I have achieved my first landmark. The baseboard level central figure of eight of my layout has been joined up. It's not glued down yet but I decided it was time to celebrate. So I unpacked my 'Sunday special' - based on a train my Dad gave me over forty years ago - and grabbed a 9v battery. After proving the concept by holding the battery to the rails I decided I wanted a continuous run (the battery has to be lifted out of the way to let the loco past).
So for the first time in almost 40 years I tried to do some soldering. Um. We can gloss over the actual process. I didn't record a video of that and if I had it would be rated 18 because of adult language. Ahem.
Anyway I got it eventually. I just recommend that in the following video no sensitive electricians pause to study the soldering. I will spend some time today reading up on technique
Very good. Just a couple of misaligned fishplates - easily sorted. Might it be difficult to reach into the middle of the layout to deal with derailments? R-
Well done for getting it running.
Soldering is something best learnt on a spare bit of Nickle Silver track
I noticed on the video at around 38 seconds as the loco comes towards the end of the curve there is a very noticeable "Bump" noise. This would seem to be possibly a rail that's not entered the fishplate (rail joiner) correctly. Run your finger tip along the tops of the rails at joints to find the stepped one.
Thanks for the comments, guys. Yes I noticed a couple of bumps and I've sorted them out. In theory there shouldn't be any derailments in the middle because there will be no points. Still - I can reach to the middle if I have to. I actually assembled the inner sections of track in-situ. I also have to add a bit more bend to one of them. Interestingly there is a track join at almost every board join. I don't intend taking the layout apart very often but that's a nice feature.
Next stage is double checking that there's space for the elevated sections then later today gluing down the current running areas. There's a possibility that by the end of the weekend I might have mocked up the elevated loop. I dunno though - inclines sound like they could be tricky. Also I'm not sure that a 9v battery will provide enough juice to climb a 2% incline. If I add easements the main part of the incline will be slightly more than that.
Looks good. Soldering, comes down to buying a decent soldering iron, then as mentionned, practice. Look at an Antex 25. Thats about the best for general use. As for inclines, you need a lot of space. I have a 9x5 foot board, and that manages to fit one in. Also, have a Helix, which makes life a lot easier.
Yeah I have four inclines. Two on the outside of the board which rise half way over 1.5 metres. Then two along the centre of the board, also 1.5 metres which complete the rise to the point where track can go underneath it (the diamond section I mention in the video). There will be two separate sets of sidings either side of the centre of the board. Well - I say separate. I might yet link them together.
The inclines shouldn't be much more than 2%.
The tunnels near the wall will be under scenery only. There's not enough space to get the rails up to height in just the board length.
andruec wrote: ↑Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:22 pm
Thanks for the comments, guys. Yes I noticed a couple of bumps and I've sorted them out. In theory there shouldn't be any derailments in the middle because there will be no points. Still - I can reach to the middle if I have to. I actually assembled the inner sections of track in-situ. I also have to add a bit more bend to one of them. Interestingly there is a track join at almost every board join. I don't intend taking the layout apart very often but that's a nice feature.
Next stage is double checking that there's space for the elevated sections then later today gluing down the current running areas. There's a possibility that by the end of the weekend I might have mocked up the elevated loop. I dunno though - inclines sound like they could be tricky. Also I'm not sure that a 9v battery will provide enough juice to climb a 2% incline. If I add easements the main part of the incline will be slightly more than that.
If you can't reach it that's 100% certain to be where more than 75% of all derailments.
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