Has anyone had any experience with aristocraft crest brass rail joiners?
yes, they suck.
What specifically would you like to know?
Greg
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I have not had any brand of rail joiners that survived for over two years. I have rail clamps that have been in position for twenty years with no maintenance.
Tom Trigg
LGB will "last", and they are made of much better materials than USAT or Aristo, but there are other issues.
To the OP: what is it you want to know? How easy to use? How long will they last? How long will they conduct electricity perfectly?
Basically, for most people, you need to go to clamps or solder jumpers for long term low maintenance. When an "ordinary" joiner goes bad, it's a huge hassle to remove them for cleaning, usually you have to tear up track.
Thanks, I'm pretty familiar with slip on rail coiners as I started and had a garden railroad of 500 feet of tre produ tack and over 40 turnouts. The hurricane sort of eliminated that as the whole back yard became under water. So just now getting into it again. When I started the sellerere was no such thing as split jaw or anything like it, I resorted to electrical conductive pub ardingnd soldered a major portion of the joints. The product by aristocraft is built half split jaw but the other side is 2 counter sunk philips head screws. They are called "Crest" they are a clamp type and according to the seller they can be used over or with/o the factory rail joiner. But they are about $.80 each as apposed to $ 1.80+ for split jaw. Thanks for your input. Bill
Back in the dark ages, when I was laying track and experimenting (we'd never seen an outdoor railroad) we laid the LGB track, on the fill, clipped the power pack to the end of the rails. In six months, we ate the LGB joiners apart, with acidic soil, moisture and electrolysis. Split them out at the sharp bend adjacent to the flat bottom.That's when I started looking at alternative power and control options.
I have aluminun, stainless, and NS joiners on my outdoor aluminum rails, some have been there 20 years or a bit more, haven't lost one yet.
I have..10 clamps on the entire railroad. Two on a liftout with joiners on the other end, and two large removeable bridges and trestles.
Never felt a need to support rail clamp manufacturers, welding power supply manufacturers, stainless or brass track manufacturers, or any kind of nmra based control system.
So I didn't.
TOC
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