I have worked out a method for converting that R1 small radius brass trainset track into straights and large radius curves. I’ve done it to Aristo Craft track but not so far to LGB. Still, I expect it’d work.
Essentially,
- take several sections of the small radius track completely apart.
- straighten or partly straighten the rails.
- re-partner them.
- snip the connecting bits of plastic between the sleepers/ties on the inside of the curves.
- slide the track back together.
- Install joiners. Aristo joiners will fit in the middle of your new track pieces. Or you can solder.
- reinstall some of those screws thru the tiestrip. They definitely add to the rigidity of your track.
- re-install the joiners.
Straights can be assembled into two types of 1 foot or 300mm sections, using the short and long rails, or you can combine four or six of them into longer sections.
Shuffle and recombine partly straightened shorts and longs in a variety of ways to make two-or-three foot sections of wider radius.
The AristoCraft track is drilled and tapped at each end for a 2mm screw for the joiner. By shuffling short and long rail bits together to create longer curves, all now bent to a larger radius, it is possible to avoid any trimming-off of these drilled ends.
I have several wide radius pieces in the 6-10 foot (3-4 metre) range that I have created from old trainset track this way. I have found that I can slip AristoCraft joiners into place in the middle of these curves with little difficulty. You can always solder your rails together as well.
I uploaded five nice pix to go with all this but I can’t access them from my freightshed… (see below)
New edit: I was a rank newbie when I wrote all that. Steve very kindly posted the pix for me (below, this page) and you can see them there. It’s a couple of weeks later now and thanks to Steve’s able tutelage I do know how to post pix for myself, but I’ll leave things as they are for now, OK…?
John Le Forestier,
Littleton and Smallville Railroad, now on Google maps, Toronto
http://tinyurl.com/gardenrailroad