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Nice work Rich - I was always aware there would be a slight height difference so I think I assumed you could probably run a discrete 5mm strip of card along the two shortest edges to get the alignment...

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2 hours ago, bcnPete said:

Nice work Rich - I was always aware there would be a slight height difference so I think I assumed you could probably run a discrete 5mm strip of card along the two shortest edges to get the alignment...

 

There's a plan, well an idea. It's not very well thought out but the seed is germinating.

 

Useful to know what you think the difference is based on the materials used. I keep remembering to search for my misplaced calipers at times that it is inconvenient to look for them. I thought that when I locate them I'll be good to measure and move on. Now I might be enabled to do so without, though I still must find them somewhen. 

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On 21/05/2020 at 22:43, richbrummitt said:

 

There's a plan, well an idea. It's not very well thought out but the seed is germinating.

 

Useful to know what you think the difference is based on the materials used. I keep remembering to search for my misplaced calipers at times that it is inconvenient to look for them. I thought that when I locate them I'll be good to measure and move on. Now I might be enabled to do so without, though I still must find them somewhen. 

 
I think you lay the new track as you want it and the difference is what it is...probably easier to raise the FY’s by adding thin strips until you get it spot on...maybe plasticard might be better and bond to the acrylic too...

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17 minutes ago, bcnPete said:

 
I think you lay the new track as you want it and the difference is what it is...probably easier to raise the FY’s by adding thin strips until you get it spot on...maybe plasticard might be better and bond to the acrylic too...

 

I rewired a controller last night and had a quick play as is. The video is low quality since filming driving and the rest all at the same time is too much to do a good job and it's 30x the upload limit even for a few minutes clip. Some more wires and I should have somewhere to test run things until I change things up on the scenic board. 

 

The fiddle yards and scenic board do need some way to locate and maintain the alignment. As I mentioned in my previous reply there is planning underway to mount it all together in some way. I think you'll appreciate the materials involved.

Edited by richbrummitt
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  • 4 months later...

I’ve taken the plunge and cut the new trackbed. It’s a piece of 18mm ply, which is an offcut that I had to hand. 
 

To get the right shape I drew around the back scene as a template after placing the whole layout upside down onto the material

 

B67C9A2F-2C49-40D6-BC4C-980B2EE25493.jpeg.cd2e9100f04a73c5494ad68b7b02d2da.jpeg

 

15mins with the jigsaw

 

F3CCAF56-5254-4927-8323-5DCD934AB3F2.jpeg.55d24d40f7309d5412450520363820b7.jpeg

 

I’ve left some at the end with the yard turnout until I know what is happen with the turnout operating gubbins and it’s mounting. I’m going to try something else here but am apprehensive because this is where I got really stuck with Littlemore. 

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The trackbed has been cut from 1mm mountboard and fixed with some kind of wood glue. I figured that the paper probably came from wood so it ought to stick well with wood glue. First I placed it carefully and drew around it so that I could achieve the same alignment. It was left to dry over night beneath a pile of reference books. The templot track plan was carefully prepared by removing the tape from the underside and trimming the overlap away locally in the areas where the tracks are. This allows a single uniform thickness of track plan to be stuck onto the track plan. I used a well known brand of glue stick for this and a roller to press down firmly. I trimmed back and removed the rest of the paper surround and later the top layer of tape was teased away with a scalpel to get back to that uniform thickness of a single sheet of paper. 

 

663742759_20201008_142840580_iOS(2).jpg.63ec95ce0672801abbeb321844a5d976.jpg

 

Above you will see that I've kept the cutaway paper for now. It has some other details on that I might need - though I could print another. When I work out where I expect to trim the mountboard back a little more to get a ballast shoulder and cess in the right place.

 

The board is small enough to work with on the lap and I have cut all the point timbers and stuck them down onto the template with pressure sensitive double sided adhesive tape over a couple of evenings. The Laurie etched chairs that were ordered have already arrived and so it's copperclad for the timbers and I'm using Easitrack for the sleepers. 

 

1217373753_20201015_194758783_iOS(2).jpg.ad80fc14fd04eafc266c6af8ddeeae30.jpg

 

I've added Easitrack to feed the stock rails through to align and hold things for positioning and the chairs more easily during soldering. Just enough to get to the break of rail in the prototype after the one adjacent to the crossing. 

 

20201015_203325378_iOS.jpg.d9f1efa14cef54b7c8962e8c07427dd3.jpg

 

Is it too early to paint and ballast before the rails get in the way? It would rather obscure the templot plan! Obviously those areas that still need to be soldered cannot be painted either but some areas could be done. 

