mm of chair seat and 1.92mm of BH rail.

Incidentally, there is no need to feel you need to reinforce the rail with some soldered fixings. Provided the rail is laid pre-curved to the required alignment, it is best to make sure the rail can expand or contract (or the baseboard expand or contract) without any 'fight' between the rail and its fastenings or track base. So Jim's point 3. is important - any securing of the rail must be arranged so most of the rail is free to slide in the chairs. If done like this, the plastic chairs are quite strong enough to hold the rail in position.

With the Exactoscale slips, all the material for a batch of both 1 in 8 single slip and 1 in 8 double slip kits is ready, the instructions are drafted and all that remains is to do a final check of the instructions against the drawing (template) to eliminate any errors. Unfortunately, Len is not well at the moment, so things are not progressing quickly.

Regards
Andrew Jukes
Exactoscale Ltd.

[jim s-w]

Hi Carl

The C&L code for you is 4ZC101C the sleepers are indeed 1.6mm thick as per the exactoscale ones. The pin head fills the gap. Incidentally if you use Flat bottom rail the pin head needs to sit lower on the copperclad. A light tap with a hammer to bring it flush is all that you need.

Hope this helps

Jim

[Hardwicke]

But all this worry about the dropper being visible or strong enough isn't needed. The modern railway (especially the electrified one) has lots of items bolted to the track for earthing. Can these not be used as our electrical contacts? All rails have leads for track circuiting. Also the orange tubes under the rails for signal cabling could be used in a similar way. Why hide the contact when it can be disguised? Just a thought.
The pin is a neat idea though.
I've never had a contact fail on plain track yet on an exhibition layout. Points, well yes I've had one or two fail but it was being rebuilt at the time. Never failed in public.
Now when are we going to have P4 Track Co flat bottomed points?

[Hardwicke]

I just saw your comment Andrew. Wish Len well.

[Bilton Junction]

Jim and Andrew,

Many thanks for your help and advice about the PCB, also to others who have made suggestions about droppers. I will definitely try the method of building in droppers as I hate putting them in afterwards. The combination of hot irons and plastic chairs terrify me, especially when having taken trouble to make up a kit or 60 feet panels with a check rail, all keys carefully handed, one false move and its back to looking like Peco streamline. I think that I should also review my current practice of laying pre-made sections in PVA and ballasting in one go. I am definitely not Norman Soloman. I tried his industrial size staple gun and that is even more frightening than a soldering iron. It is difficult to maintain good alignment whilst the PVA dries. I tried using Peco N gauge rail-joiners soldered to PCB to avoid doglegs when joining curved flexible track. It worked well but is only suitable in less obtrusive places.

I have used the Exactoscale crossing sleeper sprues in places to modify the kits for making part-through timbers for crossovers as well as replacing damage caused by soldering on droppers(!). I did wonder about the delay with the slips as Len was quite confident about getting them out soon when I spoke to him at Scalefour North. I am sorry to hear that he is ill.

Carl

[Paul Willis]

I stuck with the original intention of scale length rail for the next section. Time will tell if the droppers stick as well! A bit stupid really as that section on the main line is beyond the platform edge and under the canopy. The problem will come trying to lay 30' rails in the yard in the foreground, which I think was the standard rail length for sidings on the NER. There are still sections of NER pattern 45' rails with 17 sleepers in Bank Top Station, Darlington.... I suppose it may be possible to use yard rail lengths load them up with chairs and stick them on 9' sleepers then notch the rail joints afterwards. Awful complicated P4 aint it?!

As complicated as you want to make it

I thought of your post when last night I found this photo of prototype track:

http://andy-kirkham.fotopic.net/p27251094.html

It would be very difficult to get an effect like that by taking a yard of track and putting a few notches in it - not that technique doesn't have its place of course. But for sheer individualiy in three dimensions, this woiuld take some beating! It will be an excellent test of whatever suspension you use as well...

Flymo

[Bilton Junction]

That is wonderful. You have found prototype track that looks even worse than mine. Tell me that engine is running on a P4 re-wheeled rigid chassis and I will stop worrying about it all!
Carl

[Paul Willis]

New to P4 and the concept of making my own track, I am caught in a grande (perhaps naive) scheme. I have been toying with using brass chairs to feed the rail - that way one can completely conceal the dropper by soldering beneath the chair. It takes some forethought on drilling holes etc.

I thought of this thread when I was at Scaleforum last month. Michael Clark of Masokits had some etched fishplates that incorporated a fixing point for wire droppers. Rather than try and describe them, these are the pictures that I took.

This is what you're looking for...

S4um09 22 (Medium).jpg

What you get in the packet - a beautifully etched fret, and some of Michael's uniquely styled instructions. He can never be accused of mis-leading information.

S4um09 21 (Medium).jpg

When folded up, attached to the track and painted, they look like this. Unless your ballast is a *long* way from the bottom of the rail, the dropper wire is virtually invisible.

S4um09 18 (Medium).jpg

And this is what is underneath. Michael believes that the best form of wiring is a solid piece of copper dropping through the baseboard. I can see the merits of this, as it's robust and easily soldered.

S4um09 19 (Medium).jpg

Masokits is one of the Scalefour Society's hosted traders, so you'll find all of the contact details by following the link from http://www.scalefour.org/p4host.htm

HTH
Flymo

[LesGros]

jim s-w wrote:

Put the 2 droppers on sleepers that are together. Ensure that the rail is free to move along its length if it needs to - ie. dont solder opposite ends as it will introduce stress into the rail.

Jim,
I can see the sense of this, but a question arises. How does this square with the brass screw, or pcb, method of securing the ends of the rails at board joints?
Or have I missed something.

[Russ Elliott]

How does this square with the brass screw, or pcb, method of securing the ends of the rails at board joints?

Baseboards are hopefully longer than a length of rail, so it's ok to fix a rail at one end, e.g. at the baseboard end, whilst leaving intermediate rail joints unstressed.