Nothing has changed except I took one big straight piece out to take the tree down. It seems I may be on to something. Both my F3 and GP9 are running a little slow. The GP9 flew before. Could a dirty connection cuase the train to go slow, becuase I see no surging and flickering on the caboose. I also noticed when I have bad pins, the train would go into neutral, this is also not happening.
Reason I ask is, in my past experiance with dirty track joints, the train either works or it doesnt.
I use a lot of track that is old and sometimes a little rusty. I have been bending the center rail to one side so the male pin is offset by about the diameter of the pin. This has worked very well, and I have very little trouble with track connections or track coming apart. It is easier and makes a better connection than trying to squeeze the female end of each track section to tighten up the connection. You can't do it on most switches and crossings. If the pin is rusty, use a wire wheel in a drill or on a motor on a work bench to clean it. If the female end of the track section is rusty on the inside, I don't have a good way to clean that. I have found a few track sections that were corroded on the inside but not rusty. The corrosion was the zinc plating. I put two drops of WD-40 into the end of the track and spun the pins and this fixed the problem. WD-40 will dissolve corrosion.
Bruce Baker
"The corrosion was the zinc plating." Are you sure you don't mean "tin plating"?
Bob Nelson
I am not sure. Some of the track has a shiny plating, some a dull gray. The dull gray I have assumed is zinc, and the shiny I have assumed is tin. The shiny plating takes solder very well, the dull gray doesn't. ??
May be. I solder all my rail joints, have used a lot of old track, often not at all shiny, but have always been able to solder it. Maybe I have been lucky.
It probably depends on the flux. I am using rosin core solder which doesn't tin some metals very well. A friend of mine has offered me some flux that he says will tin anything. I need to get some and try it. In the mean while, when I solder the crimped connections inside the 022 switches, I have to sand the gray plating with a sanding disc on the Dremel tool to get it to tin. After sanding, it tins very well.
Do you solder with an iron, or a small torch? Do you sand the solder to make it smooth so the wheels don;t get scard up?
I use an iron. A solder is naturally smooth; but it doesn't protrude from the railhead anyway. Compared to a sintered-iron wheel, solder is very soft.
I sure wish I could solder mine, but it is only a temp layout for the holidays, then it gets packed away. Thats why I strive for it to run perfect for just a short time.
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