Good morning rail benders and spike pounders,
Good Morning Flo & Francine how are you both today? Good glad to hear it so how are things down here at Jeffrey Running Bears' dinner? Yes the apostrophe behind the [s'] shows ownership the other way it saying multiple bears are running! His given Indian name was Jeffrey 'Running Bear'.
Weather wise it's another Hot one, at least to me and not that comfortable.
Clear 90.7 °F >Feels Like 89 °F;
Winds are from the West at 3.7 mph;
The Humidity is 26% and the Barometer is at 29.89 in Hg.
The five day forcast shows temps will fall down to 90 °F on Tuesday and raise back up to 97 °F on Thurs., and then fall back down again. Hopefully this the start of the cool down process?
LOL Went buck wild! 300 feet of flex, at least 5 each of Y's, left and right turnouts and crossings in various angles, reversing units, regular, wired and insulated joiners(MANY), NCE starter set, more throttles, booster, ROLLERS... I have wire left over from when we remodeled the house for the main power bus. I can get feeder wire and general electrical supplies pretty cheap nearby. I ordered what I could think of to get me going. Hauling the last tables out of the way, got the ducting all up and out of the way, got the new light fixtures, buying lumber next week.
Smoke break's over 'TROOP!' Back to work! (I am my own "N.C.O." and I cut me no slack!) LOL
Say NG, I sounds like you spent very close to a $1000.00 bucks in what you bought? One thing you possibly should have considered if you didn't was the era and size of equipment your going to be running in choosing a rail size, code 83 or code 100.
Something that is very important in laying your flex track if your planning on soldering any rail joints is only solder every other joint and leave a bit of a gap between the rail ends, at least a 1/16"+ if the area your layout is going in will have temp considerable temp fluctuations as the rail will expand and contract and cause kinks which cause binding. Also don't be real quick to want to ballast your track till you've operated your trains on it through the change between Summer and fall and winter to see how the tract reacts. Also the the type of lumber you get, Kiln dried is the best for stability other than architectural lumber, very costly. Otherwise the frame work of your layout can shift through warping and cause real problems. Of course if your going to use a 2"+ layer of foam over the bench work you shouldn't have a problem with the base changing shape but your track will still expand and contract [E&C] with the temp. Some guys leave a bit of a jog in the track in an attempt to allow for the E&C but you also need to remember, when you get to the ballasting point, not to use any glue in these areas as it prevents the rail and ties from shifting as needed.
In mentioning your choice of rail height size, code 83 or code 100, that would have an affect on the rail size for your turnouts and crossings although there is a fairly easy way to match rail head heights from say code 83 to join code 100. I've matched code 70 to 100 without any problem.
As far a very nice Soldering Station Micro Mart has an Variable Temperature Electronic Soldering station for $34.50. I have and use mine all the time and really like it! I have it set at the higher setting of the next to the highest setting and it works well for me. If your using code 100 rail you may need to turn the dial a little higher. It come with one or two pointed round tips, I bought an extra pack of three tips and filed one into a flat sided chisel tip [>] to give me a wider area to contact and tin wire ends as well as apply heat over a broader area for a better solder joint when soldering wire to the rail.
Cleaning the metal to be soldered to often helps as well as pre-tinning the area your going to solder to and the wire to be soldered to it. Then with a bit of flux and solder on the tip hold the wire against the rail with a small wood scewer and let it heat up enough to melt the solder on the tinned wire and continue holding the wire in place for a couple of more seconds. The solder joint should look shinny and smooth. If it looks dull and pimp-ily that the sign of a cold solder joint.
In using DCC, while I'm not personally familiar myself my sales rep at my distributor is an he's said that every loco you have sitting on the layout is drawing a certain amount of amperage and longer runs require boosters but I think the number of loco's on the layout may still have an affect on operation?
Hope this helps?
