Nothing, absolutely nothing to do with my troublesome Stainz locomotive

[Eaglecliff]

Returning to my soldering iron, I should have mentioned that I power it via a dimmer, and although on this occasion the dimmer was set to full power, it may still have been absorbing some energy. I was only really experimenting at the time. Under normal circumstances I rely on the little solder tags provided with my usual Massoth-type joiners, or occasionally, for testing or checking, loosen a screw and slide the bared end of the wire under the rail, then re-tighten. If all is well I would then replace the temporary connection with a solder tag. I have also taken to using heatshrink over the join, and when wiring up small toggle switches, especilly those with half a dozen terminals. I’m not the world’s neatest solderer...

 

[Rhinochugger]

Yes, Rhino, I know they probably work fine - but when most of the track is LGB and Piko, and is all being clamped, I just feel I might as well use a few more clamps on the few sections of Aristo that I'm using. YMMV, as always!

Jon.

Yeah, makes sense - just one tinsy winsy issue - the Aristo rail profile is very slightly different from LGB's; the bottom flange is a smidgen wider.

It'll depend on the type of clamp you choose, but the Accucraft ones that I first bought were not comfortable on the two profiles.

I have used the Hillman clamps that I bought with Terry's LGB flexitrack to join LGB / LGB, but I drilled and tapped when using Aristo fishplates for LGB / Aristo.

But, as we know when we talk about rail joiners, there's more than one way of killing a cat

 

[Zerogee]

Yeah, makes sense - just one tinsy winsy issue - the Aristo rail profile is very slightly different from LGB's; the bottom flange is a smidgen wider.

It'll depend on the type of clamp you choose, but the Accucraft ones that I first bought were not comfortable on the two profiles.

I have used the Hillman clamps that I bought with Terry's LGB flexitrack to join LGB / LGB, but I drilled and tapped when using Aristo fishplates for LGB / Aristo.

But, as we know when we talk about rail joiners, there's more than one way of killing a cat

Thanks for the tip on the rail profiles, I wasn't aware of that - I'll check it today, I'm using Massoth clamps throughout, and will report back whether it works or not......

Jon.

 

[Zerogee]

Thanks for the tip on the rail profiles, I wasn't aware of that - I'll check it today, I'm using Massoth clamps throughout, and will report back whether it works or not......

Jon.

Replying to my own post.... tests performed with Massoth clamps, joining LGB to Aristo, and Piko to Aristo - no problems with either, clamps did up tightly in both cases and railheads aligned to within 0.05 BSGT, which is "close enough for Government work", as they say......



Jon.