My pal has already glued his track down, and it could use some tweaking. Anyone tried a dual unit (like the Train-Li Rail Bender) on code 250 Aluminum and Nickel-Silver rails?
The train-Li unit will work well… It might break loose the glue in places thou. When using, don’t try to correct just a very small kink or such, work on cleaning up the whole section that needs work (several feet long), Start with very little correction, and build up the correction after several back and forth passes then re-adjust the tension, and back and forth several times, giving the rail a chance to learn the new position and adjust, repeat and make small adjustments after several passes, re-peat and work up to the finished bend.
EDIT: Make sure that the bender has the right size code 250 rollers and not the code 332.
Yes Pete, as Dave said, It will probably break the glue loose, or worse yet break the ‘spikes’ off the ties if the glue bond is too strong. In my, albeit limited, experience using my dual bender on code 250 Alum, the rails need to flex past/tighter than the desired radius you are trying to achieve. They then spring back to where you want them. You may be able to reduce a kink, but I doubt one could remove it entirely without separating the track from the road bed. Let us know what you try, and find works or not.
Is this indoors or outdoors? I’m a bit puzzled about the track being glued and as Randy mentioned depending on the make of track and type of glue something’s gonna give.
Probably best to “unglue” the track in order to be on the safe side.
BTW I never needed to use a bender on my Llagas C215 NS track, but I guess it depends on how tight the curves need to be.
Yes, I would issue the same caution. The rails need to be bent past their desired position and then they will spring back. With glued down ties something will break. I unkinked a section of track (outside) and I had to remove the clamps to the next section, so the rails could be bent just past where I wanted them, and then allowed to spring back once the bender pressure was released.
I’ve done this with code 332 brass rail, it will work. You can smooth out kinks, and widen or reduce curves. Here’s something to be aware of. If you are making the curve tighter, the track will be too long for the space. Conversely, if the curve is to be wider, the track will be too short. Go to the ends of the sections to be recurved and release them from adjacent tracks. Then when the curve is right, you can trim or pad the curve.
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
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Probably best to “unglue” the track in order to be on the safe side.
BTW I never needed to use a bender on my Llagas C215 NS track, but I guess it depends on how tight the curves need to be.
Thanks guys.
I should have said that I expect we’ll be un-gluing whatever track needs bending! I’ve had experience on code 332 rail with a Train-Li Duobend, and it seemed to work. I just wondered if I would get problems on plain (un-glued) code 250 alum track. I realize we’ll end up having to cut the ends to make everything fit again.
My old outdoor layout had alum code 250+215 rails but I pre-bent them to the desired radius (on a desk-top Llagas railbender) and never had a problem.
+1 on the train-li bender. just make sure you have the code 250 wheel/slide set.
T