Track Laying Tips...............

Hey Guyz for my first post here anyone have any track laying tip's I'm about to lay some track on my ZoCal Mods.
It's been years so any Help would be Great!
Thanks Mike

Mike,
What kind of track.......flex, sectional? Gotta know the basic track style first.

Sorry flex track

Mike,
I do my flex track differently than most. They use pins to hold the track down while the glue dries, but I use CA exclusively. It sets the track instantly but you have to be careful when using it. If you aren't used to working with CA then perhaps someone else should tutor you as I might lead you astray.

If you were up here in Medford I'd invite you over for a track laying session 101 1/2.

Loren

Using the Lepage contact glue, (the yellow one) works also great, you let everything dry on both parts (1 coat on the ties, and one coat on the cork) which leave you a lot of time to position the tracks later, the glue stick instantly with contact.

And once dried, if you ever demolish your layout, this glue can be scrape out of the ties, it's like hard rubber.

Ben

I wasn't comfortable with contact cement so I went with my own method. I used Marklin flex track with Marklin track spikes laid on top of Itty Bitty Lines cork roadbed. The spikes pushed through the pre-cast holes in the tie easily when held with a pair of bent nose pliers. The cork held them firm and even section that had plaster cloth under the cork, the spikes still went in fine. I pushed each spike down till it was just resting on the tie and that provided more than enough grip to hold the flex track in a curve. For long straights I also used the flex track guide from Rodney's Railroad Tools (www.rodneysrrtools.com). The 12" tool was great when laying some of the 'used' track I had purchased that had a kink or two in it.

To re-position track I slid a knife blade between the track and cork just behind the spike and twisted the blade up till the spike popped up, then used pliers to pull it out. For the most part the spikes are hard to notice but my plan is to pull them out in the more exposed areas as I ballast sections of track. (One advantage I can see for the contact cement, not having to remove the spikes.) The other thing I liked about using spikes was being able to lay long sections or curves and then tweak them the next day if I didn't like how they turned out. (Sometimes I found after staring at a curve for a day it just didn't seem to blend nicely so I would reposition a section till it looked right.)

I'm sure you will find the method that works best for you.

Thanks Guyz I started late last night I thought I just need to jump right in how bad can I "F" it up lol.......

I had Rodney's tool's on order but after a month went by he canceled my order.