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I want to solder my rail, and I know you cant solder plastic as it will just melt.... Do I need to solder my joints around the turnouts? What does the plastic insulated joiner do? What does it insulate and do I want the joints between turnouts and other track to be insulated?
What have you guys done to join code 70 rail with code 83?
The plastic joiners are mede to join track sections that are to be insulated from each other as in block use or the insulate turnouts to prevent shorts. One way to use them and get around the insulating problem is to run a jumper from one section to the other so the sections are joined electrically while the plastic joiners hold the sections in place.
Rico, thanks for the link, unfortunately I wont have room for a piece of track like that in most cases, although I may still get a few of them to make it easy here and there where i can use them LOL
What I think im going to do is just get some standard Walthers Code 83 joiners and use them to join. Someone suggested that I put a small piece of brass .010 stock under the code 70 rail to shim it up, so im going to give that a try and see how it works
BTW, ive now decided to stay away from soldering. 2 Reasons, I forgot when using Central Valley Tie Strips you do not need to solder the rail joints because you can lay a continuous rail and but each rail against the previous rail. The other reason is in case I ever need to remove the turnout for a modification or replacement, and in that case all I would have to do is slide the rail joiners back and remove the turnout (which im also not going to be gluing down, just kinda leaving it floating there while the joiners keep it in place.
Butting rail ends against each other in tie strips is a good idea but you still have the same problem that makes soldering with rail joiners a good idea. Corrosion. What do you intend to do when that happens, and it will, pull the rail up and clean the ends? Doesn't sound like such a great idea. You'd be better off soldering the rail ends together as you put them into the tie strips.
I make my own "transition" joiners. I take an Atlas joiner, and cut a slot through the joiner down to the joiner's base roughly at the halfway point in the joiners length. Then I partially crush one side of the joiner. I then slide the unaltered end onto the code 83 rail and then solder the code 70 onto the crushed part, making sure the top and inside of the code 70 rail matches the code 83. I have a lot of transitions on my layout and I found this to be the easiest and fastest method for me. I also do this for my transitions between my hidden staging yards which are code 100 and the visible mainline trackage that's code 83.
