Construction of a Test Track

[Allan Goodwillie]

Hi Colin,

David wrote

What kind of chairs and glue do people use when applying them cosmetically to rivetted track? Are there special "cosmetic" chairs available for this purpose? Neither Exactoscale nor C&L chairs when cut in half fit properly on the rivets without some remedial work and and any slight excess of solder makes things even more difficult.

In the early days up in Scotland we did have cosmetic chairs, cast by Ian Middleditch in his centrifuge caster in the garden shed. Ian had the Model Wagon Company and specialised in early pre-group prototypes. His chairs came in two pieces for outside and inside the rail. I still have some NBR 4-bolt chairs. It is possible to occasionally pick them up, but they are long since unavailable, however all the Scottish built P4 model railways had them - something that did not happen down south for a long time after. Kings Cross also produced brass chairs which had to be glued on to the sleepers - I could even dig some out for everyone to have a look at.

As to how to use the C&L etc.cosmetically, what I normally do is solder the rail to rivets as normal, using a solder paste, a little bit of care does allow the rivets to be covered providing the rail is central on the rivet. That is not always going to be the case however, and what I do before setting out to cosmetically cover the rivets is to take a grinding tool in my Dremmel and give them all a rub down. By the way, rivets have changed shape over the years and originally they had smaller heads than they tend to have nowadays, so that may be a reason for the cosmetic chairs not fitting so well.

It is true it takes a little longer this way, but it is better from the point of view that the track can be laid and wired up and alterations made where necessary simply by re-heating and re-gauging. When everything is right then the chairs are added. There has been discussion elsewhere on the forum about track going tight to gauge using plastic chairs and the three point gauge as well as other gauges, which I do not want to go into here, but I have had problems in the past personally with the chairs being used on their own along with plastic point bases as well as wooden sleepers - success is not guaranteed, but that is true of so many things.

Clearly David is having success with his techniques as are others it is more a question of choice than anything else.

[David Thorpe]

...........It is true it takes a little longer this way, but it is better from the point of view that the track can be laid and wired up and alterations made where necessary simply by re-heating and re-gauging. ...........There has been discussion elsewhere on the forum about track going tight to gauge using plastic chairs and the three point gauge as well as other gauges, which I do not want to go into here, but I have had problems in the past personally with the chairs being used on their own along with plastic point bases as well as wooden sleepers - success is not guaranteed, but that is true of so many things.

Track built with plastic chairs and ply sleepers can easily be adjusted by sliding the blade of a slim craft knife under the chair - it usually comes away fairly well without destroying anything. A row of these can be done quite easily, whileas I find it quite hard to adjust soldered track by reheating as the solder sets again as soon as you take the iron away. I have however had problems with some track going tight to gauge, particularly pointwork. I find it hard to see how that can be blamed on the chairs as I tend to leave the gauges in place on the track until the chairs are secure. This is in spite of using a three point gauge which I have to confess I find absolutely useless (and yes, I've been using it the right way round!). Instead I have now adjusted a couple of roller gauges to allow for gauge widening where necessary.

DT

[John Palmer]

The group that built our Burnham layout will forever be indebted to Nick Cann who, almost singlehandedly, applied cosmetic chairs throughout the layout's landscaped section. For this we used Eric Pilgrim's castings representing LSWR chairs, which I think were originally developed for SLAG. Coming in inside and outside halves like the Middleditch cosmetic chairs, they were in white metal and had a cut out in the base of appreciably larger diameter than the rivets then in use, to assist their fitting. Carving up today's complete chairs so that they fit around rivets looks to me like a quick ticket to the funny farm.