 

Now to re-read Track before I get too carried away and get out of sequence for construction. 

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Like Jim I find these days it’s best to build and wire the track, get the turnouts working etc, before painting and ballasting. That way you know it works okay and if it stops doing so then where the problems have arisen since.

 

It’s looking good.

 

Izzy

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I'm already out of sequence: One lesson I almost forgot was to create the holes for the wiring to the rails before placing the rails. These are now done but it will take some time to pick all the bits of the sticky tape. I've not gapped the copperclad timbers yet. It would have been easier to do that before placing them. I'm now considering doing the gaps after the rails are all soldered because that will make it all more solid.

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1 hour ago, richbrummitt said:

I've not gapped the copperclad timbers yet. It would have been easier to do that before placing them. I'm now considering doing the gaps after the rails are all soldered because that will make it all more solid.

There is one potential difficulty with that. If you gap them after soldering down the rails and find that the rails are not electrically isolated from each other, you will have a huge problem in determining which sleeper (or worse - sleepers) isn't properly gapped. I see no problem in gapping the sleepers after they have been glued in place, I do it myself, but I always put a meter across every gapped sleeper to make sure that they are all properly gapped before any rails are soldered down.

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Timbers have been gapped. Thank you for the steer. I used a rat tail file and buzzed everything out with a meter to be sure of isolation as required. 
 

My box of wire was finally depleted so I  ordered more to allow the wires to be placed in the holes below the rails before adding rail. I stripped and soldered one end of each wire bent at a right angle so they cannot fall through the holes. I should have paid more attention to what I was ordering (except colour and price) because I’ve got three different types of what I thought was the same wire. It’s all 26awg 7/0.2 tinned copper but the red has 30mils insulation, the blue 15mils and the black is XLPVC insulation (also 15mils). Good job I drilled the holes over 2mm diameter because the red is pretty chunky and is a snug fit! 
 

I’ve now started cutting rail to suit and got the stock rails threaded into the Easitrac bases.
 

591C816C-815E-4B38-A8A0-C1F42798B4B6.jpeg.e19e988ba42ecd99a412a5b37e2eb712.jpeg

 

It may not be immediately obvious but they’re all joggled too. The one bottom right has the rail head filed down beyond the joggle plus some black. I’ve given it the same treatment as recommended in Track for wing and check rails because the catch point should not have had much running over that bit of rail. 

Edited by richbrummitt
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Today’s efforts have created all the switch blades required for the layout: 3 LH 9’, 1 RH 9’ and a pair of 12’. (The 2 odd LH are for the catch points.) These have been cleaned up and deburred and the fit checked in the cast brass Easitrac chairs that I’m hoping will work well to restrain them as loose heeled. 

41636A09-1F88-461E-B639-94F3237790FF.jpeg.7c92665879b5ba2d6f9d77033c257431.jpeg

 

I’ve dipped back into that David Smith book again this time for pictures of stretcher bars and some catch points have one and others two :scratchhead:It is clear that the stretcher goes all the way across the 4’ even when there’s only one switch blade. One question answered and another one to ponder. I think it’s a case of guess. The reason I’m even pondering is that I might fit both stretcher bars on the switches for turnouts - if it can be made to work - because they might improve rigidity and or reliability. 
 

I’m not going to use the cast brass chairs throughout so I’ve prodded up some etched ‘Laurie’ chairs too. They’re a bit hit and miss at the moment. I did the slide chairs first and they were a bit easier than the plain. I might get better with practice but I found it harder than it perhaps could be to line up the fret to the jig, especially as the lines of chairs made a habit of moving around on their skinny tags (I get why they’re skinny) rather than staying aligned. I realised afterwards I bent the slide chairs the wrong way and I’m hoping it won’t a, matter and b, notice. 
 

00744763-BD05-4713-B5EC-7B13B0BCE6BC.jpeg.08a785c8b4532b50f8de6b60553b0b0d.jpeg

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Now they’re fixed in place. First I cut out from the spruce, cleaned up and thinned the brass chair by filing the underside so that the total height of the rail in the chair measured 0.25-0.3mm. Tin and then sweat onto the timber in the right place whilst holding down. A piece of etch waste under the switch rail holds everything level whilst fixing. 
 

