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Soldering Clips To Track?
Chuck wants to here from you about soldering clips to track and asks:
“I am building a model railroad in HO scale with a combination of Atlas sectional and felx track. Since the clips do not seem to lock into place, do your experienced readers recommend to solder the clips to the track? If so, do they have any suggestions as to the type of solder to use and any other suggestions to get a good connection and excellent results? Comments are appreciated.”
To help Chuck use the green Comments and Feedback link below. I’m sure he would like to hear your thoughts.
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Chuck,
Soldering joints is not a problem unless your layout is subject to extremes in temperature, generally unlikely. Make sure the join connection is clean, use a small soft wire brush to clean the join area. Normal electronic resin coil solder, up to 1 mm in diamter & a fine tipped soldering iron (purchased from any electrical or hardware store) are ideal. The benefit gained by soldering joints is better electrical continuity and maintainance of track levels – as a tip, if you need to create a gap in the track for block or turnout requirements, don’t use plastic railjoiners, use a high speed thin cutting disc (Dremel type)and cut the gap in the rail between ties. Use a piece of thin styrene and CA glue to plug the gap and trim off once set in place. The gap is barely noticeable and the track pieces line up and are secure. Hope this helps
regards Ian (Australia)