Last week I didn't get much done. Mostly patching up the gaps in the road bed and widening it in one spot. I had tried to make it easier by laying out a strip of un-separated road bed and then placing placing a strip on either side so that it was smooth and did not have dip from the beveled edges. I turned out that the road bed was still a little two narrow; it ended pretty much right at the end of the ties. I added some spackle make the edge more gradual.
This week I was able to get around to actually laying out some track. It went slow; I was being meticulous to make sure everything was laid out smoothly. There were some joints on my old layout were the track work wasn't the best: gaps or too abrupt a transition to a curve. These always stood out as parts I wish I had done better. So far I am very happy with the way this track is (even if I had to do parts of it twice to get it just right).
The two switches in the left of the picture with their legs facing are connected to Atlas under the table switch machines. These were the quite a pain to install. The throw range is just enough to move the points all the way across. If it isn't lined up perfectly there is a gap one one side when the switch is thrown. Lining up the switch machine under the table while you are watching the points on top takes a bit of patience.
I also spent some time honing the art of soldering leads onto flex track. This was another area that I wasn't to impressed with my work on the old layout. Most of the leads had big blobs of solder on the side of the rails. A few places these blogs were higher than the tops of the rails and had to be filed down.
The method I settled on began by bending the wire twice using a flat screw driver. With the wire going away from you hold down the first few millimeters of the wire with the screw driver pulling the rest of the wire up to make a 90 degree bend. Then lay it flat again and place the screw driver a little bit past the first bend and repeat, forming another 90 degree angle. This provides it with a little lip so that the wire can rest on the foot of the rail. I found this made it easier to keep in place then just having one bend.
Instead of trying to solder the wire directly to the rail, I first tinned the wire with solder, then position the wire up against the rail and just touch it with the soldering iron. It was much easier without having to try and manage the solder as well as the wire and iron. It also went a lot quicker, and I didn't melt any ties off.
Next up is laying down the two curves.