8786A59E-CCA9-4193-A940-3E0C3DF95C51.thumb.jpeg.cfbe0c7f8120bd38c25db041a3f4f93c.jpeg


8A1658CA-D3AF-4577-A090-2C8E39D3986E.jpeg.13b901fd22bbf0b2ac578d2e1aaf1b2d.jpeg

 

and the running line seen without the support

 

8C626CD7-4DD7-414E-94EB-08938EE54F50.jpeg.e6c9175f31c1856e306b26b7965d139e.jpeg

 

End on the joggles and the planing are worth the effort. Most of the rails are still either missing or misaligned because there are only heel chairs as yet. 
 

2FAA737E-6DD7-4CAC-A722-7D43B2948AC8.jpeg.1594017364cc9da47146de04410fdb9d.jpeg

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After playing one for the carpet monster (there is no carpet in my workshop but there is still a hungry monster) and one for the layout we have an etched chair. 
 

0E0FDB20-D291-47B6-9936-D5829C7C70EC.jpeg.8086372370dd5dcaabed81af3ecdb832.jpeg

 

I was pleased with the half hour this took knowing that the first was always going to take longer . I managed to break the outside chair of the very first first one I soldered in place on the timber so this actually the second. When trying to bed the outer chair onto the rail the rail popped out and the chair went flat. Those that have ever tried know you don’t get to bend nickel silver etched to 90 degrees twice and the fold line remain robust or even intact. I felt confident that subsequent ones would be more straightforward now I had worked out my chair bending technique. 
 

All was not right. The alignment from above was looking good but vertically it was another story even though I’d packed the rail with etch waste. 
 

A7D52321-4490-42D8-885E-F3668D01FECB.jpeg.ac3346796c8eef2d30f259b5dba5a2aa.jpeg

 

Some measuring has followed because I felt sure that Easitrac should match up with copperclad plus a chairplate. 


Both are 0.8 or thereabouts to the top face of the timber. Easitrac is 1.1 to the base of the rail. Easitrac with rail is 2.25 or thereabouts. Hang on: Timber plus chairplate plus code 40 rail is 0.8+0.25+1=2.05mm. 

 

Grabbing my copy of Track, which is still handy, I read in Chapter 3 section 2 “Actual rail height of Easitrac is 2.2mm and this is what you would expect to achieve with the soldered systems with chairplates...” 
 

My measuring compares with the manual. 

 

As Eeyore would say; oh bother. 
 

Why am I not getting the result expected? 

 

Edited by richbrummitt
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Richard, is the rail actually level? If what I take to be shadows on the next two sleepers to the left it looks like there is a progressively bigger gap between rail and shadow indicating that the rail is sloping down towards the joint. Although I must admit that such a slope doesn’t look like it would account for the amount of step at the joint.

Ian

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8 hours ago, richbrummitt said:


Both are 0.8 or thereabouts to the top face of the timber. Easitrac is 1.1 to the base of the rail. Easitrac with rail is 2.25 or thereabouts. Hang on: Timber plus chairplate plus code 40 rail is 0.8+0.25+1=2.05mm. 
 

My measuring compares with the manual. 

 

As Eeyore would say; oh bother. 
 

Why am I not getting the result expected? 

 

Morning Eeyore Rich,

 

I have a couple of pieces of Laurie track and Easitrack left over from doing my trackwork, a quick and dirty measure with my calipers... (and by no means a comprehensive survey)

IMG_20201028_085502-COLLAGE.jpg.003cb56129a979da6ec09759dbb3081f.jpg

 

There are quite a few spots on my layout that have a similar difference in height as yours, even on an easitrack to easitrack joint. I think what happened with mine is that the bend on the rail can often spring the rail upwards at the join, above what the last chair can resist. Soldering near the chair will also soften the plastic, possibly allowing more bend to come up.

 

In your case, and with only 2 sleepers there until the next point, I'd be tempted to cut the easitrack sleepers out and replace with PCB and chairplates. That way you have something solid to tie the end down to.

 

BTW, when I next use more of Lauries chairs, I'll thread all of the chairs on before starting to solder the rail down. It's far easier than trying to squeeze chairs between the rail and the sleeper.

 

Best Regards,

 

Chris.

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3 hours ago, Ian Smith said:

Richard, is the rail actually level? If what I take to be shadows on the next two sleepers to the left it looks like there is a progressively bigger gap between rail and shadow indicating that the rail is sloping down towards the joint. Although I must admit that such a slope doesn’t look like it would account for the amount of step at the joint.

