Large Scale Central

What have I been up to?

General Discussion
#1

Dennis and Lisa Sullivan took in a barefoot orphan and set him to work on their garden railroad to get it ready for the club tour of 9 layouts on June 14th. We had to stop work for 9 inches of rain, so we didn’t get the new line to “Mexico” finished, and some of the track was rougher than I’d like. Last fall, they had removed almost all the brass rail clamps from their stainless track, and a big task was to replace them all with stainless split jaws.

The day was warm and windy. A pretty nice day to be out. It’s now Sunday Evening, and my sunburn has faded to a reddish brown. The trains behaved pretty well. I set any piece that caused more than 1 wreck aside, and that got to be a pretty big pile. At one point, all 4 screws in the rail clamps at one joint came so loose the rail clamps fell off and caused repeated wrecks till we found the problem. Of course, the symptom was the coaches fell over on the OTHER end of the loop.

Hana much enjoyed the coy pond.

I had rebuilt the bridge on the inside figure 8.

Sadly, I didn’t take much time to take pictures. Perhaps Mrs. Sullivan did.

#2

Nice video of their layout Tom. But where are the snakes?

#3

Tom, what was the issue with the brass clamps?

Were both the old and new split jaw?

Tip: lube the threads with either anti-sieze, or NoAlox …

Greg

#4

Only saw one since I blasted that one, and it too was dead.

#5

He had some brass clamps on the stainless track that weren’t split. After a while, they corroded or something and have a high resistance. Then to get them off, you have to take the screws off and beat them with something heavy. There are a few left in the curve around the industrial area, so I ran a couple jumpers across the area so we don’t have any loss from them. Must be a problem with the dissimilar metals.

#6

Well, brass will oxidize on it’s own… have not seen that stainless causes the situation to get worse.

Take my tip in lubing the stainless threads… don’t ask me how I know you can twist the heads off the cap head screws.

Greg

#7

Neat video… We see on the time line around 4:10 also may have been you varmint derailing some trains… He was sure in a hurry. lol.

#8

Hey Noel,

Yes I saw him. I think it was one of the south eastern anoles. I have them all over my layout here in Florida. Sometimes I believe they think I built the railroad as an amusement park for them! They sometimes even ride on the trains. I have never had one derail a train though. They always scamper off the rails just before the train gets there.

#9

hehe I missed him. Must have been him undoing the rail clamp screws.

I see one with green and yellow stripes quite often.

#10

Greg Elmassian said:

Well, brass will oxidize on it’s own… have not seen that stainless causes the situation to get worse.

Take my tip in lubing the stainless threads… don’t ask me how I know you can twist the heads off the cap head screws.

Greg

Liquid Wrench

#11

Tom Ruby said:

He had some brass clamps on the stainless track that weren’t split. After a while, they corroded or something and have a high resistance. Must be a problem with the dissimilar metals.

There just may be something to this,

On my brass AristoCraft track, after running the drywall sander screen, even after 17 years the brass still takes on a beautiful “silver/yellow” shine. However, at the very ends, where the joiners are held by stainless screws, there is always more corrosion and the track in this area has a “mottled copper” color than cannot be readily polished out with the drywall pads.

However, at least in my case, the brass does not “stick” to the stainless and even after 17 years, the screws come right out as if they were recently installed.

#12
Todd Brody said:
The stupid edit on this site often doesn't work correctly resulting in a double post.  Sorry.
#13

Hi all,

Is this still the go-to for brass rail clamps?

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Should I be adding lithium grease to this as well?