As to glue, and looking back at Digest Sheet 23.5.3, I see that Mike Trice recommended the use either of Loctite Multibond or of Bostik 1 Clear Adhesive. Although the Loctite product is apparently still available that doesn't appear to be the case for Bostik 1, which we used and which was a two-part product with glue and activator (like Multibond). I must give Loctite Multibond a trial, as I recall the Bostik equivalent being good and useful for plenty of purposes other than sticking chairs. It's certainly stood the test of time on Burnham, the chairs on which remain securely attached after thirty years, though the nature of the glue is such that it isn't hard to prise them free should that become necessary.

Allan's mention of those NBR chairs has me salivating slightly, as the chunkiness of the North British chair was VERY distinctive and in no way captured by the four-hole Midland chair which is probably the closest matching product available.

I too still have some of the Kings Cross chairs! As brass stampings that can readily be soldered, I have plans to make use of them as the chair elements of North British heel plates.

<Edited to add: Mike Trice's glue recommendations related to white metal cosmetic chairs, applying plastic cosmetic chairs is a different ballgame altogether. Note to self: must move on from this retro model railways thing...>

[JFS]

[quote="Allan Goodwillie"what I normally do is ... take a grinding tool in my Dremmel and give them all a rub down. [/quote]

I would just add a major note of caution here. I was recently asked by a mate to help him investigate occasional derailments at one location on his layout (actually a double slip) due to tight gauge. His track have been built using exactly this approach. As soon as we had removed the cosmetic chairs, it was clear that every single one of the soldered joints had failed, allowing the rail gradually (the track had been laid a couple of decades earlier!) to go under gauge.

I think this problem is a lot more common than is realised - after all in his case, even though more than a dozen joints had failed, the symptom was only "occasional" derailments because the chairs continued to (almost) hold the rail. As to the cause, I can imagine that the action of the grinding weakens the joint by puting a lot of vibrational stress on it as well as putting a bit of heat in. Thereafter, over time, the usual thermal (etc) stress cause the joint to fail. Of course, you will not know it has failed as the cosmetic chairs cover the failure up - until the occasional derailments start...

Of course, I am not saying it won't / can't work (it does for you Allan!) but I merely add a note of caution from experience. I also cannot support the notion that the track can be fully wired and "tested " and then the cosmetic stuff can follow. All my experience tells me that after the cosmetic stuff is done it will run like a bag of nails and then it is a right job to fix. To quote a well-known member of the Yorkshire Scalefour community "If I had a layout's worth of cosmetic chairs to fit, I scrap the lot and start again"!!

Best wishes,

[Armchair Modeller]

Experience from 2mm scale suggests that you need a fair wedge of solder on every joint to prevent the joints breaking over time. Applying minimal solder to allow space for cosmetic chairs definitely sounds risky.

Reading all this, I am kind of relieved that I am using Masokits etched chairs on my layout. They don't have the bulk of plastic chairs and are incredibly tedious to fold up - but once they are in place, nothing is going to move (so far, anyway!).

[Allan Goodwillie]

That's very interesting Howard, not something I have come across myself, but I would say that there is no substitute for care in laying out and constructing a point. I may have given the impression that grinding down is something that occurs on a regular basis, but it is only as a last resort generally. At the moment I am building a layout with industrial points so nothing particularly complex, however I am using chairs directly within certain parts of the points and staying with solder and rivets in the key areas. This requires a proper understanding of how the various gauges work and the set of the rail through certain areas of the point - so not to be immediately recommended.

There are a number of points raised all of which are pertinent,

David wondering why his track has gone tight to gauge while being held in place using the triangular gauge - this is caused by the change to C&L chairs which hold the rail at an angle and not vertical. If the triangular gauge is used (there were triangular gauges available back in Studiolith P4 days by the way) then it has to be realised that if the rail is held to the depth of the full slots of the gauge then the rail will be vertical and when the gauge is taken off, the rail will relax into the angle held by the chairs and therefore the track becomes tight to gauge. I have been running courses up here on track construction and have recommended using gauges other than the triangular one if using plastic chairs. C&L changed their own gauges recently (which worked after a fashion, but were not particularly brilliant in use) and are of a completely different type, but very useable. I would recommend their use.