Ian

 

Good thought. Difficult to say. The difference in height is around 0.2 / 0.25mm as best as I can measure. I went back and measured a few points on the board and the Easitrac is consistently ~2.25mm to the rail head from the board. Where I placed the brass chairs for the heel chair locations I measure ~2.05mm. I filed these down very slightly to get a 1.25mm height of rail with chair so that it should match chair plates. It seems to be consistent. 

 

50 minutes ago, MinerChris said:

Morning Eeyore Rich,

 

I have a couple of pieces of Laurie track and Easitrack left over from doing my trackwork, a quick and dirty measure with my calipers... (and by no means a comprehensive survey)

IMG_20201028_085502-COLLAGE.jpg.003cb56129a979da6ec09759dbb3081f.jpg

 

There are quite a few spots on my layout that have a similar difference in height as yours, even on an easitrack to easitrack joint. I think what happened with mine is that the bend on the rail can often spring the rail upwards at the join, above what the last chair can resist. Soldering near the chair will also soften the plastic, possibly allowing more bend to come up.

 

In your case, and with only 2 sleepers there until the next point, I'd be tempted to cut the easitrack sleepers out and replace with PCB and chairplates. That way you have something solid to tie the end down to.

 

BTW, when I next use more of Lauries chairs, I'll thread all of the chairs on before starting to solder the rail down. It's far easier than trying to squeeze chairs between the rail and the sleeper.

 

Best Regards,

 

Chris.

 

Soldering near a chair does indeed cause it soften to the point of causing problems. Here the rail is a separate piece so the heat transfer is not along the rail and should be safe. The rail is not loose in the chair, which is a good sign. 

 

I cannot reproduce your result with Easitrac rail height. The recent delivery of Easitrac I had and that that was bought more than 10 years ago consistently measures 2.2-2.3mm with rail added. Having slept on it I reached the same conclusion about removing the sleepers ahead of the toe and replacing with copperclad ones. The height will match through the turnouts then (including the already placed heel chairs) leaving the discrepancy to be dealt with after the crossing. A 1:100  gradient to match up is a steady change over about 4 timbers. 

 

Interesting comment about the Laurie chairs. I decided to bend up inner and outer and then introduce from below and sideways.

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(Eeyore's a hero of mine too)  (As is Molesworth . . .)

 

I'm sorry you've been having some trouble with the etched chairplates, Rich, and can see the difference in height between the soldered and plain Easitrac.  It looks to me as tho' the gap between underside of the rail and top of the sleeper - ie. the chairs - is greater in the plastic Easitrac base.  I think Ian is right - there is a slight slope in the rail, but this can only account for a small part of the difference.  May I add some of my own observations, having used the etched chairs for a few years now on 25+ points and crossings on Yeovil Town if you include the section of track I'm working on now?  I'm about 75% through it, and show the progress so far as it illustrates some of the points I'll add to the discussion:

 

1815694221_PenMillDoubleJunction18.JPG.dff98b9af9138cee3fb79cb4fed39e90.JPG

 

You can see this chunk has a fair mix of plain Easitrac base, ABS point timbers with ABS chairs from the sprues, and pcb sleeper strip with etched slide, plain and check chairs.  The sleepers are stuck down to the Templot template with Easitrac (aliphatic) PVA, butanone and thin cyano respectively, pushed down equally  hard;  I have not noticed any difference in the height of the top of the sleepers once the adhesives have set.  Using the depth-measuring rod at the end of my callipers across multiple points of the different construction, I get the following heights (from the template between sleepers to top of rail): Easitrac plain track base: 2.15-2.26mm;  ABS sleepers + ABS sprue chairs: 2.09-2.24mm; pcb sleepers + slide etched chairs: 2.13-2.21mm; pcb sleepers + plain etched chairs: 2.12-2.24mm; pcb sleepers + check etched chairs: 2.15-2.22mm.  So pretty consistent allowing for thickness of solder and adhesive, and variations in the etching and moulding processes of the chairs.  Without doing the full stats, I would say that overall the pcb sleepers+ etched chairs may be c.0.05mm lower than Easitrac track base, with the least variation with the slide and check etched chairs.

 

I think there are several factors which affect the resultant height of the rail head.  There is variation in the degree of etching of the chairs - between etched sheets and within a sheet.  This is inevitable, but may be more significant with the chairs because the width of the slots which define the claws and the side-strips which remain between the two ends are both at the limit (in fact, slightly beyond the recommended minima) of the etching process.  There is more bulk under the rail  with the check chairs (and also the slide chairs, depending exactly how far you push them in under the rail) so predictably less variation with these.  The plain chairs (and to a lesser degree the slide chairs) are the most susceptible: a slight degree of over-etching will undercut the side-strips more and make them ever thinner, and I'm sure pressing down on the rail too hard when holding them in position to solder can make these chairs twist which will reduce their effective thickness and slightly lower the rail.  Repeated straightening-up of bent chairs will have the effect.  So when pressing down on the rail to solder, use the minimum pressure needed to hold everything in place.

