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Parallel joins on straight track are made much the same way and are fairly easy and straight-forward.
To summarise, the important things are that the ends of the rails are cut square with cutters, or a fine saw, that any burrs are cleaned from the ends being careful not to run the file over the rail head, that the rails are cut at a distance that equates to approximately half-way between two ties, and that the chair/spike plates are carefully pared off from the very last tie on each side of the join.
Sometimes due to the length of the joiner, it reaches the chair/spike. I have discovered this is often the case with Peco Code 83 track due to the ties being that much closer together. When this occurs, I have to carefully cut or file a millimetre or so from the ends of the joiners. This is best done before installing them, as they never offer as good a grip on the rail a second time around. I never use second-hand joiners unless I am not going to rely on them for electrical continuity. If cutters are used to achieve this, then I try only to cut just the extra ‘tang’ or extra flat piece on the joiner. I do not cut through the folded-over part, otherwise I will be unable to use the track joiner, and trying to ‘open it up’ is always going to be fraught with disappointment and more sliced fingers!
I sometimes solder droppers to new joiners before fitting them. I have never had any problems with loss of feed from this method, but this method may not work as well on portable layouts over time. It is a different story with the insulating joiners, as these often have to be cut back quite away when joining flexible track to point frog rails. This makes them hard to slide on the rail and I strongly recommend the use of magnifiers when doing this. It is possible to split the joiner with the sharp rail end, and you don’t get many of these to a packet!
All pins can be either tapped gently down or removed from visible track once the ballast glue has set. I try to avoid pinning the very last two ties in each section of track. The very end tie may not have any rail retainers (chairs or spikes) and any over enthusiastic pinning down of the second tie may unclip it from the rails. On staggered curved joints, I am selective where I put the pins, but I try to avoid pinning ties that have been modified and I am careful not to hit the pins in so that they even slightly distort the ties. If you look at the very last photo in this article, you can see exactly what I mean, as it is invisible until you look at the reflection in the mirror. This not only looks bad, but will change the track gauge and make it hard to pull the pins out once any glue has set.
Turnouts (Again!)
Turnouts always need a fair amount of forethought. And if everything is drawn out accurately on the baseboards and goes to plan, then it should be possible to secure all turnouts down before installing the flexible track. However as I’m not that good, and never stick to the plan, often changing things as I go along, I will find myself putting the turnouts in as I proceed along the track. Either way, there are things that need to be considered before fixing a turnout in place.
Firstly the turnout needs to be turned upside down, and whether dead or live frogs are used (and you already know my preference). Using a pin vice and 0.5mm drill bit, I drill through where the recesses have been formed under the turnout for putting the track pins in (if the manufacturer of the chosen turnout provides these). On the Peco turnouts the two recesses in the diverging rails and the one in the centre are enough, as the track, when joined to the toe end (and subsequently the ballast glue) will hold it all in place. When choosing to use the two in the toe end tie, care is needed when pinning as it is easy to either hit the rail or hit the pins in too
hard. Generally I use live frog turnouts because I wish to switch the frog and not rely on the point blades for electrical continuity through the turnout. Live frog turnouts, just like a dead frog turnouts require the use of insulated joiners as described in Section 1 of this two-part article
I then use a hot, fine point soldering iron, and a well ventilated workspace. Under most (Peco) live frog turnouts there are little wires that link the blades to the next piece of rail (normally called the closure rail, but this and the blade are normally made from one length of unbroken rail). These are the links that change the frog polarity if you do not modify the turnout (arrowed in photo below). If the frog polarity is to be switched with a throw or other switching device, then these will need to be carefully removed, or snipped. It is important to make sure that the snipped ends cannot touch, as the following step joins the switch rails to their stock rail. If the snipped ends come into contact then there will be a short.
Next a permanent soldered link is installed between the stock rails and their adjacent blade (see photo below). With most new turnouts there is a gap left in the web between the ties to do this. I like to use 0.56mm size copper wire for this tinned ready to solder on as quickly as possible. If these are not soldered fairly quickly the ties and the spikes holding the rail in place may melt. Once the link is soldered in place, I snip off the excess wire. This is much better than messing with short pieces of wire and tweezers! Finally solder (pronounced sodder by the Americans) a length of fine wire on to the piece of wire that Peco (in this case) have kindly provided to power the frog when choosing this option. Most people seem to use a plain green-coated wire for this and use other colours for left and right-hand track feeds.
This piece of wire will extend through the sub-roadbed (through a suitably placed hole) to the switch underneath (or alongside the track if surface-mounted). This hole has to be drilled before the switch mechanism is pinned down. I add the four insulated joiners to all the rail ends at the heel end of the turnout. I find it is always best to put insulating joiners on all four rails ends, this way makes using live frog points as easy as using dead frogs, but with better performance. All Peco turnouts come with the modification information for what I have described above, or it can be downloaded from their website. I suggest following this as it will also describe the wiring options in a lot more depth.
A Few Hints And Tips
I’ll leave you with a couple of tips, but if I’ve missed anything that you would like to know, or you have some questions, then you are always welcome to call or email me (see NMRABR Directory for contact info).