There has been a thread running elsewhere on the forum discussing the three point gauge, so do not want to go too much into the subject here.

The glue being used for chairing cosmetically - when adding my white metal chairs to Dubbieside all 40+ years ago I have had few failures, but I used white glue to stick them on. It has been mentioned by Howard that riveted track had failed and I do know that this has happened on other layouts which used the original Studiolith tinned rivets where the tinning failed - probably due to the flux not being cleaned off after soldering. Although I used the rivets quite extensively I have never had this problem, but I do neutralise the flux and I think that the use of the white glue also helped to make the whole thing permanent.

Plastic chairs can come off, if used cosmetically particularly if you use track rubbers. Use of the proper solvent does allow the chairs to sit reasonably well provided the rail is properly set centrally above the rivets and as long as care is taken over this then the solvent will soften the chair halves and they will fit reasonably well, but not perfectly, simply because the rail is held vertically. That is why the inside part of the chair an be slightly high and require filing back if necessary - just, like Howard's point be aware that this can happen and the cause.

My new layout will require propelling rakes of 20+ wagons regularly through several facing points, so they had better be good.

[Le Corbusier]

track has gone tight to gauge while being held in place using the triangular gauge - this is caused by the change to C&L chairs which hold the rail at an angle and not vertical. If the triangular gauge is used then it has to be realised that if the rail is held to the depth of the full slots of the gauge then the rail will be vertical and when the gauge is taken off, the rail will relax into the angle held by the chairs and therefore the track becomes tight to gauge.

Do I assume that this point also applies to the exactoscale chairs? I have a set of the triangular gauges ... bought because of the automatic gauge widening they provide. Is there a way to use them by not fully locking on to the rails ... or should I just put them on one side for PCB sleepers when/if required.

edit ... I have just run some of my bullhead track through my triangular gauges and they allow movement/rotation about the railhead such that it appears that they accommodate the angle of the chair?

Tim

[JFS]

It is true of Exactoscale chairs as well and is caused by any track gauge which grips the rail tightly because the rail is forced into a vertical position, but when it is removed the rail "cants inwards" to a 1:20 inclination and thus goes under gauge by a considerable amount. When I was demonstrating at the "101 not out" event last year, quite a number of people asked about this (including EM types) and it indicates that it is quite a common problem - one or two people even brought samples with them as they had no idea what had caused it.

The best way of avoiding it is to use the Exactoscale-type gauges which do not grip the rail for plastic-chaired track. They can be bought in a set which incorporate "wide-gauge" variations.

Hope that helps,

[Philip Hall]

I always used UHU to glue cosmetic chairs and it worked well. I managed about five half chairs from one blob of glue before it skinned over. I did this in my lunch hour at the bank, much to the bemusement of the other staff members, who never complained about the smell either!

Philip

[David Thorpe]

Ah - this explains a lot. Unlike Tim's, my triangular gauge (now destined for the bin) is tight on the rails.

DT

[Colin Parks]

Having read through all the recent comments on gules suitable for ballasting, chairs, rivets, and triangular gauges, there do seem to be many aspects to consider when making track to a reliable standard. Attached is a photo of the plain track with rails loosely laid. In the foreground to the left are the lines with Peco flat bottom components, while to the right foreground is some track with Exactoscale chairs and C&L Hi-Nickel rail, which is not too bad. To the top right are two sidings laid with C&L chairs and the least said about this area the better at the moment! When zoomed-in, the slight difference between the Peco code 82 flat-bottom rail on the point work and the code 83 substitute on the plain track can just be seen.

