Model Railway Forum

Apart from the obvious (use a very small drill), does anyone have any tips for making holes in sleepers for track pins? Set track already has holes but the flexi track I am using does not. I have tried just hammering the pins through the sleepers in the past and they just split!

I want to use pins because one of the lengths of track is going to have a slight kink in it, just to make it more interesting.

Cut the head of a track pin and put in the chuck of a drill, archimedes drill works best.

Pins are too large if the sleepers are splitting. I only ever use Peco SL-14 pins .
Many don't like them as they are very fine! But IMO that is the best, worse is seeing nail heads in sleepers!

If your baseboards are very hard, then do as suggested and cut off the head of the pin and use the remainder of the pin as a drill bit. Bend or break one then simply use another pin. They are cheap enough!

This time I’ve not pinned but glued instead. I used drawing pins between sleepers to get the basic track formation then gone back and glued each piece of track and point using copydex. Ballasting later then ensures that the track will not move. So far it’s all solid and avoids track pin heads showing. Hope this is of help.

Brian wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 7:51 pm Pins are too large if the sleepers are splitting. I only ever use Peco SL-14 pins .

Well that is interesting! I have never seen these before. I am pretty sure what I am using are these:

https://peco-uk.com/collections/peco/pr ... xing-nails

I bought a bag of them ages ago and the label has long gone, but the SL-14 pins in the picture look thinner.

They are for use on Setrack which has pre drilled sleeper holes.
Those pins are much, much thicker than SL-14 pins, which are extremely fine!

Brian wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:29 pm Those pins are much, much thicker than SL-14 pins, which are extremely fine!

Well that explains a lot!

I don't recall which make of track pin I used, but I just pushed them through the sleepers into the board using a pair of long nosed pliers - I didn't drill any holes.

I use a pin vice and small drills like a #70

Google pin vice tool and then click on images

Ron S wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 1:34 am I use a pin vice and small drills like a #70

Google pin vice tool and then click on images

Or an archemedies drill, that's what I use.