Hi folks,
I thought I could save a few bucks and straighten my 8ft dia curves into straight track. Unfortunately, when I do this the rail ends bend upward, making for rather rough looking track. Anyone have an idea what I’m doing wrong? It’s just a simple single rail bender, supposedly made by Aristo. Thanks for any help. Jeff
I would say the rail is probably not square in the bender and you have a slit twist which is applying some vertical bend.
Hi Jeff
Why not sell your 8’ diameter curves they are going for near $100 for 12 used ones then you could buy longer straight pieces and with longer straight pieces have less rail joints to deal with if you are track powered.
I used a dual railbender once and it worked really nice until I got to the ends of the track and the curving process kind of stopped on the last inch or so. The more joints you have the rougher your track will be.
The Aristo bender tends to do this if operated horizontally. I mount mine on the side of my house, about 5.5 feet up and bend with the rail vertical. Be sure to support the rail above the bender with your other hand while bending.
Todd Haskins said:
Hi Jeff
Why not sell your 8’ diameter curves they are going for near $100 for 12 used ones then you could buy longer straight pieces and with longer straight pieces have less rail joints to deal with if you are track powered.
I used a dual railbender once and it worked really nice until I got to the ends of the track and the curving process kind of stopped on the last inch or so. The more joints you have the rougher your track will be.
When using a dual rail bender the best way is to add another section of track with rail clamps
and that wont happen, single rail benders in my opinion are mostly useless. Borrow a dual rail
bender from a club member or a friend and straightening the track is simple.
My rail bender is a Train Li version and works great. RLD Hobbies makes a nice one as well.
Severral good ideas here. and I don’t intend to overrule them, but a quick and dirty fix is simply to cut off the bent ends, fwiw. Among many possible next steps, if I used track power my first choice would then be to braise the rails into longer lengths, 'though soldering would also work ok.
Thanks for the help guys! I think I will take Todd’s advice and sell off the 8 footers etc…And it sounds like I should sell the crummy railbender too!
The Train-Li bender is worth joining a club, even if there were no other benefits – which there are!