IMG_8564 (2).JPG

My main dilemma presently is what to do about the plain chaired track fitted with C&L chairs. I had considered easing off the fit with an application of butanone to each chair then twisting it to be square to the rail, but this seems a very time-consuming solution with no guarantee of success, so it looks like further Exactoscale chairs will have to be ordered in the hope that they are going to fit the rails better than the C&L ones . (The bullhead rail that I am using is C&L Hi-Nickel. That rail and the chairs are all about three years old.) The other option would be to rip up the sleepers in the sidings and replace those with Fast Track bases, though this would mean losing the chair key detail of the individually moulded chairs that had been their appeal in the first place.

I note the possibility that inconsistent rail sections could be a contributing cause of tight-fitting chairs, but it seems more likely that worn moulds are at the root of the problem with the twisted chairs. Whatever the case is, these sangs will have to be rectified, because even the Exactoscale chairs do not fit without curving the bases and how to correct that tendency is beyond me for now.

[Colin Parks]

A postscript to the previous post, I decide to take some pictures:

Images of Exactoscale chairs threaded onto C&L Hi-Nickel rail (all purchased three years ago).

The first picture shows that the chair is fouling the rail foot, with the result that the chair key seems to be sitting too low in relation to the rail web. Could it be that this type of rail has too thick a foot? Anyway, the effect of this mismatch is to force the chair jaws apart and curve the base of the chair. As can be seen, the curve is quite pronounced:

IMG_8566 (2).JPG

...and the view from below shows another unpleasant consequence of this (the chairs are alternately keyed for a bi-directional section of line):

IMG_8570 (2).JPG

Um...

[Allan Goodwillie]

Hi Colin,

I am pleased to see that your test piece is continuing on a pace but not surprised that you are finding inconsistency with some of the components. We were discussing this around the dining room table this afternoon during our monthly get together of our Starters Group.

One of the things I set up on the table were two lengths of C&L flexi-track both bought some time ago but from different batches. I had a coach from our Royal Scot set sitting on the table. I asked Phil to pick up the coach and put it on the track. Phil could not get the coach to stay on the track, not even forcing the wheels between the rails. It soon became clear that the coach would not run on the track, even when straight. The assumption held by those around the table of course, was that there must be something wrong with the coach. After a little period of Phil getting a bit frustrated I asked him to try the other track section - it ran beautifully end to end time after time.

Phil realised very quickly that it was the track at fault as we had bought a whole box of the stuff a couple of years back for the West Scotland Group and it was all the same. To be fair C&L sent a replacement box of track, but unfortunately had not checked it before sending and it turned out to have the same problem. Out of gauge and tight!

Let me say that the company has been sold on since then and I bought some track lengths of the thin sleeper type at the Perth Show last June for a friend and when I checked the gauge using Exactoscale gauges it turned out to be fine. So recent track seems to be OK, but I would take a track gauge along with me if buying some just the same. I believe that the track bases are outsourced and moulding can raise problems.

Old friend Richard Hollingworth (Parkside Dundas)(now retired!) one day in his workshop remarked to me that when he started up his moulding machine it took some time to heat up properly and any moulded parts coming out of the machine before that happened had to be rejected as they were going to be dimensionally incorrect. The machine used plastic pellets and the bad mouldings just had to be discarded.

The rail section is also outsourced - so there can always be problems due to that as well. It is interesting that we have examples of this kind of thing happening as one of the great early arguments between the P4 and S4 people down south raged around the thought of difficulties due to the lack of quality control - not going to open up that one again!

Another point mentioned during the thread was the difficulty of cutting chairs in two - I would suggest this is possibly due to how they are stored. UV light does have an effect on most plastics and they become harder and more brittle. I store mine in drawers and containers where no light can get to them. Once used I also make sure they get painted fairly soon after as the covering of paint also helps keep out the light. When Mike Gilgannon passed away a few years ago his collection of wheels were sold off but many just disintegrated due to the same problem.

Much of this incidentally, will come out during the series of articles I've done for the recent snooze.