 

I note you found yours to be particularly "flimsy", Richard, and whilst they all are to some degree, the slightly over-etched ones are the worst - and it can even be difficult to stop them twisting in the folding jig.  Chairs which are slightly under-etched - even to the extent of the slots not being quite broken through - are noticeably more robust and easier to push through (and, I suspect, result in less variation in final rail height) - they are certainly easier to fold and position.

 

I have always found some difference in height between adjacent rail heads when stuck down, tho' usually not much and correctable by mild filing, or re-wetting the higher side and pushing it down hard through a steel ruler with finger-pressure and then allowing it to dry under heavier weights.   There are  5 ways (that I know of so far) to minimise this.  Firstly, follow Jim Watt's advice: cut the rails short in the already-stuck-down track by c.3 sleepers, and leave the rails over-long on the to-be-stuck-down track, so they can be trimmed accurately to length and pushed into the now-vacant chairs at the end of the fixed track.  This greatly improves both lateral and vertical alignment. 

 

Secondly, as it is the rail joints which cause the greatest problem with alignment, minimise the number of them when planning the track construction: build track in the biggest units you can comfortably accommodate.  The photo above shows about a 2' length (which is about the maximum length I can comfortably get on my work-slab and fits well with the 20" rail lengths from the shop) which includes a full double junction with 2 points and diamond, plus 2 adjacent points - all built as a single unit.  This allows the crossing and/or splice rails to be made as 1 with the next stock rail which they are continuous.  Also, the switch, closure and wing rail can be made as a single continuous rail, with soldered sleepers (and etched chairs) either side of where the insulating gap will be (which is cut with the finest piercing saw blade I have- 80-90 teeth per inch).   There are 27 (I think) individual pieces of rail (excluding check rails) in this section built this way: there would be 47 (I think) if built as separate points with individual switch and closure/wing rails - nearly twice the number of joins to align in the making and sticking down.  Plain track is built in the full 20" lengths for the same reasons. 


Building in big units also avoids Richard's situation, where one piece of track ends with a soldered sleeper and the next one starts with Easitrac sleeper base: the third trick is always to start and end a piece of pointwork with a length of the moulded Easitrac sleeper base whenever possible.  Not only does this keep the rail vertical and help align it through the formation, but it  ensures the option of  Jim's overlapping rails and gives the greatest chance of avoiding a piece of track ending immediately at the soldered toe or crossing where there isn't room for a few sleepers of plain Easitrac.

 

How you stick it all down has an effect, too, (this is njo. 4) and I think this is a subsidiary advantage of building track on the workbench instead of building it in situ.  Scale 2mm track is inevitably quite bendy, but once built, the stiffest component is the rail itself, and it is stiffest in the vertical plane.  So use a reasonable amount of glue (without being excessive and getting it over everything) so that it can fill in some of the variations in height between trackbed and sleeper (the thinnest sleepers will naturally come to rest  fractionally high and the track will rest on the "thickest" sleepers).  Don't use individual weights along the piece of track, but lay a stiff flat something (a steel rule is good; my go-to for this is a machined straight-edge - which is perfectly flat and thicker and wider and heavy to start with) on the rails and spread your weights evenly along it, overlapping the  already-stuck-down track it's butting up to.  This gives the intrinsic stiffness of the rail the best chance to find its own horizontal, easing up against the underside of the flat thing on top of it.  Leave it overnight to set completely before you lift the weights off.

 

Finally, straighten the rail as best you can, to avoid a rail ending with a vertical convexity or concavity.  I have yet to find a quick and easy way to do this - my least favourite part of track-building.  (The rail is far more bendy side-to-side, and as long as any curve in this plane is smooth and even and not too pronounced, the lateral alignment will be good too.  Having said that, I regard it as good practice to try and curve the rail reasonably closely to the template to minimise pre-stressing it, which I hope will minimise any tendency for the track to flex when released from the work-slab.)

