Sodering feeder wires under rails

[jwar]

This has probably been done before? Last night I was finishing my last swing up to span the door. Using Atlas chord bridges and rather expensive bridge rail. Needing a feeder feeder wires and did not want to destroy the apearence of the rail. Using a rail nipper I removed the plastic tie spacers under the ties, slid four ties on each side of where I wanted to soder the feeder wire to the bottom of the rail. Bent the end of the wire 1/16 to 90 degrees. When cool I slid the ties back spacing them and the wire soder joint cant be seen as the soder joint is under the rail and the wire next to a tie.

Today I layed a spur track in alignment, marked the top of the rail and under it on the roadbed, Again sodering feeder wires, drilled two holes, painted the wire joint grey, reset the section of track, with ballast no one can see any joint on this strech of track.
My only problem is that I didfnt start doing this about 250 feet of track ago.

[Javern]

yup....it's the way to go

[DMNolan]

I have done this, but for most of my feeders they get soldered to the side. I find that when the rails and feeder are weathered and the track balasted, they really are not noticable.

However, if you put them under the track they will not show for sure.

[chateauricher]

The owner of my LHS suggested drilling a small hole in the web (vertical part) of the rail and looping the feeder wire through the hole before soldering it in place. She said this make for a very strong joint; and, should the soldering ever fail, the wire will still remain in contact with the rail. Soldering the wire only to the side or bottom of the rail means that it could fall away from the rail if the soldering fails causing a loss of power to that section of track.

The only problem with her solution is finding a drill bit small enough to drill a hole in the web of N-scale track that I will be using.

[soumodeler]

Drilling through the web is not necessary. If you solder the wire to the rail right, there is no reason that it sould ever come off. Even if it did, you would still be able to run trains if you have more than one pair of feeder wires, which is recommended. Losing contact to one pair of feeders will make no big difference.

soumodeler
-----------------
The Southern Serves the South!
http://www.trainweb.org/mgr

[cacole]

I have drilled holes in the webbing of HO scale track for mounting feeder wires, and it works. But N-scale? No way. Finding a drill bit and wire of a small enough gauge to pu***hrough a hole in the webbing of N-scale rail means that the wire would be so small it couldn't carry adequate amperage.

[Adelie]

I solder mine (N-scale) to the bottom of the rail joiners. It is the easiest and least noticeable way I have found, given the size of what I am working with. An Opti-visor sure helps with this.....and about everything else in N-scale!

The other advantage I have found is that I can line up a bunch of rail joiners, tin a bunch of feeds, and assemble these things in batches (while I am in the mood and mindset to do it).