This photograph shows up the variations in gauge -

DSC02390.JPG

[Colin Parks]

Hi Allan,

Your comparison of the two pieces of flexitrack are quite remarkable in their variation. Re. the consistency of mouldings from different times of a production run, I can see the impact that would make. The issue that I have is fortunately not linked to brittleness through age or UV exposure, and more likely stems from an incompatiblity of the rail and chair mouldings.

I have tried attaching a chair to a plywood sleeper with plenty of butanone and given enough downward pressure, have managed get the chair to sit flat on the sleeper - but not square to it. The thought of having to correct the orientation of each individual chair in relation to the rail as the solvent vents off (if indeed this would be possible without altering the gauge) is not very appealing.

It has to be said once again that these parts have not been supplied by the new owner of C&L. I have some more Excatoscale S1 chairs on order, so will soon know if there is an improvement in the fit of these parts. I must say that when deciding to adopt P4 standards, I had not anticipated that such problems with components would arise.

[Philip Hall]

I bought some thin sleepered C&L flexitrack more than ten years ago, and had one length under the loft window as a test piece, along with a length of the same make of EM track and another of Peco Streamline. Over many years the two C&L lengths narrowed in gauge, the EM one first and the P4 a year or so later. I replaced the EM one with Exactoscale FastTrack - the orange stuff, so quite early production - but the P4 one with new thin sleepered C&L, and both have been absolutely fine ever since. Therefore I concluded there were indeed problems at one time which have been corrected, but, as Allan says, useful to check.

On my Taw Vale layout I had some of the very first C&L flexitrack, curved down to 3'6" in places, and this did fulfill the promise of slight gauge widening. Certainly it gave no trouble at all, despite being laid on very flexible foam underlay.

Philip

[Le Corbusier]

. I must say that when deciding to adopt P4 standards, I had not anticipated that such problems with components would arise.

I thought that the C & L/ Exactoscale chairs were universal to all hand built 4mm finescale track ?

[Allan Goodwillie]

Colin and Tim,

I think you are beginning to see why I still recommend using wooden sleepers and rivets, call me old fashioned, but it does work. Using the chairs cosmetically does take a little more time, but I have not had problems with track going tight to gauge using this method. I am on to my own test track to try out a few ideas and questions this week Colin. I have to finish a couple of boards on the new layout today and tomorrow.

I was told during our discussions yesterday that fitting plastic chairs 2:1 with soldered rivets keeps the rail upright throughout. Strikes me this means that there is a permanent tension between the two which might result in problems some time down the road. Wondering if anyone has experience of building like this and whether there are any question marks over this method of construction. In my situation it may of course be fine. My layouts are kept in a garage without any outside light penetration.

Philip's experience is interesting and does suggest that plastics do change due to light - anyone leaving plastic items in the greenhouse will know only too well how quickly they can become brittle. Many chemicals can alter in sunlight - there is the famous example of Rembrandt leaving turpentine in a jar on a window sill for a long time and coming to it some time later when he needed some in a hurry. When he opened it he found it had changed in its qualities and was now quite sticky and more like resin . He tried it just the same and discovered that it made a superb glazing medium. In his case it turned out well. Again I still suggest painting all the plastic parts early in the process.

I still think Tim that P4/S4 track still looks superb when done well - Howard's example showing just what is possible and given time and care can be laid to give a superb level of operation and there are layouts out there that work superbly like Howard's.

DSC02330.JPG

John Stocks layout, which I was helping to operate over the weekend also works superbly on all occasions although it is his first S4 layout. It did not take long for John to build, about three years. He concentrated on building the layout and was able to rely on the rest of the group for stock at exhibitions. He is now on to building his own stock and has been able to concentrate on that over the last couple of years. Scalefourum this year allowed him to show both sets of stock - thus the predominance of Scottish stock for part of the day and the turning over to proper Midland stock for the second half of the day - I am sure some of the visitors must have wondered about the Scottish stock, but John was celebrating the co-operation we have within our West Group and as members we appreciated that as well. John has been our Chairman over the last few years and we as a group have gone from strength to strength - hope this long continues. It is intended that all future exhibitions would see the layout all Midland.