 

EDIT:  A couple of further points occur overnight.  I stopped tinning the rail (or anything else) some time ago.  I found the thickness of my tinning varied, and whilst it obviously melts at the sleeper being soldered, it didn't at the next one - so a slight longitudinal angle was introduced at the sleeper being soldered.  Along the length of the rail this could result in a gentle vertical wave.  My practice now is to clean (the dreaded scratch brush) and de-grease (wipe with IPA) rail, chairs and sleepers, position them all "dry", then wet with liquid rosin flux (the best wetting flux I have yet found and non-corrosive to boot), and then apply the solder (3+2-3 x 0.6mm solder balls gives a sound and clean join).

 

(CONTINUED:)  Height variation can also be introduced in the ABS sleeper strip/ABS chairs if excessive butanone is applied.  The more the joint is wetted with the butanone, the more of the ABS (of chair and/or sleeper) is softened - it can be totally dissolved into a soft guey  mess at worst.  Then pressing down on the rail to make the weld will compress and thin the chair, with resultant lowering of in rail height.  So, be reasonably frugal with the butanone and here again, press down lightly through eg. a steel ruler to keep the rail top flat.

 

My apologies for the length of this, and all the verbiage, but hope this might help.

 

Laurie Adams

 

 

 

Edited by Laurie2mil
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Thanks for the mention Laurie.  Coming from a non-engineering background where things were made to fit a particular situation which couldn't be defined by measurements, I can help but wonder if you are getting too hung up over 100ths of a mm?  I'll probably get branded as a heretic for that (among other things), but might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb!

 

My experience is that 2fs wheels are pretty tolerant of slight vertical mis-alignment, up to perhaps from 0.25 to as much even as 0.5mm, but not of horizontal.  This from occasionally having slightly mis-aligned baseboard joints.  Yes, vehicles will 'jump' slightly, but usually not enough to cause derailment. 

 

When I built the turnouts for Kirkallanmuir (in situ), with interlaced sleepers on a mix of pcb with versalign chairplates and Easitrac sleepers, I first glued down the pcb ones and soldered on the chairplates, then threaded the Easitrac sleepers, with the web removed where necessary, onto the stock rails and glued them down.  When soldering the rails to the chairplates I didn't exert any downward pressure on the rail.

DSCN1778.JPG.088c39df9d0ce9afaa45284f782fd021.JPG

 

The point rail was then slid in and its tip accurately located with button gauges, followed by the splice rail.

 

As you'll see, I made the joints between the wing and closure rails where they were both on Easitrac sleepers, the toe end of the latter being soldered to two pcb sleepers.

 

Jim

 

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45 minutes ago, CF MRC said:

As a fellow trained heretic like Jim, a lot of minor vertical irregularities can be taken out with a large flat stone (or file).  

Many a minor mis-fit has been corrected with such an implement, in a variety of shapes and sizes.  My maxim is often 'if in doubt, cut it big and file it 'til it fits!'!

 

Jim

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2 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

  I'll probably get branded as a heretic for that (among other things), ...

 

 

2 hours ago, CF MRC said:

As a fellow trained heretic like Jim, a lot of minor vertical irregularities can be taken out with a large flat stone (or file).  

 

You two could really put someone off a visit to the dentists! 

 

It is good to have you along for thoughts and opinions. If I took out the irregularity I have at the moment by reducing the height of the higher rail (that on the right, in the Easitrac bases) I would completely remove the head of the rail. I would like to get closer than 0.25mm to start with, and not by adding another thickness of etch. A chairplate for a chairplate would be silly. I made no progress last night on this as I spent the evening clearing space for some new toys tools. 

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One other thing I've noticed is that the PCB sleepers themselves can vary in height a bit. I perhaps made the mistake of pouring the last of a years old bag of PCB sleeper strip, and a new one, into the same toolbox compartment, and then noticed after laying some through the crossing of a turnout, there was a daylight gap under the rail on some when it was flush on others.

 

I've bought a few sheets of 0.8mm single sided PCB myself for other bits and pieces, and noticed that within a single A4 sheet, it actually varies from about 0.7mm to 0.9mm. I've no idea if the 2mm Association stocks are better in this regard, but could account for some of the difference.

 

Laurie's suggestion of using easitrac on both sides of any rail that's being soldered with etched chairs is what helped me. I try not to press down on the rail when soldering them, so the height is set by the easitrack (and the chairs you've already done) maybe with a gap between rail and inside top surface of the chair base.

 

I also thread all of the normal etched chairs for a given rail on in advance, just the same as with plastic easitrac chairs. I find that much easier than trying to thread them individually from below then across!

 

J

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