What do people use as rail joiners for Al track?
I got brass joiners supplied with the track I bought but a test piece down for about 9 mths was almost impossible to pull apart with Al corrosion. I was thinking stainless but when I looked at the galvanic tables it seemed to a worse option than brass.
I can always coat the Al, & grease the joiner etc, but was wondering what other folk experience / use?
I am semi coastal so water is always in the mix.
Cheers
N
Neil, With no commercial aluminum joiners available I would turn to flashing or scrap piece of siding to make my own. even drill holes for screws as insurance. JMHO YMMV 
Well if you feel like you have to keep pulling the track back apart and don’t need conductivity through the rails. You could use plastic like insulated joiners. Most of the metals you mix with aluminum is gonna have galvanic corrosion. So paste up (anti seize) them metal railjoiners or go plastic …OR just slide it together with the brass and call it a day.
Interesting question. I have only bought AL track once, from AML. I believe it came with stainless steel joiners. I never used the joiners and only used the track indoors. I joined it to brass track with stainless split jaw clamps.
Thanks guys,
Yea, no commercial Al joiners - SV and Llagas only list stainless & brass. There’s an option to home brew as a club member has a die folder bender thingy but that’s for 332 joiners so I’d have to shim. Not sure it’s worth the hassle.
Not planning to pull it apart once in so printing some plastics and adding joint goo to the brass ones is the likely path.
Cheers
N
Neil,
In my experience galvanic reaction seems a bit over rated when it comes to track and joiners. Admittedly I never had track in a salt water area but had lots of irrigation water running over the track area.
On my first RR I used aluminum rail, aluminum joiners, brass screws and copper jumper wires, it was in the ground for years with no problems what so ever. Just my experience for what it’s worth.
Related video here.
In the end the decision is yours of course. 
Thanks Rick,
Not so worried about the rail failing, but I since needed a nail punch to separate the joiners I was thinking I’m gonna lose heat expansion gaps if they can’t move.
All good, just checking in on what everyone else had done and seen. As usual I’ll try a bunch of things destined not to work… 
Cheers
N
Neil,
If expansion contraction is the concern it’s honestly not going to really expand at your joiners anyway. From my experience most of my brass track is all hard soldered and the expansion happens in the curves.
I do agree with Rick about the corrosion being over rated however it does happen and especially mixing alum. with other metals.
I think you opted for store bought track instead of hand laying so the only thing I can suggest is to make sure there are no screws underneath attaching the ties to the rails (mainly in the straight sections) this way the rail slides in the ties and pushes outward or moves inward in the curves. I would not secure the curves to the layout so they can float.
This is only my experience and observations and I am no expert.
FWIW Niel, at work we’ve designed & produced many aluminum panels / structures for customers and assembled them with SS fasteners. Never had issues.
Here’s an article. Apparently if there’s a large surface area of aluminum (relative to the SS) the galvanic action can be reduced.