DSC02371.JPG

[Colin Parks]

Hi Allan,

Many thanks for posting those pictures. The layouts certainly do look good and something to aspire to!

The idea of partially rivetted track construction does sound like a very robust solution, though would mean quite a lot of sleepers which have already been stuck down needing to be removed in my case. You might be right in presuming that combining upright rail and canted chairs could cause issues with tension after a time. Good luck with your tests.

On my last layout, the base boards were always kept covered with coloured plastic sheet to keep out the light and also any dust. There was an instance of gauge narrowing despite this precaution, causing a few areas on curves to need easing, though that was in 00 gauge.

[ralphrobertson]

First let me say that I think your track looks excellent Colin. I have been following this discussion for a while now - the issue of flexible track is very dear to our hearts at the Manchester club with our experience with Slattocks Junction. The front scenic boards were laid in a mixture of ply and rivet and plastic full height sleepered track with plastic chairs all built using gauges. I can honestly say that the only problems we have had with this track has been us making mistakes with gauging primarily in the area where switch blades meet the stock rails where the gauging is tight but other than that the track has performed extremely well.

The fiddle yard parts of the layout though are a totally different kettle of fish. In an attempt to speed up the tracklaying process over the years we have used flexi track from various origins and age and paid the price. Derailments were common and trains would run happily for many circuits and then derail which is so very frustrating. In the end we have removed almost every piece of flexi track and replaced it with copper clad and the running is now not only improved but more importantly it is controllable in that we can adjust it at any time we want if we have to, something that is just not possible with flexi track.

We sometimes have problems with flexi track that is straight too where 2 lengths meet and one of the final track jobs is to remove a couple of sleepers either side of these joints and replace them with copper clad, I might add that the track here is something like 15 years or so old but just once in a while we do get a derailment.

So, our experience at the Manchester club with track brings us to the conclusion that we would never again lay flexi track which is why my own Gt Jackson St layout is being built with ply and rivet and cosmetic chairs - I only want to do the job once and once only, I am fed up with revisiting track to fettle it. Plastic sleepered track with plastic chairs is another matter and we don't really have any opinion on that yet, we need exhibition running experience to see how that fares over time but so far it is looking good. The turnouts on that section are all made with ply and rivet but I do have personal doubts about the ability of plastic slide chairs keeping gauge at spots mentioned earlier.

It is interesting that Alan Goodwillie and ourselves have arrived at the same place!

Ralph

[Colin Parks]

. I must say that when deciding to adopt P4 standards, I had not anticipated that such problems with components would arise.

I thought that the C & L/ Exactoscale chairs were universal to all hand built 4mm finescale track ?

Hi Tim,

Yes, the components are universal in application, but it was P4 that I chose to adopt and the tolerances are so much tighter than 00 and EM, so any manufacturing variations in components are going to impact even more. The cosmetic appearance of twisted chairs would be common to all 4mm track, as would the potential problems arising from the curving of the chair bases. What I was trying to say is that I assumed that the components that P4 modellers used would be accurate and reliable. This also applies to gauges (cf. David Thrope's comments on triangular gauges).

But I shall not be giving up. This is a test track after all and the whole idea was gain some practical experience, which I am.

All the best,

Colin

[kelly]

Proving an interesting thread!

There are special paints that are designed to protect from UV damage iirc. Whether these can be used with the plastic used in track construction I'm not sure.

I am planning on using the exactoscale bases for some parts of my layout and using the Flexi track I have for test track perposes rather on the layout. Not sure I have the patience for individual chairs on the straight sections, but it might be revisited at a later date. The turnouts will be exactoscale style, but I am thinking that first and last sleepers being either ply+rivet or copperclad to give extra strength. The same at baseboard joins.

[Le Corbusier]

Hi Tim,

Yes, the components are universal in application, but it was P4 that I chose to adopt and the tolerances are so much tighter than 00 and EM, so any manufacturing variations in components are going to impact even more. The cosmetic appearance of twisted chairs would be common to all 4mm track, as would the potential problems arising from the curving of the chair bases. What I was trying to say is that I assumed that the components that P4 modellers used would be accurate and reliable. This also applies to gauges (cf. David Thrope's comments on triangular gauges).

But I shall not be giving up. This is a test track after all and the whole idea was gain some practical experience, which I am.

All the best,

Colin

Hi Colin,

In the same boat here but I suspect with lower skill levels and certainly less experience.

The triangular gauges I assume were developed for ply and rivet/copperclad ... hence the different style of gauges currently offered by C & L. Pity I already have the triangular gauges - however, with the degree of rotational movement mine appear to accommodate I am going to give them a go anyway - after all that's what a test track is for .

I have my fingers firmly crossed that as I'm using Bullhead I will not encounter the problems which have dogged you on the flatbottom and that the exacto chairs I have bought will sit flat and square.

I wonder if 3d printing might be a solution to worn moulds going forward

Tim

[kelly]

Hi Tim,

Yes, the components are universal in application, but it was P4 that I chose to adopt and the tolerances are so much tighter than 00 and EM, so any manufacturing variations in components are going to impact even more. The cosmetic appearance of twisted chairs would be common to all 4mm track, as would the potential problems arising from the curving of the chair bases. What I was trying to say is that I assumed that the components that P4 modellers used would be accurate and reliable. This also applies to gauges (cf. David Thrope's comments on triangular gauges).

But I shall not be giving up. This is a test track after all and the whole idea was gain some practical experience, which I am.

All the best,

Colin

Hi Colin,

In the same boat here but I suspect with lower skill levels and certainly less experience.

The triangular gauges I assume were developed for ply and rivet/copperclad ... hence the different style of gauges currently offered by C & L. Pity I already have the triangular gauges - however, with the degree of rotational movement mine appear to accommodate I am going to give them a go anyway - after all that's what a test track is for .

I have my fingers firmly crossed that as I'm using Bullhead I will not encounter the problems which have dogged you on the flatbottom and that the exacto chairs I have bought will sit flat and square.

I wonder if 3d printing might be a solution to worn moulds going forward

Tim

There has been someone experimenting with that over on rmweb. The results have been a bit hit and miss for chairs it seems for 4mm. Pushing the current technology available from the likes of shapeways I expect. That and the cost ratio for other finer materials is less attractive (and they have more tendancy towards being brittle).

[JFS]

A postscript to the previous post, I decide to take some pictures:

Hi Colin,

I think your photos prove that the issue is with the rail section much more than it is with the chairs - clearly, the foot of the rail (and possibly also the web) are a fair bit too thick. I suspect that the die wears with use making the whole section bigger, and maybe the Quality control department were busy on more important matters...

If I get a moment over the next day or so I will repeat your photo using different makes of rail - I think it might be quite illuminating.

Allan asked about combining functional chairs and rivets and personally, If I had a lot of plain track to do, I would go this way. The best method I have heard of is to use rivets about every fifth position. The rail should be gauged using a track gauge which does not grip the rail tightly. By sitting the plastic chairs on their sleepers and weighting the rail, it will assume its 1:20 inclination. A quick fizz with the iron and the job is done. Best of all, the "cosmetic chair fitting overhead" is reduced by 80% AND a relatively robust and stable track should result which is still adjustable if needed.


EDIT:- PS track is looking splendid BTW

Best Wishes,

[Allan Goodwillie]

Hi Colin and Howard,

here is a selection of photographs taken over the hour - just quick snaps as I did not want to ruin your sequence Howard. I realise I may have spelt the title wrongly - apologies - rushing to get out.

Minores.pdf